40126	----	[Illustration: "'Farewell, my lord!' said Swift, abruptly." _Frontispiece_.] The Cock And Anchor By Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Illustrated by Brinsley Le Fanu Downey & Co. 12 York St. Covent Garden. (1895) NOTE. "THE COCK AND ANCHOR: a Chronicle of Old Dublin City," was first published in Dublin in three volumes in 1845, with the joint imprints of William Curry, Junior, & Co., Dublin; Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, London; and Fraser & Co., Edinburgh. There is no author's name on the title-page of the original edition. The work has not since been reprinted under the title of "The Cock and Anchor;" but some years after its first appearance my father made several alterations (most of which are adhered to in the present edition) in the story, and it was re-issued in the Select Library of Fiction under the title of "Morley Court." The novel has been out of print for a long period, and I have decided to republish it now under its original and proper title. I have made no changes in such dates as are mentioned here and there in the course of the narrative, but the reader should bear in mind that this "Chronicle of Old Dublin City" was written fifty years ago. BRINSLEY SHERIDAN LE FANU. _London, July, 1895._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I.--THE "COCK AND ANCHOR" 1 II.--A BED IN THE "COCK AND ANCHOR" 6 III.--THE LITTLE MAN 10 IV.--A SCARLET HOOD 14 V.--O'CONNOR'S MOONLIGHT WALK 23 VI.--THE SOLDIER 28 VII.--THREE GRIM FIGURES 36 VIII.--THE WARNING 40 IX.--THE "BLEEDING HORSE" 44 X.--THE MASTER OF MORLEY COURT 51 XI.--THE OLD BEECH TREE WALK 62 XII.--THE APPOINTED HOUR 72 XIII.--THE INTERVIEW 75 XIV.--ABOUT A CERTAIN GARDEN AND A DAMSEL 83 XV.--THE TRAITOR 88 XVI.--SIGNOR PARUCCI ALONE 92 XVII.--DUBLIN CASTLE BY NIGHT 99 XVIII.--THE TWO COUSINS 106 XIX.--THE THEATRE 110 XX.--THE LODGING 116 XXI.--WHO APPEARED TO MARY ASHWOODE 122 XXII.--THE SPINET 125 XXIII.--THE DARK ROOM 131 XXIV.--A CRITIC 135 XXV.--THE COMBAT AND ITS ISSUE 140 XXVI.--THE HELL 143 XXVII.--THE DEPARTURE OF THE PEER 151 XXVIII.--THE THUNDER-STORM 154 XXIX.--THE CRONES 157 XXX.--SKY-COPPER COURT 163 XXXI.--THE USURER AND THE OAKEN BOX 168 XXXII.--THE DIABOLIC WHISPER 171 XXXIII.--HOW SIR HENRY ASHWOODE PLAYED AND PLOTTED 174 XXXIV.--THE "OLD ST. COLUMBKIL" 178 XXXV.--THE COUSIN AND THE BLACK CABINET 184 XXXVI.--JEWELS, PLATE, HORSES, DOGS 189 XXXVII.--THE RECKONING 191 XXXVIII.--STRANGE GUESTS AT THE MANOR 196 XXXIX.--THE BARGAIN 199 XL.--DREAMS 204 XLI.--A CERTAIN TRAVELLING ECCLESIASTIC 208 XLII.--THE SQUIRES 212 XLIII.--THE WILD WOOD 217 XLIV.--THE DOOM 222 XLV.--THE MAN IN THE CLOAK 226 XLVI.--THE DOUBLE CONFERENCE 231 XLVII.--THE "JOLLY BOWLERS" 236 XLVIII.--THE STAINED RUFFLES 241 XLIX.--OLD SONGS 246 L.--THE PRESS IN THE WALL 252 LI.--FLORA GUY 259 LII.--MARY ASHWOODE'S WALK 262 LIII.--THE DOUBLE FAREWELL 266 LIV.--THE TWO CHANCES 273 LV.--THE FEARFUL VISITANT 277 LVI.--EBENEZER SHYCOCK 280 LVII.--THE CHAPLAIN'S ARRIVAL AT MORLEY COURT 284 LVIII.--THE SIGNAL 290 LIX.--HASTE AND PERIL 296 LX.--THE UNTREASURED CHAMBER 299 LXI.--THE CART AND THE STRAW 302 LXII.--THE COUNCIL 308 LXIII.--PARTING 311 LXIV.--MISTRESS MARTHA AND BLACK M'GUINNESS 315 LXV.--THE CONFERENCE 319 LXVI.--THE BED-CHAMBER 322 LXVII.--THE EXPULSION 327 LXVIII.--THE FRAY 332 LXIX.--THE BOLTED WINDOW 337 LXX.--THE BARONET'S ROOM 341 LXXI.--THE FAREWELL 345 LXXII.--THE ROPE AND THE RIOT 349 LXXIII.--THE LAST LOOK 354 CONCLUSION 357 LIST OF FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. "Farewell, my lord," said Swift, abruptly _Frontispiece_ Threw himself luxuriously into a capacious leather-bottomed chair _to face page_ 4 Again the conqueror crowed the shrill note of victory " 34 Parucci approached the prostrate figure " 156 "Painted! varnished!" she screamed hysterically " 188 He made his way to the aperture " 223 Glide noiselessly behind Chancey " 293 Driven to bay ... he drew his sword " 338 His horse, snorting loudly, checked his pace " 354 THE "COCK AND ANCHOR." CHAPTER I. THE "COCK AND ANCHOR"--TWO HORSEMEN--AND A SUPPER BY THE INN FIRE. Some time within the first ten years of the last century, there stood in the fair city of Dublin, and in one of those sinuous and narrow streets which lay in the immediate vicinity of the Castle, a goodly and capacious hostelry, snug and sound, and withal carrying in its aspect something staid and aristocratic, and perhaps in nowise the less comfortable that it was rated, in point of fashion, somewhat obsolete. Its structure was quaint and antique; so much so, that had its counterpart presented itself within the precincts of "the Borough," it might fairly have passed itself off for the genuine old Tabard of Geoffry Chaucer. The front of the building, facing the street, rested upon a row of massive wooden blocks, set endwise, at intervals of some six or eight feet, and running parallel at about the same distance, to the wall of the lower story of the house, thus forming a kind of rude cloister or open corridor, running the whole length of the building. The spaces between these rude pillars were, by a light frame-work of timber, converted into a succession of arches; and by an application of the same ornamental process, the ceiling of this extended porch was made to carry a clumsy but not unpicturesque imitation of groining. Upon this open-work of timber, as we have already said, rested the second story of the building; protruding beyond which again, and supported upon beams whose projecting ends were carved into the semblance of heads hideous as the fantastic monsters of heraldry, arose the third story, presenting a series of tall and fancifully-shaped gables, decorated, like the rest of the building, with an abundance of grotesque timber-work. A wide passage, opening under the corridor which we have described, gave admission into the inn-yard, surrounded partly by the building itself, and partly by the stables and other offices connected with it. Viewed from a little distance, the old fabric presented by no means an unsightly or ungraceful aspect: on the contrary, its very irregularities and antiquity, however in reality objectionable, gave to it an air of comfort and almost of dignity to which many of its more pretending and modern competitors might in vain have aspired. Whether it was, that from the first the substantial fabric had asserted a conscious superiority over all the minor tenements which surrounded it, or that they in modest deference had gradually conceded to it the prominence which it deserved--whether, in short, it had always stood foremost, or that the street had slightly altered its course and gradually receded, leaving it behind, an immemorial and immovable landmark by which to measure the encroachments of ages--certain it is, that at the time we speak of, the sturdy hostelry stood many feet in advance of the line of houses which flanked it on either side, narrowing the street with a most aristocratic indifference to the comforts of the pedestrian public, thus forced to shift for life and limb, as best they might, among the vehicles and horses which then thronged the city streets--no doubt, too, often by the very difficulties which it presented, entrapping the over-cautious passenger, who preferred entering the harbour which its hospitable and capacious doorway offered, to encountering all the perils involved in doubling the point. Such as we have attempted to describe it, the old building stood more than a century since; and when the level sunbeams at eventide glinted brightly on its thousand miniature window panes, and upon the broad hanging panel, which bore, in the brightest hues and richest gilding, the portraiture of a Cock and Anchor; and when the warm, discoloured glow of sunset touched the time-worn front of the old building with a rich and cheery blush, even the most fastidious would have allowed that the object was no unpleasing one. A dark autumnal night had closed over the old city of Dublin, and the wind was blustering in hoarse gusts through the crowded chimney-stacks--careening desolately through the dim streets, and occasionally whirling some loose tile or fragment of plaster from the house tops. The streets were silent and deserted, except when occasionally traversed by some great man's carriage, thundering and clattering along the broken pavement, and by its passing glare and rattle making the succeeding darkness and silence but the more dreary. None stirred abroad who could avoid it; and with the exception of such rare interruptions as we have mentioned, the storm and darkness held undisputed possession of the city. Upon this ungenial night, and somewhat past the hour of ten, a well-mounted traveller rode into the narrow and sheltered yard of the "Cock and Anchor;" and having bestowed upon the groom who took the bridle of his steed such minute and anxious directions as betokened a kind and knightly tenderness for the comforts of his good beast, he forthwith entered the public room of the inn--a large and comfortable chamber, having at the far end a huge hearth overspanned by a broad and lofty mantelpiece of stone, and now sending forth a warm and ruddy glow, which penetrated in genial streams to every recess and corner of the room, tinging the dark wainscoting of the walls, glinting red and brightly upon the burnished tankards and flagons with which the cupboard was laden, and playing cheerily over the massive beams which traversed the ceiling. Groups of men, variously occupied and variously composed, embracing all the usual company of a well frequented city tavern--from the staid and sober man of business, who smokes his pipe in peace, to the loud disputatious, half-tipsy town idler, who calls for more flagons than he can well reckon, and then quarrels with mine host about the shot--were disposed, some singly, others in social clusters, in cosy and luxurious ease at the stout oak tables which occupied the expansive chamber. Among these the stranger passed leisurely to a vacant table in the neighbourhood of the good fire, and seating himself thereat, doffed his hat and cloak, thereby exhibiting a finely proportioned and graceful figure, and a face of singular nobleness and beauty. He might have seen some thirty summers--perhaps less--but his dark and expressive features bore a character of resolution and melancholy which seemed to tell of more griefs and perils overpast than men so young in the world can generally count. The new-comer, having thrown his hat and gloves upon the table at which he had placed himself, stretched his stalwart limbs toward the fire in the full enjoyment of its genial influence, and advancing the heels of his huge jack boots nearly to the bars, he seemed for a time wholly lost in the comfortable contemplation of the red embers which flickered, glowed, and shifted before his eyes. From his quiet reverie he was soon recalled by mine host in person, who, with all courtesy, desired to know "whether his honour wished supper and a bed?" Both questions were promptly answered in the affirmative: and before many minutes the young horseman was deep in the discussion of a glorious pasty, flanked by a flagon of claret, such as he had seldom tasted before. He had scarcely concluded his meal, when another traveller, cloaked, booted, and spurred, and carrying under his arm a pair of long horse-pistols, and a heavy whip, entered the apartment, walked straight up to the fire-place, and having obtained permission of the cavalier already established there to take share of his table, he deposited thereon the formidable weapons which he carried, cast his hat, gloves, and cloak upon the floor, and threw himself luxuriously into a capacious leather-bottomed chair which confronted the cheery fire. [Illustration: "Threw himself luxuriously into a capacious, leather-bottomed chair." _To face page 4._] "A bleak night, sir, and a dark, for a ride of twenty miles," observed the stranger, addressing the younger guest. "I can the more readily agree with you, sir," replied the latter, "seeing that I myself have ridden nigh forty, and am but just arrived." "Whew! that beats me hollow," cried the other, with a kind of self-congratulatory shrug. "You see, sir, we never know how to thank our stars for the luck we _have_ until we come to learn what luck we might have had. I rode from Wicklow--pray, sir, if it be not too bold a question, what line did you travel?" "The Cork road." "Ha! that's an ugly line they say to travel by night. You met with no interruption?" "Troth, but I _did_, sir," replied the young man, "and none of the pleasantest either. I was stopped, and put in no small peril, too." "How! stopped--stopped on the highway! By the mass, you outdo me in every point! Would you, sir, please to favour me, if 'twere not too much trouble, with the facts of the adventure--the particulars?" "Faith, sir," rejoined the young man, "as far as my knowledge serves me, you are welcome to them all. When I was still about twelve miles from this, I was joined from a by-road by a well mounted, and (as far as I could discern) a respectable-looking traveller, who told me he rode for Dublin, and asked to join company by the way. I assented; and we jogged on pleasantly enough for some two or three miles. It was very dark----" "As pitch," ejaculated the stranger, parenthetically. "And what little scope of vision I might have had," continued the younger traveller, "was well nigh altogether obstructed by the constant flapping of my cloak, blown by the storm over my face and eyes. I suddenly became conscious that we had been joined by a third horseman, who, in total silence, rode at my other side." "How and when did _he_ come up with you?" "I can't say," replied the narrator--"nor did his presence give me the smallest uneasiness. He who had joined me first, all at once called out that his stirrup strap was broken, and halloo'd to me to rein in until he should repair the accident. This I had hardly done, when some fellow, whom I had not seen, sprang from behind upon my horse, and clasped my arms so tightly to my body, that so far from making use of them, I could hardly breathe. The scoundrel who had dismounted caught my horse by the head and held him firmly, while my hitherto silent companion clapped a pistol to my ear." "The devil!" exclaimed the elder man, "that was checkmate with a vengeance." "Why, in truth, so it turned out," rejoined his companion; "though I confess my first impulse was to balk the gentlemen of the road at any hazard; and with this view I plied my spurs rowel deep, but the rascal who held the bridle was too old a hand to be shaken off by a plunge or two. He swung with his whole weight to the bit, and literally brought poor Rowley's nose within an inch of the road. Finding that resistance was utterly vain, and not caring to squander what little brains I have upon so paltry an adventure, I acknowledged the jurisdiction of the gentleman's pistol, and replied to his questions." "You proved your sound sense by so doing," observed the other. "But what was their purpose?" "As far as I could gather," replied the younger man, "they were upon the look-out for some particular person, I cannot say whom; for, either satisfied by my answers, or having otherwise discovered their mistake, they released me without taking anything from me but my sword, which, however, I regret much, for it was my father's; and having blown the priming from my pistols, they wished me the best of good luck, and so we parted, without the smallest desire on my part to renew the intimacy. And now, sir, you know just as much of the matter as I do myself." "And a very serious matter it is, too," observed the stranger, with an emphatic nod. "Landlord! a pint of mulled claret--and spice it as I taught you--d'ye mind? A very grave matter--do you think you could possibly identify those men?" "Identify them! how the devil could I?--it was dark as pitch--a cat could not have seen them." "But was there no mark--no peculiarity discernible, even in the dense obscurity--nothing about any of them, such as you might know again?" "Nothing--the very outline was indistinct. I could merely pee that they were shaped like men." "Truly, truly, that is much to be lamented," said the elder gentleman; "though fifty to one," he added, devoutly, "they'll hang one day or another--let that console us. Meantime, here comes the claret." So saying, the new-comer rose from his seat, coolly removed his black matted peruke from his shorn head, and replaced it by a dark velvet cap, which he drew from some mysterious nook in his breeches pocket; then, hanging the wig upon the back of his chair, he wheeled the seat round to the table, and for the first time offered to his companion an opportunity of looking him fairly in the face. If he were a believer in the influence of first impressions, he had certainly acted wisely in deferring the exhibition until the acquaintance had made some progress, for his countenance was, in sober truth, anything but attractive--a pair of grizzled brows overshadowed eyes of quick and piercing black, rather small, and unusually restless and vivid--the mouth was wide, and the jaw so much underhung as to amount almost to a deformity, giving to the lower part of the face a character of resolute ferocity which was not at all softened by the keen fiery glance of his eye; a massive projecting forehead, marked over the brow with a deep scar, and furrowed by years and thought, added not a little to the stern and commanding expression of the face. The complexion was swarthy; and altogether the countenance was one of that sinister and unpleasant kind which the imagination associates with scenes of cruelty and terror, and which might appropriately take a prominent place in the foreground of a feverish dream. The young traveller had seen too many ugly sights, in the course of a roving life of danger and adventure, to remember for a moment the impression which his new companion's visage was calculated to produce. They chatted together freely; and the elder (who, by the way, exhibited no very strong Irish peculiarities of accent or idiom, any more than did the other) when he bid his companion good-night, left him under the impression that, however forbidding his aspect might be, his physical disadvantages were more than counterbalanced by the shrewd, quick sagacity, correct judgment, and wide range of experience of which he appeared possessed. CHAPTER II. A BED IN THE "COCK AND ANCHOR"--A LANTERN AND AN UGLY VISITOR BY THE BEDSIDE. Leaving the public room to such as chose to push their revels beyond the modesty of midnight, our young friend betook himself to his chamber; where, snugly deposited in one of the snuggest beds which the "Cock and Anchor" afforded, with the ample tapestry curtains drawn from post to post, while the rude wind buffeted the casements and moaned through the antique chimney-tops, he was soon locked in the deep, dreamless slumber of fatigue. How long this sweet oblivion may have lasted it was not easy to say; some hours, however, had no doubt intervened, when the sleeper was startled from his repose by a noise at his chamber door. The latch was raised, and someone bearing a shaded light entered the room and cautiously closed the door again. In the belief that the intruder was some guest or domestic of the inn who either mistook the room or was not aware of its occupation, the young man coughed once or twice slightly in token of his presence, and observing that his signal had not the desired effect, he inquired rather sharply,-- "Who is there?" The only answer returned was a long "Hist!" and forthwith the steps of the unseasonable visitor were directed to the bedside. The person thus disturbed had hardly time to raise himself half upright when the curtains at one side were drawn apart, and by the imperfect light which forced its way through the horn enclosure of a lantern, he beheld the bronzed and sinister features of his fireside companion of the previous evening. The stranger was arrayed for the road, with his cloak and cocked hat on. Both parties, the visited and the visitor, for a time remained silent and in the same fixed attitude. "Pray, sir," at length inquired the person thus abruptly intruded upon, "to what special good fortune do I owe this most unlooked-for visit?" The elder man made no reply; but deliberately planted the large dingy lantern which he carried upon the bed in which the young man lay. "You have tarried somewhat too long over the wine-cup," continued he, not a little provoked at the coolness of the intruder. "This, sir, is not your chamber; seek it elsewhere. I am in no mood to bandy jests. You will consult your own ease as well as mine by quitting this room with all dispatch." "Young gentleman," replied the elder man in a low, firm tone, "I have used short ceremony in disturbing you thus. To judge from your face you are no less frank than hardy. You will not require apologies when you have heard me. When I last night sate with you I observed about you a token long since familiar to me as the light--you wear it on your finger--it is a diamond ring. That ring belonged to a dear friend of mine--an old comrade and a tried friend in a hundred griefs and perils: the owner was Richard O'Connor. I have not heard from him for ten years or more. Can you say how he fares?" "The brave soldier and good man you have named was my father," replied the young man, mournfully. "_Was!_" repeated the stranger. "Is he then no more--is he dead?" "Even so," replied the young man, sadly. "I knew it--I felt it. When I saw that jewel last night something smote at my heart and told me, that the hand that wore it once was cold. Ah, me! it was a friendly and a brave hand. Through all the wars of King James" (and so saying he touched his hat) "we were together, companions in arms and bosom friends. He was a comely man and a strong; no hardship tired him, no difficulty dismayed him; and the merriest fellow he was that ever trod on Irish ground. Poor O'Connor! in exile; away, far away from the country he loved so well; among foreigners too. Well, well, wheresoever they have laid thee, there moulders not a truer nor a braver heart in the fields of all the world!" He paused, sighed deeply, and then continued,-- "Sorely, sorely are thine old comrades put to it, day by day, and night by night, for comfort and for safety--sorely vexed and pillaged. Nevertheless--over-ridden, and despised, and scattered as we are, mercenaries and beggars abroad, and landless at home--still something whispers in my ear that there will come at last a retribution, and such a one as will make this perjured, corrupt, and robbing ascendency a warning and a wonder to all after times. Is it a common thing, think you, that all the gentlemen, all the chivalry of a whole country--the natural leaders and protectors of the people--should be stripped of their birthright, ay, even of the poor privilege of seeing in this their native country, strangers possessing the inheritances which are in _all_ right their own; cast abroad upon the world; soldiers of fortune, selling their blood for a bare subsistence; many of them dying of want; and all because for honour and conscience sake they refused to break the oath which bound them to a ruined prince? Is it a slight thing, think you, to visit with pains and penalties such as these, men guilty of no crimes beyond those of fidelity and honour?" The stranger said this with an intensity of passion, to which the low tone in which he spoke but gave an additional impressiveness. After a short pause he again spoke,-- "Young gentleman," said he, "you may have heard your father--whom the saints receive!--speak, when talking over old recollections, of one Captain O'Hanlon, who shared with him the most eventful scenes of a perilous time. He may, I say, have spoken of such a one." "He has spoken of him," replied the young man; "often, and kindly too." "I am that man," continued the stranger; "your father's old friend and comrade; and right glad am I, seeing that I can never hope to meet him more on this side the grave, to renew, after a kind, a friendship which I much prized, now in the person of his son. Give me your hand, young gentleman: I pledge you mine in the spirit of a tried and faithful friendship. I inquire not what has brought you to this unhappy country; I am sure it can be nothing which lies not within the eye of honour, so I ask not concerning it; but on the contrary, I will tell you of myself what may surprise you--what will, at least, show that I am ready to trust you freely. You were stopped to-night upon the Southern road, some ten miles from this. It was _I_ who stopped you!" O'Connor made a sudden but involuntary movement of menace; but without regarding it, O'Hanlon continued,-- "You are astonished, perhaps shocked--you look so; but mind you, there is some difference between _stopping_ men on the highway, and _robbing_ them when you have stopped them. I took you for one who we were informed would pass that way, and about the same hour--one who carried letters from a pretended friend--one whom I have long suspected, a half-faced, cold-hearted friend--carried letters, I say, from such a one to the Castle here; to that malignant, perjured reprobate and apostate, the so-called Lord Wharton--as meet an ornament for a gibbet as ever yet made a feast for the ravens. I was mistaken: here is your sword; and may you long wear it as well as he from whom it was inherited." Here he raised the weapon, the blade of which he held in his hand, and the young man saw it and the hilt flash and glitter in the dusky light. "And take the advice of an old soldier, young friend," continued O'Hanlon, "and when you are next, which I hope may not be for many a long day, overpowered by odds and at their mercy, do not by fruitless violence tempt them to disable you by a simpler and less pleasant process than that of merely taking your sword and unpriming your pistols. Many a good man has thrown away his life by such boyish foolery. Upon the table by your bed you will in the morning find your rapier, and God grant that it and you may long prove fortunate companions!" He was turning to go, but recollecting himself, he added, "One word before I go. I am known here as Mr. Dwyer--remember the name, Dwyer--I am generally to be heard of in this place. Should you at any time during your stay in this city require the assistance of a friend who has a cheerful willingness to serve you, and who is not perhaps altogether destitute of power, you have only to leave a billet in the hand of the keeper of this inn, and if I be above ground it will reach me--of course address it under the name I have last mentioned--and so, young gentleman, fare you well." So saying, he grasped the hand of his new friend, shook it warmly, and then, turning upon his heel, strode swiftly to the door, and so departed, leaving O'Connor with so much abruptness as not to allow him time to utter a question or remark on what had passed. The excitement of the interview speedily passed away, the fatigues of the preceding day were persuasively seconded by the soothing sound of the now abated wind and by the utter darkness of the chamber, and the young man was soon deep in the forgetfulness of sleep once more. When the broad, red light of the morning sun broke cheerily into his room, streaming through the chinks of the old shutters, and penetrating through the voluminous folds of the vast curtains of rich, faded damask which surmounted the huge hearse-like bed in which he lay, so as to make its inmate aware that the hour of repose was past and that of action come, O'Connor remembered the circumstances of the interview which had been so strangely intruded upon him but as a dream; nor was it until he saw the sword which he had believed irrecoverably lost lying safely upon the table, that he felt assured that the visit and its purport were not the creation of his slumbering fancy. In reply to his questions when he descended, he was informed by mine host of the "Cock and Anchor," that Mr. Dwyer had left the inn-yard upon his stout hack, a good hour before daybreak. CHAPTER III. THE LITTLE MAN IN BLUE AND SILVER. Among the loungers who loitered at the door of the "Cock and Anchor," as the day wore on, there appeared a personage whom it behoves us to describe. This was a small man, with a very red face and little grey eyes--he wore a cloth coat of sky blue, with here and there a piece of silver lace laid upon it without much regard to symmetry; for the scissors had evidently displaced far the greater part of the original decorations, whose primitive distribution might be traced by the greater freshness of the otherwise faded cloth which they had covered, as well as by some stray threads, which stood like stubbles here and there to mark the ravages of the sickle. One hand was buried in the deep flap pocket of a waistcoat of the same hue and material, and bearing also, in like manner, the evidences of a very decided retrenchment in the article of silver lace. These symptoms of economy, however, in no degree abated the evident admiration with which the wearer every now and then stole a glance on what remained of its pristine splendours--a glance which descended not ungraciously upon a leg in whose fascinations its owner reposed an implicit faith. His right hand held a tobacco-pipe, which, although its contents were not ignited, he carried with a luxurious nonchalance ever and anon to the corner of his mouth, where it afforded him sundry imaginary puffs--a cheap and fanciful luxury, in which my Irish readers need not be told their humbler countrymen, for lack of better, are wont to indulge. He leaned against one of the stout wooden pillars on which the front of the building was reared, and interlarded his economical pantomime of pipe-smoking with familiar and easy conversation with certain of the outdoor servants of the inn--a familiarity which argued not any sense of superiority proportionate to the pretension of his attire. "And so," said the little man, turning with an aristocratic ease towards a stout fellow in a jerkin, with bluff visage and folded arms, who stood beside him, and addressing him in a most melodious brogue--"and so, for sartain, you have but five single gintlemen in the house--mind, I say _single_ gintlemen--for, divil carry me if ever I take up with a _family_ again--it doesn't answer--it don't _shoot_ me--I was never made for a family, nor a family for me--I can't stand their b----y regularity; and--" with a sigh of profound sentiment, and lowering his voice, he added--"and, the maid-sarvants--no, devil a taste--they don't answer--they don't _shoot_. My disposition, Tom, is tindher--tindher to imbecility--I never see a petticoat but it flutters my heart--the short and the long of it is, I'm always falling in love--and sometimes the passion is not retaliated by the object, and more times it is--but, in both cases, I'm aiqually the victim--for my intintions is always honourable, and of course nothin' comes of it. My life was fairly frettin' away in a dhrame of passion among the housemaids--I felt myself witherin' away like a flower in autumn--I was losing my relish for everything, from bacon and table-dhrink upwards--dangers were thickening round me--I had but one way to execrate myself--I gave notice--I departed, and here I am." Having wound up the sentence, the speaker leaned forward and spat passionately on the ground--a pause ensued, which was at length broken by the same speaker. "Only two out of the five," said he, reflectively, "only two unprovided with sarvants." "And neither of 'em," rejoined Tom, a blunt English groom, "very likely to want one. The one is a lawyer, with a hack as lean as himself, and more holes, I warrant, than half-pence in his breeches pocket. He's out a-looking for lodgings, I take it." "He's not exactly what I want," rejoined the little man. "What's th'other like?" "A gentleman, every inch, or _I'm_ no judge," replied the groom. "He came last night, and as likely a bit of horseflesh under him as ever my two hands wisped down. He chucked me a crown-piece this morning, as if it had been no more nor a cockle shell--he did." "By gorra, he'll do!" exclaimed the little man energetically. "It's a bargain--I'm his man." "Ay, but you mayn't answer, brother; he mayn't take you," observed Tom. "Wait a bit--_jist_ wait a bit, till he sees me," replied he of the blue coat. "Ay, wait a bit," persevered the groom, coolly--"wait a bit, and when he _does_ see you, it strikes me wery possible he mayn't like your cut." "Not like my cut!" exclaimed the little man, as soon as he had recovered breath; for the bare supposition of such an occurrence involved in his opinion so utter and astounding a contradiction of all the laws by which human antipathies and affections are supposed to be regulated, that he felt for a moment as if his whole previous existence had been a dream and an illusion. "Not like my _cut_!" "No," rejoined the groom, with perfect imperturbability. The little man deigned no other reply than that conveyed in a glance of the most inexpressible contempt, which, having wandered over the person and accoutrements of the unconscious Tom, at length settled upon his own lower extremities, where it gradually softened into a gaze of melancholy complacency, while he muttered, with a pitying smile, "Not like my cut--not like it!" and then, turning majestically towards the groom, he observed, with laconic dignity,-- "I humbly consave the gintleman has an eye in his head." This rebuke had hardly been administered when the subject of their conference in person passed from the inn into the street. "There he goes," observed Tom. "And here _I_ go after him," added the candidate for a place; and in a moment he was following O'Connor with rapid steps through the narrow streets of the town, southward. It occurred to him, as he hurried after his intended master, that it might not be amiss to defer his interview until they were out of the streets, and in some more quiet place; nor in all probability would he have disturbed himself at all to follow the young gentleman, were it not that even in the transient glimpse which he had had of the person and features of O'Connor, the little man thought, and by no means incorrectly, that he recognized the form of one whom he had often seen before. "That's Mr. O'Connor, as sure as my name's Larry Toole," muttered the little man, half out of breath with his exertions--"an' it's himself'll be proud to get me. I wondher what he's afther now. I'll soon see, at any rate." Thus communing within himself, Larry alternately walked and trotted to keep the chase in view. He might very easily have come up with the object of his pursuit, for on reaching St. Patrick's Cathedral, O'Connor paused, and for some minutes contemplated the old building. Larry, however, did not care to commence his intended negotiation in the street; he purposed giving him rope enough, having, in truth, no peculiar object in following him at that precise moment, beyond the gratification of an idle curiosity; he therefore hung back until O'Connor was again in motion, when he once more renewed his pursuit. O'Connor had soon passed the smoky precincts of the town, and was now walking at a slackened pace among the green fields and the trees, all clothed in the rich melancholy hues of early autumn. The evening sun was already throwing its mellow tint on all the landscape, and the lengthening shadows told how far the day was spent. In the transition from the bustle of a town to the lonely quiet of the country at eventide, and especially at that season of the year when decay begins to sadden the beauties of nature, there is something at once soothing and unutterably melancholy. Leaving behind the glare, and dust, and hubbub of the town, who has not felt in his inmost heart the still appeal of nature? The saddened beauty of sear autumn, enhanced by the rich and subdued light of gorgeous sunset--the filmy mist--the stretching shadows--the serene quiet, broken only by rural sounds, more soothing even than silence--all these, contrasted with the sounds and sights of the close, restless city, speak tenderly and solemnly to the heart of man of the beauty of creation, of the goodness of God, and, along with these, of the mournful condition of all nature--change, decay, and death. Such thoughts and feelings, stealing in succession upon the heart, touch, one by one, the springs of all our sublimest sympathies, and fill the mind with the beautiful sense of brotherhood, under God, with all nature. Under the not unpleasing influence of such suggestions, O'Connor slackened his pace to a slow irregular walk, which sorely tried the patience of honest Larry Toole. "After all," exclaimed that worthy, "it's nothin' more nor less than an evening walk he's takin', God bless the mark! What business have I followin' him? unless--see--sure enough he's takin' the short cut to the manor. By gorra, this is worth mindin'--I must not folly him, however--I don't want to meet the family--so here I'll plant myself until sich times as he's comin' back again." So saying, Larry Toole clambered to the top of the grassy embankment which fenced the road, and seating himself between a pair of aged hawthorn-trees, he watched young O'Connor as he followed the wanderings of a wild bridle-road until he was at length fairly hidden from view by the intervening trees and brushwood. CHAPTER IV. A SCARLET HOOD AMONG THE OLD TREES--THE MANOR OF MORLEY COURT--AND A PEEP INTO AN ANTIQUE CHAMBER. The path which O'Connor followed was one of those quiet and pleasant by-roads which, in defiance of what are called improvements, are still to be discovered throughout Ireland here and there, in some unsuspected region, winding their green and sequestered ways through many a varied scene of rural beauty; and, unless when explored by some chance fisherman or tourist, unknown to all except the poor peasant to whose simple conveniences they minister. Low and uneven embankments, overgrown by a thousand kinds of weeds and wild flowers and brushwood, marked the boundaries of this rustic pathway, but in so friendly a sort, and with so little jealousy or exclusion, that they seemed designed rather to lend a soft and sheltered resting-place to the tired traveller than to check the wayward excursions of the idle rambler into the merry fields and woodlands through which it wound. On either side the tall, hoary trees, like time-worn pillars, reared their grey, moss-grown trunks and arching branches, now but thinly clothed with the discoloured foliage of autumn, and casting their long shadows in the evening sun far over the sloping and unequal sward. The scene, the hour, and the loneliness of the place, would of themselves have been enough to induce a pensive train of thought; but, beyond the silence and seclusion, and the falling of the leaves in their eternal farewell, and all the other touching signs of nature's beautiful decay, there were deep in O'Connor's breast recollections and passions with which the scene before him was more nearly associated, than with the ordinary suggestions of fantastic melancholy. At some distance from this road, and half hidden among the trees, there stood an old and extensive building, chiefly of deep red brick, presenting many and varied fronts and quaint gables, antique-fashioned casements, and whole groups of fantastic chimneys, sending up their thin curl of smoke into the still air, and glinting tall and red in the declining sun; while the dusky hue of the old bricks was every here and there concealed under rich mantles of dark, luxuriant ivy, which, in some parts of the structure, had not only mounted to the summits of the wall, but clambered, in rich profusion, over the steep roof, and even to the very chimney tops. This antique building--rambling, massive, and picturesque in no ordinary degree--might well have attracted the observation of the passer-by, as it presented in succession, through the irregular vistas of the rich old timber, now one front, now another, alternately hidden and revealed as the point of observation was removed. But the eyes of O'Connor sought this ancient mansion, and dwelt upon its ever-varying aspects, as he pursued his way, with an interest more deep and absorbing than that of mere curiosity or admiration; and as he slowly followed the grass-grown road, a thousand emotions and remembrances came crowding upon his mind, impetuous, passionate, and wild, but all tinged with a melancholy which even the strong and sanguine heart of early manhood could not overcome. As the path proceeded, it became more closely sheltered by the wild bushes and trees, and its windings grew more wayward and frequent, when on a sudden, from behind a screen of old thorns which lay a little in advance, a noble dog, of the true old Irish wolf breed, came bounding towards him, with every token of joy and welcome. "Rover, Rover--down, boy, down," said the stranger, as the huge animal, in his boisterous greeting, leaped upon him again and again, flinging his massive paws upon his shoulders, and thrusting his cold nose into his bosom--"down, Rover, down." The first transport of welcome past, the noble dog waited to receive from his old friend some marks of recognition in return, and then, swinging his long tail from side to side, away he sprang, as if to carry the joyful tidings to the companion of his evening ramble. O'Connor knew that some of those whom he should not have chosen to meet just then or there were probably within a stone's throw of the spot where he now stood, and for a moment he was strongly tempted to turn, and, if so it might be, unobserved to retrace his steps. The close screen of wild trees which overshadowed the road would have rendered this design easy of achievement; but while he was upon the point of turning to depart, a few notes of some wild and simple Irish melody, carelessly lilted by a voice of silvery sweetness, floated to his ear. Every cadence and vibration of _that_ voice was to him enchantment--he could not choose but pause. The sweet sounds were interrupted by a rustling among the withered leaves which strewed the ground. Again the fine old dog made his appearance, dashing joyously along the path towards him, and following in his wake, with slow and gentle steps, came a light and graceful female form. On her shoulders rested a short mantle of scarlet cloth; the hood was thrown partially backward, so as to leave the rich dark ringlets to float freely in the light breeze of evening; the faintest flush imaginable tinged the clear paleness of her cheek, giving to her exquisitely beautiful features a lustre, whose richness did not, however, subdue their habitual and tender melancholy. The moment the full dark eyes of the girl encountered O'Connor, the song died away upon her lips--the colour fled from her cheeks, and as instantaneously the sudden paleness was succeeded by a blush of such depth and brilliancy as threw far into shade even the brightest imagery of poetic fancy. "Edmond!" she exclaimed, in a tone so faint and low as scarcely to reach his ear, and which yet thrilled to his very heart. "Yes, Mary--it is, indeed, Edmond O'Connor," answered he, passionately and mournfully--"come, after long years of separation, over many a mile of sea and land--unlooked-for, and, mayhap, unwished-for--come once more to see you, and, in seeing you, to be happy, were it but for a moment--come to tell you that he loves you fondly, passionately as ever--come to ask you, dear, dear Mary, if you, too, are unchanged?" As he thus spoke, standing by her side, O'Connor gazed on the sad, sweet face of her he loved so well, and held that little hand, which he would have given worlds to call his own. The beautiful girl was too artless to disguise her agitation. She would have spoken, but the effort was vain--the tears gathered in her dark eyes, and fell faster and faster, till at length the fruitless struggle ceased, and she wept long and bitterly. "Oh! Edmond," said she, at length, raising her eyes sorrowfully and fondly to O'Connor's face--"what has called you hither? We two should hardly have met now or thus." "Dear Mary," answered he, with melancholy fervour, "since last I held this loved hand, years have passed away--three long years and more--in which we two have never met--in which you scarce have even heard of me. Mary, three years bring many changes--changes irreparable. Time--which has, if it were possible, made you more beautiful even than when I saw you last--may yet have altered earlier feelings, and turned your heart from me. Were it so, Mary, I would not seek to blame you. I am not so vain--your rank--your great attractions--your surpassing beauty, must have won many admirers--drawn many suitors round you; and I--I, among all these, may well have been forgotten--I, whose best merit is but in loving you beyond my life. I will not, then--I will not, Mary, ask if you love me still: but coming thus unbidden and unlooked-for, am I forgiven--am I welcome, Mary?" The artless girl looked up in his face with such a beautiful smile of trust and love as told more in one brief moment than language could in volumes. "Yes, Mary," said O'Connor, reading that smile aright, with swelling heart and proud devotion; "yes, Mary. I am remembered--you are still my own--my own: true, faithful, unchanged, in spite of years of time and leagues of separation; in spite of all!--my true-hearted, my adored, my own!" He spoke; and in the fulness of their hearts they were both for a while silent, each gazing on the other in the rapt tenderness of long-tried love--in the deep, guileless joy of this chance meeting. "Hear me," he whispered, lower almost than the murmur of the breeze through the arching boughs above them, as if fearful that even a breath would trouble the still enchantment that held them spell-bound: "hear me, for I have much to tell. The years that have passed since I spoke to you before have brought to me their store of good and ill, of sorrow and of hope. I have many things to tell you, Mary; much that gives me hope--the cheeriest hope--even that of overcoming Sir Richard's opposition! Ay, Mary, reasonable hope; and why? Because I am no longer poor: an old friend of my father's, Mr. Audley, has taken me by the hand, adopted me, made me his heir--the heir to riches and possessions which even your father will allow to be considerable--which he well may think enough to engage his prudence in favour of our union. In this hope, dearest, I am here. I daily expect the arrival of my generous friend and benefactor; and with him I will go to your father and urge my suit once more, and with God's blessing at last prevail--but hark! some one comes." Even while he spoke, the lovers were startled by the sound of voices in gay colloquy, approaching along the quiet by-road on which they stood. "Leave me, Edmond, leave me," said the beautiful girl, with earnest entreaty; "they must not see you with me now." "Farewell then, dearest, since it must be so," replied O'Connor, as he pressed her hand closely in his own; "but meet me to-morrow evening--meet me by the old gate in the beech-tree walk, at the hour when you used to walk there. Nay, refuse me not, Mary. Farewell, farewell till then!" and so saying, before she had time to frame an answer, he turned from her, and was quickly lost among the trees and underwood which skirted the pathway. In the speakers who approached, the young lady at once recognized her brother, Henry Ashwoode, and Emily Copland, her pretty cousin. The young man was handsome alike in face and figure, slightly made, and bearing in his carriage that indescribable air of aristocratic birth and pretension which sits not ungracefully upon a handsome person; his countenance, too, bore a striking resemblance to that of his sister, and, allowing for the difference of sex, resembled it as nearly as any countenance which had never expressed a passion but such as had its aim and origin alike in _self_, could do. He was dressed in the extreme of the prevailing fashion; and altogether his outward man was in all respects such as to justify his acknowledged pretensions to be considered one of the prettiest men in the then gay city of Dublin. The young lady who accompanied him was, in all points except in that of years, as unlike her cousin, Mary Ashwoode, as one pretty girl could well be to another. She was very fair; had a quick, clear eye, which carried in its glance something more than mere mirth or vivacity; an animated face, with, however, something of a bold, and at times even of a haughty expression. Laughing and chatting in light, careless gaiety, the youthful pair approached the spot where Mary Ashwoode stood. "So, so, fair sister," cried the young man, gaily, "alone and musing, and doubtless melancholy. Shall we venture to approach her, Emily?" Women have keener eyes in small matters than men; and Miss Copland at a glance perceived her fair cousin's flushed cheek and embarrassed manner. "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" cried she; "the girl has certainly seen a ghost or a dragoon officer." "Neither, I assure you, cousin," replied Miss Ashwoode, with an effort; "my evening's ramble has not extended beyond this spot; and as yet I've seen no monster more alarming than my brother's new periwig." The young man bowed. "Nay, nay," cried Miss Copland, "but I must hear it. There certainly is some awful mystery at the bottom of all these conscious looks; but _apropos_ of awful mysteries," continued she, turning to young Ashwoode, half in pity for Mary's increasing embarrassment; "where _is_ Major O'Leary? What has become of your amusing old uncle?" "That's more than _I_ can tell," replied the young man; "I wash my hands of the scapegrace. I know nothing of him. I saw him for a moment in town this morning, and he promised, with a round dozen of oaths, to be out to dine with us to-day. Thus much _you_ know, and thus much _I_ know; for the rest, having sins enough of my own to carry, as I said before, I wash my hands of him and his." "Well, now remember, Henry," continued she, "I make it a point with you to bring him out here to-morrow. In sober seriousness I can't get on without him. It is a melancholy and a terrible truth, but still one which I feel it my duty to speak boldly, that Major O'Leary is the only gallant and susceptible man in the family." "Monstrous assertion?" exclaimed the young man; "why, not to mention myself, the acknowledged pink and perfection of everything that is irresistible, have you not the perfect command of my worthy cousin, Arthur Blake?" "Now don't put me in a passion, Henry," exclaimed the girl. "How dare you mention that wretch--that irreclaimable, unredeemed fox-hunter. He never talks, nor thinks, nor dreams of anything but dogs and badgers, foxes and other vermin. I verily believe he never yet was seen off a horse's back, except sometimes in a stable--he is an absolute Irish centaur! And then his odious attempts at finery--his elaborate, perverse vulgarity--the perpetual pinching and mincing of his words! An off-hand, shameless brogue I can endure--a brogue that revels and riots, and defies the world like your uncle O'Leary's, I can respect and even admire--but a brogue in a strait waistcoat----" "Well, well," rejoined the young man, laughing, "though you may not find any sprout of the _family_ tree, excepting Major O'Leary, worthy to contribute to your laudable requirements; yet surely you have a very fair catalogue of young and able-bodied gentlemen among our neighbours. What say you to young Lloyd--he lives within a stone's throw. He is a most proper, pious, and punctual young gentleman; and would make, I doubt not, a most devout and exemplary _'Cavalier servente_.'" "Worse and worse," cried the young lady despondingly; "the most domestic, stupid, affectionate, invulnerable wretch. He never flirts out of his own family, and then, for charity I believe, with the oldest and ugliest. He is the very person for whose special case the rubric provided that no man shall marry his grandmother." "My fair cousin," replied the young man, laughing, "I see you are hard to please. Meanwhile, sweet ladies both, let me remind you that the sun has just set; we must make our way homeward--at least _I_ must. By the way, can I do anything in town for you this evening, beyond a tender message to my reverend uncle?" "Dear me," exclaimed Miss Copland, "you have not passed an evening at home this age. What _can_ you want, morning, noon, and night in that smoky, dirty town?" "Why, the fact is," replied the young man, "business must be done; I positively must attend two routs to-night." "Whose routs--what are they?" inquired the young lady. "One is Mrs. Tresham's, the other Lady Stukely's." "I _guessed_ that ugly old kinswoman of mine was at the bottom of it," exclaimed the young lady with great vivacity. "Lady Stukely--that pompous, old, frightful goose!--she has laid herself out to seduce you, Harry; but don't let that dismay you, for ten to one if you fall, she'll make an honest man of you in the end and marry you. Only think, Mary, what a sister you shall have," and the young lady laughed heartily, and then added, "There are some excellent, worthy, abominable people, who seem made expressly to put one in a passion--perpetual appeals to one's virtuous indignation. Now do, Henry, for goodness sake, if a matrimonial catastrophe must come, choose at least some nymph with less rouge and wrinkles than poor dear Lady Stukely." "Kind cousin, thyself shalt choose for me," answered the young man; "but pray, suffer me to be at large for a year or two more. I would fain live and breathe a little, before I go down into the matrimonial pit and be no more seen. But let us mend our pace, the evening turns chill." Thus chatting carelessly, they moved towards the large brick building which we have already described, embowered among the trees; where arrived, the young man forthwith applied himself to prepare for a night of dissipation, and the young ladies to get through a dull evening as best they might. The two fair cousins sate in a large, old-fashioned drawing-room; the walls were covered with elaborately-wrought tapestry representing, in a manner sufficiently grim and alarming, certain scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses; a cheerful fire blazed in the capacious hearth; and the cumbrous mantelpiece was covered with those grotesque and monstrous china figures, misnamed ornaments, which were then beginning to find favour in the eyes of fashion. Abundance of richly carved furniture was disposed variously throughout the room. The young ladies sate by a small table on which lay some books and materials for work, placed near the fire. They occupied each one of those huge, high-backed, and well-stuffed chairs in which it is a mystery how our ancestors could sit and remain awake. Both were silently occupied with their own busy reflections; and it was not until the rapid clank of the horse's hoofs upon the pavement underneath the windows, as young Ashwoode started upon his night ride to the city, rose sharp and clear, that Miss Copland, waking from her reverie, exclaimed,-- "Well, sweet coz, were ever so woebegone and desolate a pair of damsels. The only available male creature in the establishment, with the exception of Sir Richard, who has actually gone to bed, has fairly turned his back upon us." "Dear Emily," replied her cousin, "pray be serious. I wish to tell you what has passed this evening. You observed my confusion and agitation when you and Henry overtook me." "Why, to be sure I did," replied the young lady; "and now, like an honest coz, you are going to tell me all about it." She drew her chair nearer as she spoke. "Come, my dear, tell me everything--what was your discovery? Come, now, there's a good girl, do confess." So saying she threw one arm round her cousin's neck and laid the other in her lap, looking curiously into her face the while. "Oh! Emily, I have seen him!" exclaimed Miss Ashwoode, with an effort. "Seen _him_!--seen whom?--old Nick, if I may judge from your looks. Whom _have_ you seen, dear?" eagerly inquired Miss Copland. "I have seen Edmond O'Connor," answered she. "Edmond O'Connor!" repeated the girl in unfeigned surprise, "why, I thought he was in France, eating frogs and dancing cotillons. What has brought him here?--why, he'll be taken for a spy and executed on the spot. But seriously, can you conceive anything more rash and ill-judged than his coming over just now?" "It is indeed, I greatly fear, very rash," replied the young lady; "he is resolved to speak with my father once more." "And your father in such a precious ill-humour just at this precise moment," exclaimed Miss Copland. "I never _was_ so much afraid of Sir Richard as I have been for the last two days; he has been a perfect bruin--begging your pardon, my dear girl--but even _you_ must admit, let filial piety and all the cardinal virtues say what they will, that whenever Sir Richard is recovering from a fit of the gout he is nothing short of a perfect monster. I wager my diamond cross to a thimble, that he breaks the poor young man's head the moment he comes within reach of him. But jesting apart, I fear, my dear cousin, that my uncle is in no mood just now to listen to heroics." A sharp knocking upon the floor immediately above the chamber in which the young ladies sate, interrupted the conference at this juncture. "There is my father's signal--he wants me," exclaimed Miss Ashwoode, and rising as she spoke, without more ado she ran to render the required attendance. "Strange girl," exclaimed Miss Copland, as her cousin's step was heard ascending the stairs, "strange girl!--she is the veriest simpleton I ever yet encountered. All this fuss to marry a fellow who is, in plain words, little better than a beggarman--a good-looking beggarman, to be sure, but still a beggar. Oh, Mary, simple Mary! I am very much tempted to despise you--there is certainly something _wrong_ about you! I hate to see people without ambition enough even to wish to keep their own natural position. The girl is full of nonsense; but what's that to me? she'll _un_learn it all one day; but I'm much afraid, simple cousin, a little too late." Having thus soliloquized, she called her maid, and retired for the night to her chamber. CHAPTER V. OF O'CONNOR'S MOONLIGHT WALK TO THE "COCK AND ANCHOR," AND WHAT BEFELL HIM BY THE WAY. As soon as O'Connor had made some little way from the scene of his sudden and agitating interview with Miss Ashwoode, he slackened his pace, and with slow steps began to retrace his way toward the city. So listless and interrupted was his progress, that the sun had descended, and twilight was fast melting into darkness before he reached that point in the road at which diverged the sequestered path which he had followed. As he approached the spot, he observed a small man, with a pipe in his mouth, and his person arranged in an attitude of ease and graceful negligence, admirably calculated to exhibit the symmetry and perfection of his bodily proportions. This man had planted himself in the middle of the road, so as completely to command the pass, and, as our reader need scarcely be informed, was no other than Larry Toole--the important personage to whom we have already introduced him. As O'Connor approached, Larry advanced, with a slow and dignified motion, to receive him: and removing his pipe from his mouth with a _nonchalant_ air, he compressed the lighted contents of the bowl with his finger, and then deposited the utensil in his coat pocket, at the same time, executing, in a very becoming manner, his most courtly bow. Somewhat surprised, and by no means pleasantly, at an interruption of so unlooked-for a kind, O'Connor observed, impatiently, "I have neither time nor temper, friend, to suffer delay or listen to foolery;" and observing that Larry was preparing to follow him, he added curtly, "I desire no company, sirrah, and choose to be alone." "An' it's exactly because you wish to be alone, and likes solitude," observed the little man, "that you and me will shoot, being formed by the bountiful hand iv nature, barrin' a few small exceptions,"--here he glanced complacently at his right leg, which was a little in advance of its companion--"as similiar as two eggs." Being in no mood to tolerate, far less to encourage this annoying intrusion, O'Connor pursued his way at a quickened pace, and in obstinate silence, and in a little time exhibited a total and very mortifying forgetfulness of Mr. Toole's bodily proximity. That gentleman, however, was not so easily to be shaken off--he perseveringly followed, keeping a pace or two behind. "It's parfectly unconthrovertible," pursued that worthy, with considerable solemnity and emphasis, "and at laste as plain as the nose on your face, that you haven't the smallest taste of a conciption who it is you're spakin' too, Mr. O'Connor." "And pray who may you be, friend?" inquired he, somewhat surprised at being thus addressed by name. "Who else would I be, your honour," rejoined the persevering applicant--"who else _could_ I be, if you had but a glimmer iv light to contemplate my forrum and fatures, but Laurence Toole--called by the men for the most part _Misthur_ Toole, and (he added in a softened tone) by the girls most commonly designated Larry." "Ha--Larry--Larry Toole!" exclaimed O'Connor, half reconciled to an intrusion up to that moment so ill endured. "Well, Larry, tell me briefly how are the family at the manor, yonder?" "Why, plase your honour," rejoined Larry, promptly, "the ould masthur, that's Sir Richard, is much oftener gouty than good-humoured, and more's the pity. I b'lieve he's breaking down very fast, and small blame to him, for he lived hard, like a rale honourable gentleman. An' then, the young masthur, that's Masthur Henry--but you didn't know him so well--he's getting on at the divil's rate--scatt'ring guineas like small shot. They say he plays away a power of money; and he and the masthur himself has often hard words enough between them about the way things is goin' on; but he ates and dhrinks well, an' the health he gets is as good as he wants for his purposes." "Well--but your young mistress," suggested O'Connor--"you have not told me yet how Miss Ashwoode has been ever since. How have her health and spirits been--has she been well?" "Mixed middlin', like belly bacon," replied Mr. Toole, with an air of profound sympathy--"shilly-shally, sir--off an' on, like an April day--sometimes atin' her victuals, sometimes lavin' them--no sartainty. I think the ould masthur's gout and crossness, and the young one's vagaries, is frettin' her; and it's sorry I am to see it. An' there's Miss Emily--that's Miss Copland--a rale jovial slip iv a young lady. I think you've seen her once or twice up at the manor; but now, since her father, the ould General, died, she is stayin' for good with the family. She's a fine lady, and" (drawing close to O'Connor, and speaking with very significant emphasis) "she has ten thousand pounds of her own--do you mind me, ten thousand--it's a good fortune--is not it, sir?" He paused for a moment, and receiving no answer, which he interpreted as a sign that the announcement was operating as it ought, he added with a confidential wink-- "I thought I might as well put you up to it, you know, for no one knows where a blessin' may light." "Larry," said O'Connor, after a considerable silence, somewhat abruptly and suddenly recollecting the presence of that little person--"if you have aught to say to me, speak it quickly. What may your business be?" "Why, sir," replied he, "the long and short of it is, I left Sir Richard more than a week since. Not that I was turned away--no, Mr. O'Connor," continued Mr. Toole, with edifying majesty, "no sich thing at all in the wide world. My resignation, sir, was the fruit of my own solemn convictions--for the five years I was with the family, I had no comfort, or aise, or pace. I may as well spake plain to you, sir, for _you_, like myself, is young"--Mr. Toole was certainly at the wrong side of fifty--"you can aisily understand me, sir, when I say that I'm the victim iv romance, bad cess to it--romance, sir; my buzzam, sir, was always open to tindher impressions--impressions, sir, that came into it as natural as pigs into a pittaty garden. I could not shut them out--the short and the long iv it is, I was always fallin' in love, since I was the size iv a quart pot--eternally fallin' in love." Mr. Toole sighed, and then resumed. "I done my best to smother my emotions, but passion, sir, young and ardent passion, is impossible to be suppressed: you might as well be trying to keep strong beer in starred bottles durin' the pariod iv the dog days. But I never knew rightly what love was all out, in rale, terrible perfection, antil Mistress Betsy came to live in the family. I'll not attempt to describe her--it's enough to say she fixed my affections, and done for myself. She is own maid to the young mistress. I need not expectorate upon the progress iv my courtship--it's quite enough to observe, that for a considherable time my path was strewed with flowers, antil a young chap--an English bliggard, one Peter Clout--an' it's many's the clout he got, the Lord be thanked for that same!--a lump iv a chap ten times as ugly as the divil, and without more shapes about him than a pound of cruds--an impittant, ignorant, presumptious, bothered, bosthoon--antil this gentleman--this Misthur Peter Clout, made his b----y appearance; then all at once the divil's delight began. Betsy--the lovely Betsy Carey--the lovely, the vartious, the beautiful, and the exalted--began to play thricks. I know she was in love with me--over head and ears, as bad as myself--but woman is a mystarious agent, an' bangs Banagher. Long as I've been larnin', I never could larn why it is they take delight in tormentin' the tindher-hearted." This reflection was uttered in a tone of tender woe, and the speaker paused for some symptom of assent from his auditor. It is, however, hardly necessary to say that he paused in vain. O'Connor had enough to occupy his mind; and so far from listening to his companion's narrative, he was scarcely conscious that Mr. Toole, in bodily presence, was walking beside him. That "tindher-hearted" individual accordingly resumed the thread of his discourse. "But, at any rate, she laid herself out to make me jealous of Peter Clout; and, with the blessin' iv the divil, she succeeded complately. Things were going on this way--she lettin' on to be mighty fond iv Peter, an' me gettin' angrier an' angrier, and Mr. Clout more an' more impittent every day, antill I seen there was no use in purtendin'; so one mornin' when we were both of us--myself and Mr. Peter Clout--clainin' up the things in the pantry, I thought I might as well have a bit iv discourse with him--when I seen, do ye mind, there was no use in mortifyin' the chap with contempt, for I did not spake to him, good, bad, or indifferent, for more than a fortnight, an' he was so ignorant and unmannerly he never noticed the differ. When I seen there was no use in keepin' him at a distance, says I to him one day in the panthry--'Mr. Clout,' says I, 'your conduct in regard iv some persons in this house,' says I, 'is iv a description that may be shuitable to the English spalpeens,' says I, 'but is about as like the conduct of a gintleman,' says I, 'as blackin' is to plate powder.' So he turns round, an' he looks at me as if I was a Pollyphamius. 'Mind your work,' says I, 'young man, an' don't be lookin' at me as if I was a hathian godess,' says I. 'It's Mr. Toole that's speakin' to you, an' you betther mind what he says. The long an' the short iv it is, I don't like you to be hugger-muggering with a sartain delicate famale in this establishment; an' if I catch you talkin' any more to Misthress Betsy Carey, I give you fair notice, it's at your own apparel. Beware of me--for as sure as you don't behave to my likin', you might as well be in the one panthry with a hyania,' says I, an' it was thrue for me, an' it was the same way with my father before me, an' all the Tooles up to the time of Noah's ark. In pace I'm a turtle-dove all out; but once I'm riz, I'm a rale tarin' vulture." Here Mr. Toole paused to call up a look, and after a grim shake of the head, he resumed. "Things went on aisy enough for a day or two, antill I happened to walk into the sarvants' hall, an' who should I see but Mr. Clout sittin' on the same stool with Misthriss Betsy, an' his arm round her waist--so when I see that, before any iv them could come between us, with the fair madness I made one jump at him, an' we both had one another by the windpipe before you'd have time to bless yourself. Well, round an' round we went, rowlin' with our heads and backs agin the walls, an' divil a spot of us but was black an' blue, antill we kem to the chimney; an' sure enough when we did, down we rowled both together, glory be to God! into the fire, an' upset a kittle iv wather on top iv us; an' with that there was sich a screechin' among the women, an' maybe a small taste from ourselves, that the masthur kem in, an' if he didn't lay on us with his walkin' stick it's no matter; but, at any rate, as soon as we recovered from the scaldin' an' the bruises. _I_ retired, an' the English chap was turned away; an' that's the whole story, an' I tuk my oath that I'll never go into sarvice in a _family_ again. I can't make any hand of women--they're made for desthroyin' all sorts iv pace iv mind--they're etarnally triflin' with the most sarious and sacred emotions. I'll never sarve any but single gentlemen from this out, if I was to be sacrificed for it--never a bit, by the hokey!" So saying, Mr. Toole, having, in the course of his harangue, reproduced his pipe from his pocket, with a view to flourish it in emphatic accompaniment with the cadences of his voice, smote the bowl of it upon the edge of his cocked hat, which he held in his hand, with so much passion, that the head of the pipe flew across the road, and was for ever lost among the docks and nettles. One glance he deigned to the stump which remained in his hand, and then, with an air of romantic recklessness which laughs at all sacrifices, he flung it disdainfully from him, clapped his cocked hat upon his head with a vehemence which brought it nearly to the bridge of his nose, and, planting his hands in his breeches pockets, he glanced at the stars with a scowl which, if they take any note of things terrestrial, must have filled them with alarm. Suddenly recollecting himself, Mr. Toole perceived that his intended master, having walked on, had left him considerably behind; he therefore put himself into an easy amble, which speedily brought him up with the chase. "Mr. O'Connor, plase your honour," he exclaimed, "sure it's not possible it's goin' to lave me behind you are, an' me so proud iv your company; an', moreover, after axin' you for a situation--that is, always supposin' you want the sarvices iv a rale dashin' young fellow, that's up to everything, an' willing to sarve you in any incapacity. An' by gorra, sir," continued he, pathetically, "it's next door to a charity to take me, for I've but one crown in the wide world left, an' I must change it to-night; an' once I change money, the shillin's makes off with themselves like a hat full of sparrows into the elements, the Lord knows where." With a desolate recklessness, he chucked the crown-piece into the air, caught it in his palm, and walked silently on. "Well, well," said O'Connor, "if you choose to make so uncertain an engagement as for the term of my stay in Dublin, you are welcome to be my servant for so long." "It's a bargain," shouted Mr. Toole--"a bargain, plase your honour, done and done on both sides. I'm your man--hurra!" They had already entered the suburbs, and before many minutes were involved in the dark and narrow streets, threading their way, as best they might, toward the genial harbourage of the "Cock and Anchor." CHAPTER VI. THE SOLDIER--THE NIGHT RAMBLE--AND THE WINDOW THAT LET IN MORE THAN THE MOONLIGHT. Short as had been O'Connor's sojourn, it nevertheless had been sufficiently long to satisfy mine host of the "Cock and Anchor," an acute observer in such particulars, that whatever his object might have been in avoiding the more fashionably frequented inns of the city, economy at least had no share in his motive. O'Connor, therefore, had hardly entered the public room of the inn, when a servant respectfully informed him that a private chamber was prepared for his reception, if he desired to occupy it. The proposition suited well with his temper at the minute, and with all alacrity he followed the waiter, who bowed him upstairs and through a dingy passage into a room whose claims, if not to elegance, at least to comfort, could hardly have been equalled, certainly not excelled, by the more luxurious pretensions of most modern hotels. It was a large, capacious chamber, nearly square, wainscoted with dark shining wood, and decorated with certain dingy old pictures, which might have been, for anything to the contrary, appearing in so uncertain a light, _chefs d'oeuvre_ of the mighty masters of the olden time: at all events, they looked as warm and comfortable as if they were. The hearth was broad, deep, and high enough to stable a Kerry pony, and was surmounted by a massive stone mantelpiece, rudely but richly carved--abundance of old furniture--tables, at which the saintly Cromwell might have smoked and boozed, and chairs old enough to have supported Sir Walter Raleigh himself, were disposed about the room with a profuseness which argued no niggard hospitality. A pair of wax-lights burned cheerily upon a table beside the bright crackling fire which blazed in the huge cavity of the hearth; and O'Connor threw himself into one of those cumbrons, tall-backed, and well-stuffed chairs, which are in themselves more potent invitations to the sweet illusive visitings from the world of fancy and of dreams than all the drugs or weeds of eastern climes. Thus suffering all his material nature to rest in absolute repose, he loosed at once the reins of imagination and memory, and yielded up his mind luxuriously to their mingled realities and illusions. He may have been, perhaps, for two or three hours employed thus listlessly in chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, when his meditations were interrupted by a brisk step upon the passage leading to the apartment in which he sate, instantly succeeded by as brisk a knocking at the chamber door itself. "Is this Mr. O'Connor's chamber?" inquired a voice of peculiar richness, intonated not unpleasingly with a certain melodious modification of the brogue, bespeaking a sort of passionate _devil-may-carishness_ which they say in the good old times wrought grievous havoc among womankind. The summons was promptly answered by an invitation to enter; and forthwith the door opened, and a comely man stepped into the room. The stranger might have seen some fifty or sixty summers, or even more; for his was one of those joyous, good-humoured, rubicund visages, upon which time vainly tries to write a wrinkle. His frame was robust and upright, his stature tall, and there was in his carriage something not exactly a swagger (for with all his oddities, the stranger was evidently a gentleman), but a certain rollicking carelessness, which irresistibly conveyed the character of a reckless, head-long good-humour and daring, to which nothing could come amiss. In the hale and jolly features, which many would have pronounced handsome, were written, in characters which none could mistake, the prevailing qualities of the man--a gay and sparkling eye, in which lived the very soul of convivial jollity, harmonized right pleasantly with a smile, no less of archness than _bonhomie_, and in the brow there was a certain indescribable cock, which looked half pugnacious and half comic. On the whole, the stranger, to judge by his outward man, was precisely the person to take his share in a spree, be the same in joke or earnest--to tell a good story--finish a good bottle--share his last guinea with you--or blow your brains out, as the occasion might require. He was arrayed in a full suit of regimentals, and taken for all in all, one need hardly have desired a better sample of the dashing, light-hearted, daredevil Irish soldier of more than a century since. "Ah! Major O'Leary," cried O'Connor, starting from his seat, and grasping the soldier's hand, "I am truly glad to see you; you are the very man of all others I most require at this moment. I was just about to have a fit of the blue devils." "Blue devils!" exclaimed the major; "don't talk to a youngster like me of any such infernal beings; but tell me how you are, every inch of you, and what brings you here?" "I never was better; and as to my business," replied O'Connor, "it is too long and too dull a story to tell you just now; but in the meantime, let us have a glass of Burgundy; mine host of the 'Cock and Anchor' boasts a very peculiar cellar." So saying, O'Connor proceeded to issue the requisite order. "That does he, by my soul!" replied the major, with alacrity; "and for that express reason I invariably make it a point to renew my friendly intimacy with its contents whenever I visit the metropolis. But I can't stay more than five minutes, so proceed to operations with all dispatch." "And why all this hurry?" inquired O'Connor. "Where need you go at this hour?" "Faith, I don't precisely know myself," rejoined the soldier; "but I've a strong impression that my evil genius has contrived a scheme to inveigle me into a cock-pit not a hundred miles away." "I'm sorry for it, with all my heart, Major," replied O'Connor, "since it robs me of your company." "Nay, you must positively come along with me," resumed the major; "I sip my Burgundy on these express conditions. Don't leave me at these years without a mentor. I rely upon your prudence and experience; if you turn me loose upon the town to-night, without a moral guide, upon my conscience, you have a great deal to answer for. I may be fleeced in a hell, or milled in a row; and if I fall in with female society, by the powers of celibacy! I can't answer for the consequences." "Sooth to say, Major," rejoined O'Connor, "I'm in no mood for mirth." "Come, come! never look so glum," insisted his visitor. "Remember I have arrived at years of _in_discretion, and must be looked after. Man's life, my dear fellow, naturally divides itself into three great stages; the first is that in which the youthful disciple is carefully instructing his mind, and preparing his moral faculties, in silence, for all sorts of villainy--this is the season of youth and innocence; the second is that in which he _practises_ all kinds of rascality--and this is the flower of manhood, or the prime of life; the third and last is that in which he strives to make his soul--and this is the period of dotage. Now, you see, my dear O'Connor, I have unfortunately arrived at the prime of life, while you are still in the enjoyment of youth and innocence; I am practising what you are plotting. You are, unfortunately for yourself, a degree more sober than I; you can therefore take care that I sin with due discretion--permit me to rob or murder, without being robbed or murdered in return." Here the major filled and quaffed another glass, and then continued,-- "In short, I am--to speak in all solemnity and sobriety--so drunk, that it's a miracle how I mounted these rascally stairs without breaking my neck. I have no distinct recollection of the passage, except that I kissed some old hunks instead of the chamber-maid, and pulled his nose in revenge. I solemnly declare I can neither walk nor think without assistance; my heels and head are inclined to change places, and I can't tell the moment the body politic may be capsized. I have no respect in the world for my intellectual or physical endowments at this particular crisis; my sight is so infernally acute that I see all surrounding objects considerably augmented in number; my legs have asserted their independence, and perform 'Sir Roger de Coverley,' altogether unsolicited; and my memory and other small mental faculties have retired for the night. Under those melancholy circumstances, my dear fellow, you surely won't refuse me the consolation of your guidance." "Had not you better, my dear Major," said O'Connor, "remain with me quietly here for the night, out of the reach of sharks and sharpers, male and female? You shall have claret or Burgundy, which you please--enough to fill a skin!" "I can't hold more than a bottle additional," replied the major, regretfully, "if I can even do that; so you see I'm bereft of domestic resources, and must look abroad for occupation. The fact is, I expect to meet one or two fellows whom I want to see, at the place I've named; so if you can come along with me, and keep me from falling into the gutters, or any other indiscretion by the way, upon my conscience, you will confer a serious obligation on me." O'Connor plainly perceived that although the major's statement had been somewhat overcharged, yet that his admissions were not altogether fanciful; there were in the gallant gentleman's face certain symptoms of recent conviviality which were not to be mistaken--a perceptible roll of the eye, and a slight screwing of the lips, which peculiarities, along with the faintest possible approximation to a hiccough, and a gentle see-saw vibration of his stalwart person, were indications highly corroborative of the general veracity of his confessions. Seeing that, in good earnest, the major was not precisely in a condition to be trusted with the management of anything pertaining to himself or others, O'Connor at once resolved to see him, if possible, safely through his excursion, if after the discussion of the wine which was now before them, he should persevere in his fancy for a night ramble. They therefore sate down together in harmonious fellowship, to discuss the flasks which stood upon the board. O'Connor was about to fill his guest's glass for the tenth or twelfth time, when the major suddenly ejaculated,-- "Halt! ground arms! I can no more. Why, you hardened young reprobate, it's not to make me drunk you're trying? I must keep senses enough to behave like a Christian at the cock-fight; and, upon my soul! I've very little rationality to spare at this minute. Put on your hat, and come without delay, before I'm fairly extinguished." O'Connor accordingly donned his hat and cloak, and yielding the major the double support of his arm on the one side, and of the banisters on the other, he conducted him safely down the stairs, and with wonderful steadiness, all things considered, they entered the street, whence, under the major's direction, they pursued their way. After a silence of a few minutes, that military functionary exclaimed, with much gravity,-- "I'm a great social philosopher, a great observer, and one who looks quite through the deeds of men. My dear boy, believe me, this country is in the process of a great moral reformation; hospitality--which I take to be the first, and the last, and the only one of all the virtues of a bishop which is fit for the practice of a gentleman--hospitality, my dear O'Connor, is rapidly approaching to a climax in this country. I remember, when I was a little boy, a gentleman might pay a visit of a week or so to another in the country, and be all the time nothing more than tipsy--_tipsy_ merely. However, matters gradually improved, and that stage which philosophers technically term simple drunkenness, became the standard of hospitality. This passed away, and the sense of the country, in its silent but irresistible operation, has substituted _blind_ drunkenness; and in the prophetic spirit of sublime philosophy, I foresee the arrival of that time when no man can escape the fangs of hospitality upon any conditions short of brain fever or delirium tremens." As the major delivered this philosophic discourse, he led O'Connor through several obscure streets and narrow lanes, till at length he paused in one of the very narrowest and darkest before a dingy brick house, whose lower windows were secured with heavy bars of iron. The door, which was so incrusted with dirt and dust that the original paint was hardly anywhere discernible, stood ajar, and within burned a feeble and ominous light, so faint and murky, that it seemed fearful of disclosing the deeds and forms which itself was forced to behold. Into this dim and suspicious-looking place the major walked, closely followed by O'Connor. In the hall he was encountered by a huge savage-looking fellow, who raised his squalid form lazily from a bench which rested against the wall at the further end, and in a low, gruff voice, like the incipient growl of a roused watch-dog, inquired what they wanted there. "Why, Mr. Creigan, don't you know Major O'Leary?" inquired that gentleman. "I and a friend have business here." The man muttered something in the way of apology, and opening the dingy lantern in which burned the wretched tallow candle which half lighted the place, he snuffed it with his finger and thumb, and while so doing, desired the major to proceed. Accordingly, with the precision of one who was familiar with every turn of the place, the gallant officer led O'Connor through several rooms, lighted in the same dim and shabby way, into a corridor leading directly to the rearward of the house, and connecting it with some other detached building. As they threaded this long passage, the major turned towards O'Connor, who followed him, and whispered,-- "Did you mark that ill-looking fellow in the hall? Poor Creigan!--a gentleman!--would you think it?--a _gentleman_ by birth, and with a snug property, too--four hundred good pounds a year, and more--all gone, like last year's snow, chiefly here in backing mains of his own! poor dog! I remember him one of the best dressed men on town, and now he's fain to pick up a few shillings by the week in the place where he lost his thousands; this is the state of man!" As he spoke thus, they had reached the end of the passage. The major opened the door which terminated the corridor, and thus displayed a scene which, though commonplace enough in its ingredients, was, nevertheless, in its _coup d'oeil_, sufficiently striking. In the centre of a capacious and ill-finished chamber stood a circular platform, with a high ledge running round it. This arena, some fourteen feet in diameter, was surrounded by circular benches, which rose one outside the other, in parallel tiers, to the wall. Upon these seats were crowded some hundreds of men--a strange mixture; gentlemen of birth and honour sate side by side with notorious swindlers; noblemen with coalheavers; simpletons with sharks; the unkempt, greasy locks of squalid destitution mingled in the curls of the patrician periwig; aristocratic lace and embroidery were rubbed by the dusty shoulders of draymen and potboys;--all these gross and glaring contrarieties reconciled and bound together by one hellish sympathy. All sate locked in breathless suspense, every countenance fixed in the hard lines of intense, excited anxiety and vigilance; all leaned forward to gaze upon the combat whose crisis was on the point of being determined. Those who occupied the back seats had started up, and pressing forward, almost crushed those in front of them to death. Every aperture in this living pile was occupied by some eager, haggard, or ruffian face; and, spite of all the pushing, and crowding, and bustling, all were silent, as if the powers of voice and utterance were unknown among them. The effect of this scene, so suddenly presented--the crowd of ill-looking and anxious faces, the startling glare of light, and the unexpected rush of hot air from the place--all so confounded him, that O'Connor did not for some moments direct his attention to the object upon which the gaze of the fascinated multitude was concentrated; when he did so he beheld a spectacle, abstractedly, very disproportioned in interest to the passionate anxiety of which it was the subject. Two game cocks, duly trimmed, and having the long and formidable steel weapons with which the humane ingenuity of "the fancy" supplies the natural spur of the poor biped, occupied the centre of the circular stage which we have described; one of the birds lay upon his back, beneath the other, which had actually sent his spurs through and through his opponent's neck. In this posture the wounded animal lay, with his beak open, and the blood trickling copiously through it upon the board. The victorious bird crowed loud and clear, and a buzz began to spread through the spectators, as if the battle were already determined, and suspense at an end. The "law" had just expired, and the gentlemen whose business it was to _handle_ the birds were preparing to withdraw them. "Twenty to one on the grey cock," exclaimed a large, ill-looking fellow, who sat close to the pit, clutching his arms in his brawny hands, as if actually hugging himself with glee, while he gazed with an exulting grin upon the combat, whose issue seemed now beyond the reach of chance. The challenge was, of course, unaccepted. "Fifty to one!" exclaimed the same person, still more ecstatically. "One hundred to one--_two_ hundred to one!" "I'll give you one guinea to two hundred," exclaimed perhaps the coolest gambler in that select assembly, young Henry Ashwoode, who sat also near the front. "Done, Mr. Ashwoode--done with _you_; it's a bet, sir," said the same ill-looking fellow. "Done, sir," replied Ashwoode. [Illustration: "Again the conqueror crowed the shrill note of victory." _To face page 34_.] Again the conqueror crowed the shrill note of victory, and all seemed over, when, on a sudden, by one of those strange vicissitudes of which the annals of the cock-pit afford so many examples, the dying bird--it may be roused by the vaunting challenge of his antagonist--with one convulsive spasm, struck both his spurs through and through the head of his opponent, who dropped dead upon the table, while the wounded bird, springing to his legs, flapped his wings, as if victory had never hovered, and then as momentarily fell lifeless on the board, by this last heroic feat winning a main on which many thousands of pounds depended. A silence for a moment ensued, and then there followed the loud exulting cheers of some, and the hoarse, bitter blasphemies of others, clamorous expostulation, hoarse laughter, curses, congratulations, and invectives--all mingled with the noise occasioned by those who came in or went out, the shuffling and pounding of feet, in one torrentuous and stunning volume of sound. Young Ashwoode having secured and settled all his bets, shouldered his way through the crowd, and with some difficulty, reached the door at which Major O'Leary and O'Connor were standing. "How do you do, uncle? Were you in the room when I took the two hundred to one?" inquired the young man. "By my conscience, I was, Hal, and wish you joy with all my heart. It was a sporting bet on both sides, and as game a fight as the world ever saw." "I must be off," continued the young man. "I promised to look in at Lady Stukely's to-night; but before I go, you must know they are all affronted with you at the manor. The girls are positively outrageous, and desired me to command your presence to-morrow on pain of excommunication." "Give my tender regards to them both," replied the major, "and assure them that I will be proud to obey them. But don't you know my friend O'Connor," he added, in a lower tone, "you are old acquaintances, I believe?" "Unless my memory deceives me, I have had the honour of meeting Mr. O'Connor before," said the young man, with a cold bow, which was returned by O'Connor with more than equal _hauteur_. "Recollect, uncle, no excuses," added young Ashwoode, as he retreated from the chamber--"you have promised to give to-morrow to the girls. Adieu." "There goes as finished a specimen of a mad-cap, rake-helly young devil as ever carried the name of Ashwoode or the blood of the O'Leary's," observed the uncle; "but come, we must look to the sport." So saying, the major, exerting his formidable strength, and accompanying his turbulent progress with a large distribution of apologetic and complimentary speeches of the most high-flown kind, shoved and jostled his way to a vacant place near the front of the benches, and, seating himself there, began to give and take bets to a large amount upon the next main. Tired of the noise, and nearly stifled with the heat of the place, O'Connor, seeing that the major was resolved to act independently of him, thought that he might as well consult his own convenience as stay there to be stunned and suffocated without any prospect of expediting the major's retreat; he therefore turned about and retraced his steps through the passage which we have mentioned. The grateful coolness of the air, and the lassitude induced by the scene in which he had taken a part, though no very prominent one, induced him to pause in the first room to which the passage, as we have said, gave access; and happening to espy a bench in one of the recesses of the windows, he threw himself upon it, thoroughly to receive the visitings of the cool, hovering air. As he lay listless and silently upon this rude couch, he was suddenly disturbed by a sound of someone treading the yard beneath. A figure sprang across toward the window; and almost instantaneously Larry Toole--for the moonlight clearly revealed the features of the intruder--was presented at the aperture, and with an energetic spring, accompanied by a no less energetic, devotional ejaculation, that worthy vaulted into the chamber, agitated, excited, and apparently at his wits' end. CHAPTER VII. THREE GRIM FIGURES IN A LONELY LANE--TWO QUEER GUESTS RIDING TO TONY BLIGH'S--THE WATCHER IN DANGER--AND THE HIGHWAYMEN. A liberal and unsolicited attention to the affairs of other people, was one among the many amiable peculiarities of Mr. Laurence Toole: he had hardly, therefore, seen the major and O'Connor fairly beyond the threshold of the "Cock and Anchor," when he donned his cocked hat and followed their steps, allowing, however, an interval sufficiently long to secure himself against detection. Larry Toole well knew the purposes to which the squalid mansion which we have described was dedicated, and having listened for a few moments at the door, to allow his master and his companion time to reach the inner sanctuary of vice and brutality, whither it was the will of Major O'Leary to lead his reluctant friend, this faithful squire entered at the half-open door, and began to traverse the passage which we have before mentioned. He was not, however, permitted long to do so undisturbed. The grim sentinel of these unhallowed regions on a sudden upreared his towering proportions, heaving his huge shoulders with a very unpleasant appearance of preparation for an effort, and with two or three formidable strides, brought himself up with the presumptuous intruder. "What do _you_ want here--eh! you d----d scarecrow?" exclaimed the porter, in a tone which made the very walls to vibrate. Larry was too much astounded to reply--he therefore remained mute and motionless. "See, my good cove," observed the gaunt porter, in the same impressive accents of admonition--"make yourself scarce, d'ye mind; and if you want to see the pit, go round--we don't let potboys and pickpockets in at this side--cut and run, or I'll have to give you a lift." Larry was no poltroon; but another glance at the colossal frame of the porter quelled effectually whatever pugnacious movements might have agitated his soul; and the little man, having deigned one look of infinite contempt, which told his antagonist, as plainly as any look could do, that he owed his personal safety solely and exclusively to the sublime and unmerited pity of Mr. Laurence Toole, that dignified individual turned on his heel, and withdrew somewhat precipitately through the door which he had just entered. The porter grinned, rolled his quid luxuriously till it made the grand tour of his mouth, shrugged his square shoulders, and burst into a harsh chuckle. Such triumphs as the one he had just enjoyed, were the only sweet drops which mingled in the bitter cup of his savage existence. Meanwhile, our romantic friend, traversing one or two dark lanes, made his way easily enough to the more public entrance of this temple of fortune. The door which our friend Larry now approached lay at the termination of a long and narrow lane, enclosed on each side with dead walls of brick--at the far end towered the dark outline of the building, and over the arched doorway burned a faint and dingy light, without strength enough to illuminate even the bricks against which it hung, and serving only in nights of extraordinary darkness as a dim, solitary star, by which the adventurous night rambler might shape his course. The moon, however, was now shining broad and clear into the broken lane, revealing every inequality and pile of rubbish upon its surface, and throwing one side of the enclosure into black, impenetrable shadow. Without premeditation or choice, it happened that our friend Larry was walking at the dark side of the lane, and shrouded in the deep obscurity he advanced leisurely toward the doorway. As he proceeded, his attention was arrested by a figure which presented itself at the entrance of the building, accompanied by two others, as it appeared, about to pass forth into the lane through which he himself was moving. They were engaged in animated debate as they approached--the conversation was conducted in low and earnest tones--their gestures were passionate and sudden--their progress interrupted by many halts--and the party evinced certain sinister indications of uneasy vigilance and caution, which impressed our friend with a dark suspicion of mischief, which was strengthened by his recognition of two of the persons composing the little group. His curiosity was irresistibly piqued, and he instinctively paused, lest the sound of his advancing steps should disturb the conference, and more than half in the undefined hope that he might catch the substance of their conversation before his presence should be detected. In this object he was perfectly successful. In the form which first offered itself, he instantly detected the well-known proportions and features of young Ashwoode's groom, who had attended his master into town; and in company with this fellow stood a person whom Larry had just as little difficulty in recognizing as a ruffian who had twice escaped the gallows by the critical interposition of fortune--once by a flaw in the indictment, and again through lack of sufficient evidence in law--each time having stood his trial on a charge of murder. It was not very wonderful, then, that this startling companionship between his old fellow-servant and Will Harris (or, as he was popularly termed, "Brimstone Bill") should have piqued the curiosity of so inquisitive a person as Larry Toole. In company with these worthies was a third, wrapped in a heavy riding-coat, and who now and then slightly took part in the conversation. They all talked in low, earnest whispers, casting many a stealthy glance backward as they advanced through the dim avenue toward our curious friend. As the party approached, Larry ensconced himself in the recess formed by the projection of two dilapidated brick piers, between which hung a crazy door, and in whose front there stood a mound of rubbish some three feet in height. In such a position he not unreasonably thought himself perfectly secure. "Why, what the devil ails you now, you cursed cowardly ninny," whispered Brimstone Bill, through his set teeth--"what can happen _you_, win or lose?--turn up black, or turn up red, is it not all one to you, you _mouth_, you? _Your_ carcase is safe and sound--then what do you funk for now? Rouse yourself, you d----d idiot, or I'll drive a brace of lead pellets through your brains--rouse yourself!" Thus speaking, he shook the groom roughly by the collar. "Stop, Bill--hands off," muttered the man, sulkily--"I'm not funking--you know I'm not; but I don't want to see him _finished_--I don't want to see him murdered when there's no occasion for it--there's no great harm in that; we want his _ribben_, not his blood; there's no profit in taking his life." "Booby! listen to me," replied the ruffian, in the same tone of intense impatience. "What do _I_ want with his life any more than you do? Nothing. Do not I wish to do the thing genteelly as much as you? He shall not lose a drop of blood, nor his skin have a scratch, if he knows how to behave and be a good boy. Bah! we need but show him the _lead towels_, and the job's done. Look you, I and Jack will sit in the private room of the 'Bleeding Horse.' Old Tony's a trump, and asks no questions; so, as you pass, give the window a skelp of the whip, and we'll be out in the snapping of a flint. Leave the rest to us. You have your instructions, you _kedger_, so act up to them, and the devil himself can't spoil our sport." "You may look out for us, then," said the servant, "in less than two hours. He never stays late at Lady Stukely's, and he must be home before two o'clock." "Do not forget to grease the hammers," suggested the fellow in the heavy coat. "He doesn't carry pistols to-night," replied the attendant. "So much the better--all _my_ luck," exclaimed Brimstone--"I would not swap luck with the chancellor." "The devil's children, they say," observed the gentleman in the large coat, "have the devil's luck." These were the last words Larry Toole could distinguish as the party moved onward. He ventured, however, although with grievous tremors, to peep out of his berth to ascertain the movements of the party. They all stopped at a distance of some twenty or thirty yards from the spot where he crouched, and for a time appeared again absorbed in earnest debate. On a sudden, however, the fellow in the riding-coat, having frequently looked suspiciously up the lane in which they stood, stooped down, and, picking up a large stone, hurled it with his whole force in the direction of the embrasure in which Larry was lurking. The missile struck the projecting pier within a yard of that gentleman's head, with so much force that the stone burst into fragments and descended in a shower of splinters about his ears. This astounding salute was instantly followed by an occurrence still more formidable--for the ruffian, not satisfied with the test already applied, strode up in person to the doorway in which Larry had placed himself. It was well for that person that he was sheltered in front by the mass of rubbish which we have mentioned: at the foot of this he lay coiled, not daring even to breathe; every moment expecting to feel the cold point of the villain's sword poking against his ribs, and half inclined to start upon his feet and shout for help, although conscious that to do so would scarcely leave him a chance for his life. The suspicions of the wretch were, fortunately for Larry, ill-directed. He planted one foot upon the heap of loose materials which, along with the deep shadow, constituted poor Mr. Toole's only safeguard; and while the stones which his weight dislodged rolled over that prostrate person, he pushed open the door and gazed into the yard, lest any inquisitive ear or eye might have witnessed more than was consistent with the safety of the confederates of Brimstone Bill. The fellow was satisfied, and returned whistling, with affected carelessness, towards his comrades. More dead than alive, Larry remained mute and motionless for many minutes, not daring to peep forth from his hiding-place; when at length he mustered courage to do so, he saw the two robbers still together, and again shrunk back into his retreat. Luckily for the poor wight, the fellow who had looked into the yard left the door unclosed, which, after a little time perceiving, Larry glided stealthily in on all fours, and in a twinkling sprang into the window at which his master lay, as we have already recorded. CHAPTER VIII. THE WARNING--SHOWING HOW LARRY TOOLE FARED--WHOM HE SAW AND WHAT HE SAID--AND HOW MUCH GOOD AND HOW LITTLE HE DID--AND MOREOVER RELATING HOW SOMEBODY WAS LAID IN THE MIRE--AND HOW HENRY ASHWOODE PUT HIS FOOT IN THE STIRRUP. Flurried and frightened as Larry was, his agitation was not strong enough to overcome in him the national, instinctive abhorrence of the character of an informer. To the close interrogatories of his master, he returned but vague and evasive answers. A few dark hints he threw out as to the cause of his alarm, but preserved an impenetrable silence respecting alike its particular nature and the persons of whose participation in the scheme he was satisfied. In language incoherent and nearly unintelligible from excitement, he implored O'Connor to allow him to absent himself for about one hour, promising the most important results, in case his request was complied with, and vowing upon his return to tell him everything about the matter from beginning to end. Seeing the agonized earnestness of the man, though wholly uninformed of the cause of his uneasiness, which Larry constantly refused to divulge, O'Connor granted him the permission which he desired, and both left the building together. O'Connor pursued his way to the "Cock and Anchor," where, restored to his chamber and to solitude, he abandoned himself once more to the current of his wayward thoughts. Our friend Larry, however, was no sooner disengaged from his master, than he began, at his utmost speed, to thread the narrow and complicated lanes and streets which lay between the haunt of profligacy which we have just described, and the eastern extremity of the city. After an interrupted run of nearly half an hour through pitchy dark and narrow streets, he emerged into Stephen's Green; at the eastern side of which, among other buildings of lesser note, there then stood, and perhaps (with a new face, and some slight external changes) still stands, a large and handsome mansion. Toward this building, conspicuous in the distance by the red glare of dozens of links and torches which flared and flashed outside, and by the gay light streaming from its many windows, Larry made his way. Too eager and hurried to pass along the sides of the square by the common road, he clambered over the broken wall which surrounded it, plunged through the broad trench, and ran among the deep grass and rank weeds, now heavy with the dews of night; over the broad area he pursued his way, startling the quiet cattle from their midnight slumbers, and hastening rather than abating his speed, as he drew near to the termination of his hurried mission. As he approached, the long dark train of carriages, every here and there lighted by some flaming link still unextinguished, and surrounded by crowds of idle footmen, sufficiently indicated the scene of Lady Stukely's hospitalities. In a moment Larry had again crossed the fences which enclosed the square, and passing the broad road among the carriages, chairs, and lackeys, he sprang up the steps of the house, and thundered lustily at the hall-door. It was opened by a gruff and corpulent porter with a red face and majestic demeanour, who, having learned from Larry that he had an important message for Mr. Henry Ashwoode, desired him, in as few words as possible, to step into the hall. The official then swung the massive door to, rolled himself into his well-cushioned throne, and having scanned Larry's proportions for a minute or two with one eye, which he kept half open for such purposes, he ejaculated-- "Mr. Finley, I say, Mr. Finley, here's one with a message upwards." Having thus delivered himself, he shut down his open eye, screwed his eyebrows, and became absorbed in abstruse meditation. Meanwhile, Mr. Finley, in person arrayed in a rich livery, advanced languidly toward Larry Toole, throwing into his face a dreamy and supercilious expression, while with one hand he faintly fanned himself with a white pocket handkerchief. "Your most obedient servant to command," drawled the footman, as he advanced. "What can I do, my good soul, to _obleege_ you?" "I only want to see the young master--that's young Mr. Ashwoode," replied Larry, "for one minute, and that's all." The footman gazed upon him for a moment with a languid smile, and observed in the same sleepy tone, "Absolutely impossible--_amposseeble_, as they say at the Pallais Royal." "But, blur an' agers," exclaimed Larry, "it's a matther iv life an' death, robbery an' murdher." "Bloody murder!" echoed the man in a sweet, low voice, and with a stare of fashionable abstraction. "Well, tear an' 'oun's," cried Larry, almost beside himself with impatience, "if you won't bring him down to me, will you even as much as carry him a message?" "To say the truth, and upon my honour," replied the man, "I can't engage to climb up stairs just now, they are so devilish fatiguing. Don't you find them so?" The question was thrown out in that vacant, inattentive way which seems to dispense with an answer. "By my soul!" rejoined Larry, almost crying with vexation, "it's a hard case. Do you mane to tell me, you'll neither bring him down to me nor carry him up a message?" "You have, my excellent fellow," replied the footman, placidly, "precisely conveyed my meaning." "By the hokey!" cried Larry, "you're fairly breaking my heart. In the divil's name, can you as much as let me stop here till he's comin' down?" "Absolutely impossible," replied the footman, in the same dulcet and deliberate tone. "It is indeed _amposseeble_, as the Parisians have it. You _must_ be aware, my good old soul, that you're in a positive pickle. You are, pardon me, my excellent friend, very dirty and very disgusting. You must therefore go out in a few moments into the fresh air." At any other moment, such a speech would have infallibly provoked Mr. Toole's righteous and most rigorous vengeance; but he was now too completely absorbed in the mission which he had undertaken to suffer personal considerations to have a place in his bosom. "Will you, then," he ejaculated desperately, "will you as much as give him a message yourself, when he's comin' down?" "What message?" drawled the lackey. "Tell him, for the love of God, to take the _old_ road home, by the seven sallies," replied Larry. "Will you give him that message, if it isn't too long?" "I have a wretched memory for messages," observed the footman, as he leisurely opened the door--"a perfect sieve: but should he catch my eye as he passes, I'll endeavour, upon my honour; good night--adieu!" As he thus spoke, Larry had reached the threshold of the door, which observing, the polished footman, with a _nonchalant_ and easy air, slammed the hall-door, thereby administering upon Larry's back, shoulders, and elbows, such a bang as to cause Mr. Toole to descend the flight of steps at a pace much more marvellous to the spectators than agreeable to himself. Muttering a bitter curse upon his exquisite acquaintance, Larry took his stand among the expectants in the street; there resolved to wait and watch for young Ashwoode, and to give him the warning which so nearly concerned his safety. Meanwhile, Lady Stukely's drawing-rooms were crowded by the gay, the fashionable, and the frivolous, of all ages. Young Ashwoode stood behind his wealthy hostess's chair, while she played quadrille, scarce knowing whether she won or lost, for Henry Ashwoode had never been so fascinating before. Lady Stukely was a delicate, die-away lady, not very far from sixty; the natural blush upon her nose outblazoned the rouge upon her cheeks; several very long teeth--"ivory and ebon alternately"--peeped roguishly from beneath her upper lip, which her ladyship had a playful trick of screwing down, to conceal them--a trick which made her ladyship's smile rather a surprising than an attractive exhibition. It is but justice, however, to admit that she had a pair of very tolerable eyes, with which she executed the most masterly evolutions. For the rest, there having existed a very considerable disparity in years between herself and her dear deceased, Sir Charles Stukely, who had expired at the mature age of ninety, more than a year before, she conceived herself still a very young, artless, and interesting girl; and under this happy hallucination she was more than half inclined to return in good earnest the disinterested affection of Henry Ashwoode. There, too, was old Lord Aspenly, who had, but two days before, solicited and received Sir Richard Ashwoode's permission to pay his court to his beautiful daughter, Mary. There, jerking and shrugging and grimacing, he hobbled through the rooms, all wrinkles and rappee; bandying compliments and repartees, flirting and fooling, and beyond measure enchanted with himself, while every interval in frivolity and noise was filled up with images of his approaching nuptials and intended bride, while she, poor girl, happily unconscious of all their plans, was spared, for that night, the pangs and struggles which were hereafter but too severely to try her heart. 'Twere needless to enumerate noble peers, whose very titles are now unknown--poets, who alas! were mortal--men of promise, who performed nothing--clever young men, who grew into stupid old ones--and millionaires, whose money perished with them; we shall not, therefore, weary the reader by describing Lady Stukely's guests; let it suffice to mention that Henry Ashwoode left the rooms with young Pigwiggynne, of Bolton's regiment of dragoons, and one of Lord Wharton's aides-de-camp. This circumstance is here recorded because it had an effect in producing the occurrences which we have to relate by-and-by; for young Pigwiggynne having partaken somewhat freely of Lady Stukely's wines, and being unusually exhilarated, came forth from the hall-door to assist Ashwoode in procuring a chair, which he did with a good deal more noise and blasphemy than was strictly necessary. Our friend Larry Toole, who had patiently waited the egress of his _quondam_ young master, no sooner beheld him than he hastened to accost him, but Pigwiggynne being, as we have said, in high spirits and unusual good humour, cut short poor Larry's address by jocularly knocking him on the head with a heavy walking-cane--a pleasantry which laid that person senseless upon the pavement. The humorist passed on with an exhilarating crow, after the manner of a cock; and had not a matter-of-fact chairman drawn Mr. Toole from among the coach-wheels where the joke had happened to lay him, we might have been saved the trouble of recording the subsequent history of that very active member of society. Meanwhile, young Ashwoode was conveyed in a chair to a neighbouring fashionable hotel, where, having changed his suit, and again equipped himself for the road, he mounted his horse, and followed by his treacherous groom, set out at a brisk pace upon his hazardous, and as it turned out, eventful night-ride toward the manor of Morley Court. CHAPTER IX. THE "BLEEDING HORSE"--HOLLANDS AND PIPES FOR TWO--EVERY BULLET HAS ITS BILLET. At the time in which the events that we have undertaken to record took place, there stood at the southern extremity of the city, near the point at which Camden Street now terminates, a small, old-fashioned building, something between an ale-house and an inn. It occupied the roadside by no means unpicturesquely; one gable jutted into the road, with a projecting window, which stood out from the building like a glass box held together by a massive frame of wood; and commanded by this projecting gable, and a few yards in retreat, but facing the road, was the inn door, over which hung a painted panel, representing a white horse, out of whose neck there spouted a crimson cascade, and underneath, in large letters, the traveller was informed that this was the genuine old "Bleeding Horse." Old enough, in all conscience, it appeared to be, for the tiled roof, except where the ivy clustered over it, was crowded with weeds of many kinds, and the boughs of the huge trees which embowered it had cracked and shattered one of the cumbrous chimney-stacks, and in many places it was evident that but for the timely interposition of the saw and the axe, the giant limbs of the old timber would, in the gradual increase of years, have forced their way through the roof and the masonry itself--a tendency sufficiently indicated by sundry indentures and rude repairs in those parts of the building most exposed to such casualties. Upon the night in which the events that are recorded in the immediately preceding chapters occurred, two horsemen rode up to this inn, and leisurely entering the stable yard, dismounted, and gave their horses in charge to a ragged boy who acted as hostler, directing him with a few very impressive figures of rhetoric, on no account to loosen girth or bridle, or to suffer the beasts to stir one yard from the spot where they stood. This matter settled, they entered the house. Both were muffled; the one--a large, shambling fellow--wore a capacious riding-coat; the other--a small, wiry man--was wrapped in a cloak; both wore their hats pressed down over their brows, and had drawn their mufflers up, so as to conceal the lower part of the face. The lesser of the two men, leaving his companion in the passage, opened a door, within which were a few fellows drowsily toping, and one or two asleep. In a chair by the fire sat Tony Bligh, the proprietor of the "Bleeding Horse," a middle-aged man, rather corpulent, as pale as tallow, and with a sly, ugly squint. The little man in the cloak merely introduced his head and shoulders, and beckoned with his thumb. The signal, though scarcely observed by one other of the occupants of the room, was instantly and in silence obeyed by the landlord, who, casting one uneasy glance round, glided across the floor, and was in the passage almost as soon as the gentleman in the cloak. "Here, Tony, boy," whispered the man, as the innkeeper approached, "fetch us a pint of Hollands, a couple of pipes, and a glim; but first turn the key in this door here, and come yourself, do ye mind?" Tony squeezed the speaker's arm in token of acquiescence, and turning a key gently in the lock, he noiselessly opened the door which Brimstone Bill had indicated, and the two cavaliers strode into the dark and vacant chamber. Brimstone walked to the window, pushed open the casement, and leaned out. The beautiful moon was shining above the old and tufted trees which lined the quiet road; he looked up and down the shaded avenue, but nothing was moving upon it, save the varying shadows as the night wind swung the branches to and fro. He listened, but no sound reached his ears, excepting the rustling and moaning of the boughs, through which the breeze was fitfully soughing. Scarcely had he drawn back again into the room, when Tony returned with the refreshments which the gentleman had ordered, and with a dark lantern enclosing a lighted candle. "Right, old cove," said Bill. "I see you hav'n't forgot the trick of the trade. Who are your _pals_ inside?" "Three of them sleep here to-night," replied Tony. "They're all quiet coves enough, such as doesn't hear nor see any more than they ought." The two fellows filled a pipe each, and lighted them at the lantern. "What mischief are you after now, Bill?" inquired the host, with a peculiar leer. "Why should _I_ be after any mischief," replied Brimstone jocularly, "any more than a sucking dove, eh? Do I look like mischief to-night, old tickle-pitcher--do I?" He accompanied the question with a peculiar grin, which mine host answered by a prolonged wink of no less peculiar significance. "Well, Tony boy," rejoined Bill, "maybe I _am_ and maybe I _ain't_--that's the way: but mind, you did not see a stim of me, nor of _him_, to-night (glancing at his comrade), nor ever, for that matter. But you did see two ill-looking fellows not a bit like us; and I have a notion that these two chaps will manage to get into a sort of shindy before an hour's over, and then _mizzle_ at once; and if all goes well, your hand shall be crossed with gold to-night." "Bill, Bill," said the landlord, with a smile of exquisite relish, and drawing his hand coaxingly over the man's forehead, so as to smooth the curls of his periwig nearly into his eyes, "you're just the same old dodger--you are the devil's own bird--you have not cast a feather." It is hard to say how long this tender scene might have continued, had not the other ruffian knocked his knuckles sharply on the table, and cried-- "Hist! brother--_chise_ it--enough fooling--I hear a horse-shoe on the road." All held their breath, and remained motionless for a time. The fellow was, however, mistaken. Bill again advanced to the window, and gazed intently through the long vista of trees. "There's not a bat stirring," said he, returning to the table, and filling out successively two glasses of spirits, he emptied them both. "Meanwhile, Tony," continued he, "get back to your company. Some of the fellows may be poking their noses into this place. If you don't hear _from_ me, at all events you'll hear of me before an hour. Hop the twig, boy, and keep all hard in for a bit--skip." With a roguish grin and a shake of the fist, honest Tony, not caring to dispute the commands of his friend, of whose temper he happened to know something, stealthily withdrew from the room, where we, too, shall for a time leave these worthy gentlemen of the road vigilantly awaiting the approach of their victim. Larry Toole had no sooner recovered his senses--which was in less than a minute--than he at once betook himself to the "Cock and Anchor," resolved, as the last resource, to inform O'Connor of the fact that an attack was meditated. Accordingly, he hastened with very little ceremony into the presence of his master, told him that young Ashwoode was to be waylaid upon the road, near the "Bleeding Horse," and implored him, without the loss of a moment, to ride in that direction, with a view, if indeed it might not already be too late, to intercept his passage, and forewarn him of the danger which awaited him. Without waiting to ask one useless question, O'Connor, before five minutes were passed, was mounted on his trusty horse, and riding at a hard pace through the dark streets towards the point of danger. Meanwhile, young Ashwoode, followed by his mounted attendant, proceeded at a brisk trot in the direction of the manor; his brain filled with a thousand busy thoughts and schemes, among which, not the least important, were sundry floating calculations as to the probable and possible amount of Lady Stukely's jointure, as well as some conjectures respecting the _maximum_ duration of her ladyship's life. Involved in these pleasing ruminations, sometimes crossed by no less agreeable recollections, in which the triumphs of vanity and the successes of the gaming-table had their share, he had now reached that shadowy and silent part of the road at which stood the little inn, embowered in the great old trees, and peeping forth with a sort of humble and friendly aspect, but ill-according with the dangerous designs it served to shelter. Here the servant, falling somewhat further behind, brought his horse close under the projecting window of the inn as he passed, and with a sharp cut of his whip gave the concerted signal. Before sixty seconds had elapsed, two well-mounted cavaliers were riding at a hard gallop in their wake. At this headlong pace, the foremost of the two horsemen had passed Ashwoode by some dozen yards, when, checking his horse so suddenly as to throw him back upon his haunches, he wheeled him round, and plunging the spurs deep into his flanks, with two headlong springs, he dashed him madly upon the young man's steed, hurling the beast and his rider to the earth. Tremendous as was the fall, young Ashwoode, remarkable alike for personal courage and activity, was in a moment upon his feet, with his sword drawn, ready to receive the assault of the ruffian. "Let go your skiver--drop it, you greenhorn," cried the fellow, hoarsely, as he wheeled round his plunging horse, and drew a pistol from the holster, "or, by the eternal ----, I'll blow your head into dust!" Young Ashwoode attempted to seize the reins of the fellow's horse, and made a desperate pass at the rider. "Take it, then," cried the fellow, thrusting the muzzle of the pistol into Ashwoode's face and drawing the trigger. Fortunately for Ashwoode, the pistol missed fire, and almost at the same moment the rapid clang of a horse's hoofs, accompanied by the loud shout of menace, broke startlingly upon his ear. Happy was this interruption for Henry Ashwoode, for, stunned and dizzy from the shock, he at that moment tottered, and in the next was prostrate upon the ground. "Blowed, by ----!" cried the villain, furiously, as the unwelcome sounds reached his ears, and dashing the spurs into his horse, he rode at a furious gallop down the road towards the country. This scene occupied scarce six seconds in the acting. Brimstone Bill, who had but a moment before come up to the succour of his comrade, also heard the rapid approach of the galloping hoofs upon the road; he knew that before he could count fifty seconds the new comer would have arrived. A few moments, however, he thought he could spare--important moments they turned out to be to one of the party. Bill kept his eye steadily fixed upon the point some three or four hundred yards distant at which he knew the horseman whose approach was announced must first appear. In that brief moment, the cool-headed villain had rapidly calculated the danger of the groom's committing his accomplices through want of coolness and presence of mind, should he himself, as was not unlikely, become suspected. The groom's pistols were still loaded, and he had taken no part in the conflict. Brimstone Bill fixed a stern glance upon his companion while all these and other thoughts flashed like lightning across his brain. "Darby," said he, hurriedly, to the man who sat half-stupefied in the saddle close beside him, "blaze off the lead towels--crack them off, I say." Bill impatiently leaned forward, and himself drew the pistols from the groom's saddle-bow; he fired one of them in the air--he cocked the other. "This dolt will play the devil with us all," thought he, looking with a peculiar expression at the bewildered servant. With one hand he grasped him by the collar to steady his aim, and with the other, suddenly thrusting the pistol to his ear, and drawing the trigger, he blew the wretched man's head into fragments like a potsherd; and wheeling his horse's head about, he followed his comrade pell-mell, beating the sparks in showers from the stony road at every plunge. All this occurred in fewer moments than it has taken us lines to describe it; and before our friend Brimstone Bill had secured the odds which his safety required, O'Connor was thundering at a furious gallop within less than a hundred yards of him. Bill saw that his pursuer was better mounted than he--to escape, therefore, by a fair race was out of the question. His resolution was quickly taken. By a sudden and powerful effort he reined in his horse at a single pull, and, with one rearing wheel, brought him round upon his antagonist; at the same time, drawing one of the large pistols from the saddle-bow, he rested it deliberately upon his bridle-arm, and fired at his pursuer, now within twenty yards of him. The ball passed so close to O'Connor's head that his ear rang shrilly with the sound of it for hours after. They had now closed; the highwayman drew his second pistol from the holster, and each fired at the same instant. O'Connor's shot was well directed--it struck his opponent in the bridle-arm, a little below the shoulder, shattering the bone to splinters. With a hoarse shriek of agony, the fellow, scarce knowing what he did, forced the spurs into his horse's sides; and the animal reared, wheeled, and bore its rider at a reckless speed in the direction which his companion had followed. It was well for him that the shot, which at the same moment he had discharged, had not been altogether misdirected. O'Connor, indeed, escaped unscathed, but the ball struck his horse between the eyes, and piercing the brain, the poor beast reared upright and fell dead upon the road. Extricating himself from the saddle, O'Connor returned to the spot where young Ashwoode and the servant still lay. Stunned and dizzy with the fall which he had had, the excitement of actual conflict was no sooner over, than Ashwoode sank back into a state of insensibility. In this condition O'Connor found him, pale as death, and apparently lifeless. Raising him against the grassy bank at the roadside, and having cast some water from a pool close by into his face, he saw him speedily recover. "Mr. O'Connor," said Ashwoode, as soon as he was sufficiently restored, "you have saved my life--how can I thank you?" "Spare your thanks, sir," replied O'Connor, haughtily; "for any man I would have done as much--for anyone bearing your name I would do much more. Are you hurt, sir?" "O'Connor, I have done you much injustice," said the young man, betrayed for the moment into something like genuine feeling. "You must forget and forgive it--I know your feelings respecting others of my family--henceforward I will be your friend--do not refuse my hand." "Henry Ashwoode," replied O'Connor, "I take your hand--gladly forgetting all past causes of resentment--but I want no vows of friendship, which to-morrow you may regret. Act with regard to me henceforward as if this night had not been--for I tell you truly again, that I would have done as much for the meanest peasant breathing as I have done to-night for you; and once more I pray you tell me, are you much hurt?" "Nothing, nothing," replied Ashwoode--"merely a fall such as I have had a thousand times after the hounds. It has made my head swim confoundedly; but I'll soon be steady. What, in the meantime, has become of honest Darby? If I mistake not, I see his horse browsing there by the roadside." A few steps showed them what seemed a bundle of clothes lying heaped upon the road; they approached it--it was the body of the servant. "Get up, Darby--get up, man," cried Ashwoode, at the same time pressing the prostrate figure with his boot. It had been lying with the back uppermost, and in a half-kneeling attitude; it now, however, rolled round, and disclosed, in the bright moonlight, the hideous aspect of the murdered man--the head a mere mass of ragged flesh and bone, shapeless and blackened, and hollow as a shell. Horror-struck at the sight, they turned in silence away, and having secured the two horses, they both mounted and rode together back to the little inn, where, having procured assistance, the body of the wretched servant was deposited. Young Ashwoode and O'Connor then parted, each on his respective way. CHAPTER X. THE MASTER OF MORLEY COURT AND THE LITTLE GENTLEMAN IN BOTTLE-GREEN--THE BARONET'S DAUGHTER--AND THE TWO CONSPIRATORS. Encounters such as those described in the last chapter were, it is needless to say, much more common a hundred and thirty years ago than they are now. In fact, it was unsafe alike in town and country to stir abroad after dark in any district affording wealth and aristocracy sufficient to tempt the enterprise of _professional_ gentlemen. If London and its environs, with all their protective advantages, were, nevertheless, so infested with desperadoes as to render its very streets and most frequented ways perilous to pass through during the hours of night, it is hardly to be wondered at that Dublin, the capital of a rebellious and semi-barbarous country--haunted by hungry adventurers, who had lost everything in the revolutionary wars--with a most notoriously ineffective police, and a rash and dissolute aristocracy, with a great deal more money and a great deal less caution than usually fall to the lot of our gentry of the present day--should have been pre-eminently the scene of midnight violence and adventure. The continued frequency of such occurrences had habituated men to think very lightly of them; and the feeble condition of the civil executive almost uniformly secured the impunity of the criminal. We shall not, therefore, weary the reader by inviting his attention to the formal investigation which was forthwith instituted; it is enough for all purposes to record that, like most other investigations of the kind at that period, it ended in--just nothing. Instead, then, of attending inquests and reading depositions, we must here request the gentle reader to accompany us for a brief space into the dressing-room of Sir Richard Ashwoode, where, upon the morning following the events which in our last we have detailed, the aristocratic invalid lay extended upon a well-cushioned sofa, arrayed in a flowered silk dressing-gown, lined with crimson, and with a velvet cap upon his head. He was apparently considerably beyond sixty--a slightly and rather an elegantly made man, with thin, anxious features, and a sallow complexion: his head rested upon his hand, and his eyes wandered with an air of discontented abstraction over the fair landscape which his window commanded. Before him was placed a small table, with all the appliances of an elegant breakfast; and two or three books and pamphlets were laid within reach of his hand. A little way from him sate his beautiful child, Mary Ashwoode, paler than usual, though not less lovely--for the past night had been to her one of fevered excitement, griefs, and fears. There she sate, with her work before her, and while her small hands plied their appointed task, her soft, dark eyes wandered often with sweet looks of affection toward the reclining form of that old haughty and selfish man, her father. The silence had continued long, for the old man's temper might not, perhaps, have brooked an interruption of his ruminations, although, if the sour and spited expression of his face might be trusted, his thoughts were not the most pleasant in the world. The train of reflection, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the entrance of a servant, bearing in his hand a note, with which he approached Sir Richard, but with that air of nervous caution with which one might be supposed to present a sandwich to a tiger. "Why the devil, sirrah, do you pound the floor so!" cried Sir Richard, turning shortly upon the man as he advanced, and speaking in sharp and bitter accents. "What's that you've got?--a note?--take it back, you blockhead--I'll not touch it--it's some rascally scrap of dunning paper--get out of my sight, sirrah." "An it please you, sir," replied the man, deferentially, "it comes from Lord Aspenly." "Eh! oh! ah!" exclaimed Sir Richard, raising himself upon the sofa, and extending his hand with alacrity. "Here, give it to me; so you may go, sir--but stay, does a messenger wait?--ask particularly from me how his lordship does, do you mind? and let the man have refreshment; go, sirrah, go--begone!" Sir Richard then took the note, broke the seal, and read the contents through, evidently with considerable satisfaction. Having completed the perusal of the note twice over, with a smile of unusual gratification, tinctured, perhaps, with the faintest possible admixture of ridicule, Sir Richard turned toward his daughter with more real cheerfulness than she had seen him exhibit for years before. "Mary, my good child," said he, "this note announces the arrival here, on to-morrow, of my old, or rather, my most _particular_ friend, Lord Aspenly; he will pass some days with us--days which we must all endeavour to make as agreeable to him as possible. You look--you _do_ look extremely well and pretty to-day; come here and kiss me, child." Overjoyed at this unwonted manifestation of affection, the girl cast her work away, and with a beating heart and light step, she ran to her father's side, threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him again and again, in happy unconsciousness of all that was passing in the mind of him she so fondly caressed. The door again opened, and the same servant once more presented himself. "What do you come to plague me about _now_?" inquired the master, sharply; recovering, in an instant, his usual peevish manner--"What's this you've got?--what _is_ it?" "A card, sir," replied the man, at the same time advancing the salver on which it lay within reach of the languid hand of his master. "Mr. Audley--Mr. Audley," repeated Sir Richard, as he read the card; "I never heard of the man before, in the course of my life; I know nothing about him--nothing--and care as little. Pray what is _he_ pestering about?--what does he want here?" "He requests permission to see you, sir," replied the man. "Tell him, with my compliments, to go to hell!" rejoined the invalid;--"Or, stay," he added, after a moment's pause--"what does he look like?--is he well or ill-dressed?--old or young?" "A middle-aged man, sir; rather well-dressed," answered the servant. "He did not mention his business?" asked Sir Richard. "No, sir," replied the man; "but he said that it was very important, and that you would be glad to see him." "Show him up, then," said Sir Richard, decisively. The servant accordingly bowed and departed. "A stranger!--a gentleman!--and come to me upon important and pleasant business," muttered the baronet, musingly--"important and pleasant!--Can my old, cross-grained brother-in-law have made a favourable disposition of his property, and--and--died!--that were, indeed, news worth hearing; too much luck to happen me, though--no, no, it can't be--it can't be." Nevertheless, he thought it _might_ be; and thus believing, he awaited the entrance of his visitor with extreme impatience. This suspense, however, was not of long duration; the door opened, and the servant announced Mr. Audley--a dapper little gentleman, in grave habiliments of bottle-green cloth; in person somewhat short and stout; and in countenance rather snub-featured and rubicund, but bearing an expression in which good-humour was largely blended with self-importance. This little person strutted briskly into the room. "Hem!--Sir Richard Ashwoode, I presume?" exclaimed the visitor, with a profound bow, which threatened to roll his little person up like an armadillo. Sir Richard returned the salute by a slight nod and a gracious wave of the hand. "You will excuse my not rising to receive you, Mr. Audley," said the baronet, "when I inform you that I am tied here by the gout; pray, sir, take a chair. Mary, remove your work to the room underneath, and lay the ebony wand within my reach; I will tap upon the floor when I want you." The girl accordingly glided from the room. "We are now alone, sir," continued Sir Richard, after a short pause. "I fear, sir--I know not why--that your business has relation to my brother; is he--is he _ill_?" "Faith, sir," replied the little man bluntly, "I never heard of the gentleman before in my life." "I breathe again, sir; you have relieved me extremely," said the baronet, swallowing his disappointment with a ghastly smile; "and now, sir, that you have thus considerately and expeditiously dispelled what were, thank heaven! my groundless alarms, may I ask you to what accident I am indebted for the singular good fortune of making your acquaintance--in short, sir, I would fain learn the object of your visit." "That you shall, sir--that you shall, in a trice," replied the little gentleman in green. "I'm a plain man, my dear Sir Richard, and love to come to the point at once--ahem! The story, to be sure, is a long one, but don't be afraid, I'll abridge it--I'll abridge it." He drew his watch from his fob, and laying it upon the table before him, he continued--"It now wants, my dear sir, precisely seven minutes of eleven, by London time; I shall limit myself to half-an-hour." "I fear, Mr. Audley, you should find me a very unsatisfactory listener to a narrative of half-an-hour's length," observed Sir Richard, drily; "in fact, I am not in a condition to make any such exertion; if you will obligingly condense what you have to say into a few minutes, you will confer a favour upon me, and lighten your own task considerably." Sir Richard then indignantly took a pinch of snuff, and muttered, almost audibly--"A vulgar, audacious, old boor." "Well, then, we must try--we must try, my dear sir," replied the little gentleman, wiping his face with his handkerchief, by way of preparation--"I'll just sum up the leading points, and leave particulars for a more favourable opportunity; in fact, I'll hold over _all_ details to our next merry meeting--our next _tête-à-tête_--when I hope we shall meet upon a pleasanter _footing_--your gouty toes, you know--d'ye take me? Ha! ha! excuse the joke--ha! ha! ha!" Sir Richard elevated his eyebrows, and looked upon the little gentleman with a gaze of stern and petrifying severity during this burst of merriment. "Well, my dear sir," continued Mr. Audley, again wiping his face, "to proceed to business. You have learned my name from my card, but beyond my name you know nothing about me." "_Nothing whatever_, sir," replied Sir Richard, with profound emphasis. "Just so; well, then, you _shall_," rejoined the little gentleman. "I have been a long time settled in France--I brought over every penny I had in the world there--in short, sir, something more than twelve thousand pounds. Well, sir, what did I do with it? There's the question. Your gay young fellows would have thrown it away at the gaming table, or squandered it on gold lace and velvets--or again, your prudent, plodding fellow would have lived quietly on the interest and left the principal to vegetate; but what did I do? Why, sir, not caring for idleness or show, I threw some of it into the wine trade, and with the rest I kept hammering at the funds, winning twice for every once I lost. In fact, sir, I prospered--the money rolled in, sir, and in due course I became rich, sir--rich--_warm_, as the phrase goes." "Very _warm_, indeed, sir," replied Sir Richard, observing that his visitor again wiped his face--"but allow me to ask, beyond the general interest which I may be presumed to feel in the prosperity of the whole human race, how on earth does all this concern _me_?" "Ay, ay, there's the question," replied the stranger, looking unutterably knowing--"that's the puzzle. But all in good time; you shall hear it in a twinkling. Now, being well to do in the world, you may ask me, why do not I look out for a wife? I answer you simply, that having escaped matrimony hitherto, I have no wish to be taken in the noose at these years; and now, before I go further, what do you take my age to be--how old do I look?" The little man squared himself, cocked his head on one side, and looked inquisitively at Sir Richard from the corner of his eye. The patience of the baronet was nigh giving way outright. "Sir," replied he, in no very gracious tones, "you may be the 'Wandering Jew,' for anything I either know or see to the contrary." "Ha! good," rejoined the little man, with imperturbable good humour, "I see, Sir Richard, you are a wag--the Wandering Jew--ha, ha! no--not _that_ quite. The fact is, sir, I am in my sixty-seventh year--you would not have thought that--eh?" Sir Richard made no reply whatever. "You'll acknowledge, sir, that _that_ is not exactly the age at which to talk of hearts and darts, and gay gold rings," continued the communicative gentleman in the bottle-green. "I know very well that no young woman, of her own free choice, could take a liking to _me_." "Quite impossible," with desperate emphasis, rejoined Sir Richard, upon whose ear the sentence grated unpleasantly; for Lord Aspenly's letter (in which "hearts and darts" were profusely noticed) lay before him on the table; "but once more, sir, may I implore of you to tell me the drift of all this?" "The drift of it--to be sure I will--in due time," replied Mr. Audley. "You see, then, sir, that having no family of my own, and not having any intention of taking a wife, I have resolved to leave my money to a fine young fellow, the son of an old friend; his name is O'Connor--Edmond O'Connor--a fine, handsome, young dog, and worthy to fill any place in all the world--a high-spirited, good-hearted, dashing young rascal--you know something of him, Sir Richard?" The baronet nodded a supercilious assent; his attention was now really enlisted. "Well, Sir Richard," continued the visitor, "I have wormed out of him--for I have a knack of my own of getting at people's secrets, no matter how close they keep them, d'ye see--that he is over head and ears in love with your daughter--I believe the young lady who just left the room on my arrival; and indeed, if such is the case, I commend the young scoundrel's taste; the lady is truly worthy of all admiration--and----" "Pray, sir, proceed as briefly as may be to the object of your conversation with me," interrupted Sir Richard, drily. "Well, then, to return--I understand, sir," continued Audley, "that you, suspecting something of the kind, and believing the young fellow to be penniless, very naturally, and, indeed, I may say, very prudently, and very sensibly, opposed yourself to the thing from the commencement, and obliged the sly young dog to discontinue his visits;--well, sir, matters stood so, until _I_--cunning little _I_--step in, and change the whole posture of affairs--and how? Marry, thus, I come hither and ask your daughter's hand for _him_, upon these terms following--that I undertake to convey to him, at once, lands to the value of one thousand pounds a year, and that at my death I will leave him, with the exception of a few small legacies, sole heir to all I have; and on his wedding-day give him and his lady their choice of either of two chateaux, the worst of them a worthy residence for a nobleman." "Are these chateaux in Spain?" inquired Sir Richard, sneeringly. "No, no, sir," replied the little man, with perfect guilelessness; "both in Flanders." "Well, sir," said Sir Richard Ashwoode, raising himself almost to a sitting posture, and preluding his observations with two unusually large pinches of snuff, "I have heard you very patiently throughout a statement, all of which was fatiguing, and much of which was positively disagreeable to me: and I trust that what I have now to say will render it wholly unnecessary for you and me ever again to converse upon the same topic. Of Mr. O'Connor, whom, in spite of this strange repetition of an already rejected application, I believe to be a spirited young man, I shall say nothing more than that, from the bottom of my heart I wish him every success of every kind, so long as he confines his aspirations to what is suitable to his own position in society; and, consequently, conducive to his own comfort and respectability. With respect to his very flattering vicarious proposal, I must assure you that I do not suspect Miss Ashwoode of any inclination to descend from the station to which her birth and fortune entitle her; and if I did suspect it, I should feel it to be my imperative duty to resist, by every means in my power, the indulgence of any such wayward caprice; but lest, after what I have said, any doubt should rest upon your mind as to the value of these obstacles, it may not be amiss to add that my daughter, Miss Ashwoode, is actually promised in marriage to a gentleman of exalted rank and great fortune, and who is, in all respects, an unexceptionable connection. I have the honour, sir, to wish you good-morning." "The devil!" exclaimed the little gentleman, as soon as his utter amazement allowed him to take breath. A long pause ensued, during which he twice inflated his cheeks to their utmost tension, and puffed the air forth with a prolonged whistle of desolate wonder. Recollecting himself, however, he hastily arose, wished Sir Richard good-day, and walked down stairs, and out of the house, all the way muttering, "God bless my body and soul--a thousand pounds a year--the devil--_can_ it be?--body o' me--refuse a thousand a year--what the deuce is he looking for?"--and such other ejaculations; stamping all the while emphatically upon every stair as he descended, to give vent to his indignation, as well as impressiveness to his remarks. Something like a smile for a moment lit up the withered features of the old baronet; he leaned back luxuriously upon his sofa, and while he listened with delighted attention to the stormy descent of his visitor, he administered to its proper receptacle, with prolonged relish, two several pinches of rappee. "So, so," murmured he, complacently, "I suspect I have seen the last of honest Mr. Audley--a little surprised and a little angry he does appear to be--dear me!--he stamps fearfully--what a very strange creature it is." Having made this reflection, Sir Richard continued to listen pleasantly until the sounds were lost in the distance; he then rang a small hand-bell which lay upon the table, and a servant entered. "Tell Mistress Mary," said the baronet, "that I shall not want her just now, and desire Mr. Henry to come hither instantly--begone, sirrah." The servant disappeared, and in a few moments young Ashwoode, looking unusually pale and haggard, and dressed in a morning suit, entered the chamber. Having saluted his father with the formality which the usages of the time prescribed, and having surveyed himself for a moment at the large mirror which stood in the room, and having adjusted thereat the tie of his lace cravat, he inquired,-- "Pray, sir, who was that piece of 'too, too solid flesh' that passed me scarce a minute since upon the stairs, pounding all the way with the emphasis of a battering ram? As far as I could judge, the thing had just been discharged from your room." "You have happened, for once in your life, to talk with relation to the subject to which I would call your attention," said Sir Richard. "The person whom you describe with your wonted facetiousness, has just been talking with me; his name is Audley; I never saw him till this morning, and he came coolly to make proposals, in young O'Connor's name, for your sister's hand, promising to settle some scurvy chateaux, heaven knows where, upon the happy pair." "Well, sir, and what followed?" asked the young man. "Why simply, sir," replied his father, "that I gave him the answer which sent him stamping down stairs, as you saw him. I laughed in his face, and desired him to go about his business." "Very good, indeed, sir," observed young Ashwoode. "There is no occasion for commentary, sir," continued Sir Richard. "Attend to what I have to say: a nobleman of large fortune has requested my permission to make his suit to your sister--_that_ I have, of course, granted; he will arrive here to-morrow, to make a stay of some days. I am resolved the thing _shall_ be concluded. I ought to mention that the nobleman in question is Lord Aspenly." The young man looked for a moment or two the very impersonation of astonishment, and then, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. "Either be silent, sir, or this moment quit the room," said Sir Richard, in a tone which few would have liked to disobey--"how dare you--you--you insolent, dependent coxcomb--how dare you, sir, treat me with this audacious disrespect?" The young man hastened to avert the storm, whose violence he had more than once bitterly felt, by a timely submission. "I assure you, sir, nothing was further from my intention than to offend you," said he--"I am fully alive--as a man of the world, I could not be otherwise--to the immense advantages of the connection; but Lord Aspenly I have known so long, and always looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor, that on hearing his name thus suddenly, something of incongruity, and--and--and I don't exactly know what--struck me so very forcibly, that I involuntarily and very thoughtlessly began to laugh. I assure you, sir, I regret it very much, if it has offended you." "You are a weak fool, sir, I am afraid," replied his father, shortly: "but that conviction has not come upon me by surprise; you _can_, however, be of some use in this matter, and I am determined you _shall_ be. Now, sir, mark me: I suspect that this young fellow--this O'Connor, is not so indifferent to Mary as he should be to a daughter of mine, and it is more than possible that he may endeavour to maintain his interest in her affections, imaginary or real, by writing letters, sending messages, and such manoeuvring. Now, you must call upon the young man, wherever he is to be found, and either procure from him a distinct pledge to the effect that he will think no more of her (the young fellow has a sense of honour, and I would rely upon his promise), or else you must have him out--in short, make him _fight_ you--you attend, sir--if _you_ get hurt, we can easily make the country too hot to hold him; and if, on the other hand, _you_ poke _him_ through the body, there's an end of the whole difficulty. This step, sir, you _must_ take--you understand me--I am very much in earnest." This was delivered with a cold deliberateness, which young Ashwoode well understood, when his father used it to imply a fixity of purpose, such as brooked no question, and halted at no obstacle. "Sir," replied Henry Ashwoode, after an embarrassed pause of a few minutes, "you are not aware of _one_ particular connected with last night's affray--you have heard that poor Darby, who rode with me, was actually brained, and that _I_ escaped a like fate by the interposition of one who, at his own personal risk, saved my life--that one was the very Edmond O'Connor of whom we speak." "What you allude to," observed Sir Richard, with very edifying coolness, "is, no doubt, very shocking and very horrible. I regret the destruction of the man, although I neither saw nor knew much about him; and for your eminently providential escape, I trust I am fully as thankful as I ought to be; and now, granting all you have said to be perfectly accurate--which I take it to be--what conclusion do you wish me to draw from it?" "Why, sir, without pretending to any very extraordinary proclivity to gratitude," replied the young man--"for O'Connor told me plainly that he did not expect any--I must consider what the world will say, if I return what it will be pleased to regard as an obligation, by challenging the person who conferred it." "Good, sir--good," said the baronet, calmly: and gazing upon the ceiling with elevated eyebrows and a bitter smile, he added, reflectively, "he's afraid--afraid--afraid--ay, afraid--afraid." "You wrong me very much, sir," rejoined young Ashwoode, "if you imagine that fear has anything to do with my reluctance to act as you would have me; and no less do you wrong me, if you think I would allow any school-boy sentimentalism to stand in the way of my family's interests. My _real_ objection to the thing is this--first, that I cannot see any satisfactory answer to the question, What will the world say of my conduct, in case I force a duel upon him the day after he has saved my life?--and again, I think it inevitably damages any young woman in the matrimonial market, to have low duels fought about her." Sir Richard screwed his eyebrows reflectively, and remained silent. "But at the same time, sir," continued his son, "I see as clearly as you could wish me to do, the importance, under present circumstances--or rather the absolute necessity--of putting a stop to O'Connor's suit; and, in short, to all communication between him and my sister, and I will undertake to do this effectually." "And how, sir, pray?" inquired the baronet. "I shall, as a matter of course, wait upon the young man," replied Henry Ashwoode--"his services of last night demand that I should do so. I will explain to him, in a friendly way, the hopelessness of his suit. I should not hesitate either to throw a little colouring of my own over the matter. If I can induce O'Connor once to regard me as his friend--and after all, it is but the part of a friend to put a stop to this foolish affair--I will stake my existence that the matter shall be broken off for ever and a day. If, however, the young fellow turn out foolish and pig-headed, I can easily pick a quarrel with him upon some other subject, and get him out of the way as you propose; but without mixing up my sister's name in the dispute, or giving occasion for gossip. However, I half suspect that it will require neither crafty stratagem nor shrewd blows to bring this absurd business to an end. I daresay the parties are beginning to tire heartily of waiting, and perhaps a little even of one another; and, for my part, I really do not know that the girl ever cared for him, or gave him the smallest encouragement." "But _I_ know that she _did_," replied Sir Richard. "Carey has shown me letters from her to him, and from him to her, not six months since. Carey is a very useful woman, and may do us important service. I did not choose to mention that I had seen these letters; but I sounded Mary somewhat sternly, and left her with a caution which I think must have produced a salutary effect--in short, I told her plainly, that if I had reason to suspect any correspondence or understanding between her and O'Connor, I should not scruple to resort to the sternest and most rigorous interposition of parental authority, to put an end to it peremptorily. I confess, however, that I have misgivings about this. I regard it as a very serious obstacle--one, however, which, so sure as I live, I will entirely annihilate." There was a pause for a little while, and Sir Richard continued,-- "There is a good deal of sense in what you have suggested. We will talk it over and arrange operations systematically this evening. I presume you intend calling upon the fellow to-day; it might not be amiss if you had him to dine with you once or twice in town: you must get up a kind of confidential acquaintance with him, a thing which you can easily terminate, as soon as its object is answered. He is, I believe, what they call a frank, honest sort of fellow, and is, of course, very easily led; and--and, in short--made a _fool_ of: as for the girl, I think I know something of the sex, and very few of them are so romantic as not to understand the value of a title and ten thousand a year! Depend upon it, in spite of all her sighs, and vapours, and romance, the girl will be dazzled so effectually before three weeks, as to be blind to every other object in the world; but if not, and should she dare to oppose my wishes, I'll make her cross-grained folly more terrible to her than she dreams of--but she knows me too well--she _dares_ not." Both parties remained silent and abstracted for a time, and then Sir Richard, turning sharply to his son, exclaimed, with his usual tart manner,-- "And now, sir, I must admit that I am a good deal tired of your very agreeable company. Go about your business, if you please, and be in this room this evening at half-past six o'clock. You had _better_ not forget to be punctual; and, for the present, get out of my sight." With this very affectionate leave-taking, Sir Richard put an end to the family consultation, and the young man, relieved of the presence of the only person on earth whom he really feared, gladly closed the door behind him. CHAPTER XI. THE OLD BEECH-TREE WALK AND THE IVY-GROWN GATEWAY--THE TRYSTE AND TUE CRUTCH-HANDLED CANE. In the snug old "Cock and Anchor," the morning after the exciting scenes in which O'Connor had taken so active a part, that gentleman was pacing the floor of his sitting-room in no small agitation. On the result of that interview, which he had resolved no longer to postpone, depended his happiness for years--it might be for life. Again and again he applied himself to the task of arranging clearly and concisely, and withal adroitly and with tact, the substance of what he had to say to Sir Richard Ashwoode. But, spite of all, his mind would wander to the pleasant hours he had passed with Mary Ashwoode in the quiet green wood and by the dark well's side, and through the moss-grown rocks, and by the chiming current of the wayward brook, long before the cold and worldly had suspected and repulsed that love which he knew could never die but when his heart had ceased to beat for ever. Again would he, banishing with a stoical effort these unbidden visions of memory, seek to accomplish the important task which he had proposed to himself; but still all in vain. There was she once more--there was the pale, pensive, lovely face--there the long, dark, silken tresses--there the deep, beautiful eyes--and there the smile--the artless, melancholy, enchanting smile. "It boots not trying," exclaimed O'Connor. "I cannot collect my thoughts; and yet what use in conning over the order and the words of what, after all, will be judged merely by its meaning? Perhaps it is better that I should yield myself wholly up to the impulse of the moment, and so speak but the more directly and the more boldly. No; even in such a cause I will not accommodate myself to his cramp and crooked habits of thought and feeling. If I let him know all, it matters little how he learns it." As O'Connor finished this sentence, his meditations were dispelled by certain sounds, which issued from the passage leading to his room. "A young man," exclaimed a voice, interrupted by a good deal of puffing and blowing, probably caused by the steep ascent, "and a good-looking, eh?--(puff)--dark eyes, eh?--(puff, puff)--black hair and straight nose, eh?--(puff, puff)--long-limbed, tall, eh?--(puff)." The answers to these interrogatories, whatever they may have been, were, where O'Connor stood, wholly inaudible; but the cross-examination was accompanied throughout by a stout, firm, stumping tread upon the old floor, which, along with the increasing clearness with which the noise made its way to O'Connor's door, sufficiently indicated that the speaker was approaching. The accents were familiar to him. He ran to his door, opened it; and in an instant Hugh Audley, Esquire, very hot and very much out of breath, pitched himself, with a good deal of precision, shoulders foremost, against the pit of the young man's stomach, and, embracing him a little above the hips, hugged him for some time in silence, swaying him to and fro with extraordinary energy, as if preparatory to tripping him up, and taking him off his feet altogether--then giving him a shove straight from him, and holding him at arm's length, he looked with brimful eyes, and a countenance beaming with delight, full in O'Connor's face. "Confound the dog, how well he looks," exclaimed the old gentleman, vehemently--"devilish well, curse him!" and he gave O'Connor a shove with his knuckles, and succeeded in staggering himself--"never saw you look better in my life, nor anyone else for that matter; and how is every inch of you, and what have you been doing with yourself? Come, you young dog, account for yourself." O'Connor had now, for the first time, an opportunity of bidding the kind old gentleman welcome, which he did to the full as cordially, if not so boisterously. "Let me sit down and rest myself: I must take breath for a minute," exclaimed the old gentleman. "Give me a chair, you undutiful rascal. What a devil of a staircase that is, to be sure. Well, and what do you intend doing with yourself to-day?" "To say the truth," said the young man, while a swarthier glow crossed his dark features. "I was just about to start for Morley Court, to see Sir Richard Ashwoode." "About his daughter, I take it?" inquired the old gentleman. "Just so, sir," replied the younger man. "Then you may spare yourself the pains," rejoined the old gentleman, briskly. "You are better at home. You have been forestalled." "What--how, sir? What do you mean?" asked O'Connor, in great perplexity and alarm. "Just what I say, my boy. You have been forestalled." "By whom, sir?" "By me." "By you?" "Ay." The old gentleman screwed his brows and pursed up his mouth until it became a Gordian involution of knots and wrinkles, threw a fierce and determined expression into his eyes, and wagged his head slightly from side to side--looking altogether very like a "Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood." At length he said,-- "I'm an old fellow, and ought to know something by this time--think I _do_, for that matter; and I say deliberately--cut the whole concern and blow them all." Having thus delivered himself, the old gentleman resumed his sternest expression of countenance, and continued in silence to wag his head from time to time with an air of infinite defiance, leaving his young companion, if possible, more perplexed and bewildered than ever. "And have you, then, seen Sir Richard Ashwoode?" inquired O'Connor. "Have I seen him?" rejoined the old gentleman. "To be sure I have. The moment the boat touched the quay, and I fairly felt _terra firma_, I drove to the 'Fox in Breeches,' and donned a handsome suit"--(here the gentleman glanced cursorily at his bottle-green habiliments)--"I ordered a hack-coach--got safely to Morley Court--saw Sir Richard, laid up with the gout, looking just like an old, dried-up, cross-grained monkey. There was, of course, a long explanation, and all that sort of thing--a good deal of tact and diplomacy on my side, doubling about, neat fencing, and circumbendibus; but all would not do--an infernal _smash_. Sir Richard was all but downright uncivil--would not hear of it--said plump and plain he would never consent. The fact is, he's a sour, hard, insolent old scoundrel, and a bitter pill; and I congratulate you heartily on having escaped all connection with him and his. Don't look so down in the mouth about the matter; there's as good fish in the sea as ever was caught; and if the young woman is half such a shrew as her father is a tartar, you have had an escape to be thankful for the longest day you live." We shall not attempt to describe the feelings with which O'Connor received this somewhat eccentric communication. He folded his arms upon the table, and for many minutes leaned his head upon them, without motion, and without uttering one word. At length he said,-- "After all, I ought to have expected this. Sir Richard is a bigoted man in his own faith--an ambitious and a worldly man, too. It was folly, mere folly, knowing all this, to look for any other answer from him. He may indeed delay our union for a little, but he cannot bar it--he _shall_ not bar it. I could more easily doubt myself than Mary's constancy; and if she be but firm and true--and she is all loyalty and all truth--the world cannot part us two. Our separation cannot outlast his life; nor shall it last so long. I will overcome her scruples, combat all her doubts, satisfy her reason. She will consent--she will be mine--my own--through life and until death. No hand shall sunder us for ever,"--he turned to the old man, and grasped his hand--"My dear, kind, true friend, how can I ever thank you for all your generous acts of kindness. I cannot." "Never mind, never mind, my dear boy," said the old gentleman, blubbering in spite of himself--"never mind--what a d----d old fool I am, to be sure. Come, come, you, shall take a turn with me towards the country, and get an appetite for dinner. You'll be as well as ever in half an hour. When all's done, you stand no worse than you did yesterday; and if the girl's a good girl, as I make no doubt she is, why, you are sure of her constancy--and the devil himself shall not part you. Confound me if I don't run away with the girl for you myself if you make a pother about the matter. Come along, you dog--come along, I say." "Nay, sir," replied O'Connor, "forgive me. I am keenly pained. I am agitated--confounded at the suddenness of this--this dreadful blow. I will go alone, pardon me, my kind and dear friend, I must go _alone_. I may chance to see the lady. I am sure she will not fail me--she will meet me. Oh! heart and brain, be still--be steady--I need your best counsels now. Farewell, sir--for a little time, farewell." "Well, be it so--since so it _must_ be," said Mr. Audley, who did not care to combat a resolution, announced with all the wild energy of despairing passion, "by all means, my dear boy, _alone_ it shall be, though I scarce think you would be the worse of a staid old fellow's company in your ramble--but no matter, boys will be boys while the world goes round." The conclusion of this sentence was a soliloquy, for O'Connor had already descended to the inn yard, where he procured a horse, and was soon, with troubled mind and swelling heart, making rapid way toward Morley Court. It was now the afternoon--the sun had made nearly half his downward course--the air was soft and fresh, and the birds sang sweetly in the dark nooks and bowers of the tall trees: it seemed almost as if summer had turned like a departing beauty, with one last look of loveliness to gladden the scene which she was regretfully leaving. So sweet and still the air--so full and mellow the thrilling chorus of merry birds among the rustling leaves, flitting from bough to bough in the clear and lofty shadow--so cloudless the golden flood of sunlight. Such was the day--so gladsome the sounds--so serene the aspect of all nature--as O'Connor, dismounting under the shadow of a tall, straggling hawthorn hedge, and knotting the bridle in one of its twisted branches, crossed a low stile, and thus entered the grounds of Morley Court. He threaded a winding path which led through a neglected wood of thorn and oak, and found himself after a few minutes in the spot he sought. The old beech walk had been once the main avenue to the house. Huge beech-trees flung their mighty boughs high in air across its long perspective--and bright as was the day, the long lane lay in shadow deep and solemn as that of some old Gothic aisle. Down this dim vista did O'Connor pace with hurried steps toward the spot where, about midway in its length, there stood the half-ruined piers and low walls of what had once been a gateway. "Can it be that she shrinks from this meeting?" thought O'Connor, as his eye in vain sought the wished-for form of Mary Ashwoode, "will she disappoint me?--surely she who has walked with me so many lonely hours in guileless trust need not have feared to meet me here. It was not generous to deny me this boon--to her so easy--to me so rich--yet perchance she judges wisely. What boots it that I should see her? Why see again that matchless beauty--that touching smile--those eyes that looked so fondly on me? Why see her more--since mayhap we shall never meet again? She means it kindly. Her nature is all nobleness--all generosity; and yet--and yet to see her no more--to hear her voice no more--have we--have we then parted at last for ever? But no--by heavens--'tis she--Mary!" It was indeed Mary Ashwoode, blushing and beautiful as ever. In an instant O'Connor stood by her side. "My own--my true-hearted Mary." "Oh! Edmond," said she, after a brief silence, "I fear I have done wrong--have I?--in meeting you thus. I ought not--indeed I know I ought not to have come." "Nay, Mary, do not speak thus. Dear Mary, have we not been companions in many a pleasant ramble: in those times--the times, Mary, that will never come again? Why, then, should you deny me a few minutes' mournful converse, where in other days we two have passed so many pleasant hours?" There was in the tone in which he spoke something so unutterably melancholy--and in the recollections which his few simple words called crowding to her mind, something at once so touching, so dearly cherished, and so bitterly regretted--that the tears gathered in her full dark eyes, and fell one by one fast and unheeded. "You do not grieve, then, Mary," said he, "that you have come here--that we have met once more: do you, Mary?" "No, no, Edmond--no, indeed," answered she, sobbing. "God knows I do not, Edmond--no, no." "Well, Mary," said he, "I am happy in the belief that you feel toward me just as you used to do--as happy as one so wretched can hope to be." "Edmond, your words affright me," said she, fixing her eyes full upon him with imploring earnestness: "you look sadder--paler than you did yesterday; something has happened since then. What--what is it, Edmond? tell me--ah, tell me!" "Yes, Mary, much has happened," answered he, taking her hand between both of his, and meeting her gaze with a look of passionate sorrow and tenderness--"yes, Mary, without my knowledge, the friend of whom I told you had arrived, and this morning saw your father, told him _all_, and was repulsed with sternness--almost with insult. Sir Richard has resolved that it shall never be; there is no more hope of bending him--none--none--none." While O'Connor spoke, the colour in Mary's cheeks came and fled in turn with quick alternations, in answer to every throb and flutter of the poor heart within. "See him--speak to him--yourself, Edmond, yourself. Oh! do not despair--see him--speak to him," she almost whispered, for agitation had well-nigh deprived her of voice--"see him, Edmond--yourself--for God's sake, dear Edmond--yourself--yourself"--and she grasped his arm in her tiny hand, and gazed in his pale face with such a look of agonized entreaty as cut him to the very heart. "Yes, Mary, if it seems good to you, I will speak to him myself," said O'Connor, with deep melancholy. "I will, Mary, though my own heart--my reason--tells me it is all--all utterly in vain; but, Mary," continued he, suddenly changing his tone to one of more alacrity, "if he should still reject me--if he shall forbid our ever meeting more--if he shall declare himself unalterably resolved against our union--Mary, in such a case, would you, too, tell me to see you no more--would you, too, tell me to depart without hope, and never come again? or would you, Mary--could you--dare you--dear, dear Mary, for once--once only--disobey your stern and haughty father--dare you trust yourself with me--fly with me to France, and be at last, and after all, my own--my bride?" "No, Edmond," said she, solemnly and sadly, while her eyes again filled with tears; and though she trembled like the leaf on the tree, yet he knew by the sound of her sad voice that her purpose could not alter--"that can never be--never, Edmond--no--no." "Then, Mary, can it be," he answered, with an accent so desolate that despair itself seemed breathing in its tone--"can it be, after all--all we have passed and proved--all our love and constancy, and all our bright hopes, so long and fondly cherished--cherished in the midst of grief and difficulty--when we had no other stay but hope alone--are we, after all--at last, to part for ever?--is it, indeed, Mary, all--all over?" As the two lovers stood thus in deep and melancholy converse by the ivy-grown and ruined gateway, beneath the airy shadow of the old beech-trees, they were recalled to other thoughts by the hurried patter of footsteps, and the rustling of the branches among the underwood which skirted the avenue. As fortune willed it, however, the intruder was no other than the honest dog, Rover, Mary's companion in many a silent and melancholy ramble; he came sniffing and bounding with boisterous greeting to hail his young mistress and her companion. The interruption, harmless as it was, startled Mary Ashwoode. "Were my father to find us here, Edmond," said she, "it were fatal to all our hopes. You know his temper well. Let us then part here. Follow the by-path leading to the house. Go and see him--speak with him for my sake--for my sake, Edmond--and so--and so--farewell." "And farewell, Mary, since it must be," said O'Connor, with a bitter struggle. "Farewell, but only for a time--only for a little time, Mary; and whatever befalls, remember--remember me. Farewell, Mary." As he thus spoke, he raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it for the first time, it might be for the last, in his life. For a moment he stood, and gazed with sad devotion upon the loved face. Then, with an effort, he turned abruptly away, and strode rapidly in the direction she had indicated; and when he turned to look again, she was gone. O'Connor followed the narrow path, which, diverging a little from the broad grass lane, led with many a wayward turn among the tall trees toward the house. As he thus pursued his way, a few moments of reflection satisfied him of the desperate nature of the enterprise which he had undertaken. But if lovers are often upon unreal grounds desponding, it is likewise true that they are sometimes sanguine when others would despair; and, spite of all his misgivings--of all the irresistible conclusions of stern reason--hope still beckoned him on. Thus agitated, he pursued his way, until, on turning an abrupt angle, he beheld, scarcely more than a dozen paces in advance, and moving slowly toward him in the shadowy pathway, a figure, at sight of which, thus suddenly presented, he recoiled, and stood for a moment fixed as a statue. He had encountered the object of his search. The form was that of Sir Richard Ashwoode himself, who, wrapped in his scarlet roquelaure, and leaning upon the shoulder of his Italian valet, while he limped forward slowly and painfully, appeared full before him. "So, so, so, so," repeated the baronet, at first with unaffected astonishment, which speedily, however, deepened into intense but constrained anger--his dark, prominent eyes peering fiercely upon the young man, while, stooping forward, and clutching his crutch-handled cane hard in his lean fingers, he limped first one and then another step nearer. "Mr. O'Connor! or my eyes deceive me." "Yes, Sir Richard," replied O'Connor, with a haughty bow, and advancing a little toward him in turn. "I am that Edmond O'Connor whom you once knew well, and whom it would seem you still know. I ought, doubtless----" "Nay, sir, no flowers of rhetoric, if you please," interrupted Sir Richard, bitterly--"no fustian speeches--to the point--to the point, sir. If you have ought to say to me, deliver it in six words. Your business, sir. Be brief." "I will not indeed waste words, Sir Richard Ashwoode," replied O'Connor, firmly. "There is but one subject on which I would seek a conference with you, and that subject you well may guess." "I _do_ guess it," retorted Sir Richard. "You would renew an absurd proposal--one opened three years since, and repeated this morning by the old booby, your elected spokesman. To that proposal I have ever given one answer--no. I have not changed my mind, nor ever shall. Am I understood, sir? And least of all should I think of changing my purpose now," continued he, more pointedly, as a suspicion crossed his mind--"_now_, sir, that you have forfeited by your own act whatever regard you once seemed to me to merit. You did not seek _me_ here, sir. I'm not to be fooled, sir. You did not seek me--don't assert it. I understand your purpose. You came here clandestinely to tamper like a schemer with my child. Yes, sir, a schemer!" repeated Sir Richard, with bitter emphasis, while his sharp sallow features grew sharper and more sallow still; and he struck the point of his cane at every emphatic word deep into the sod--"a mean, interested, cowardly schemer. How dare you steal into my place, you thrice-rejected, dishonourable, spiritless adventurer?" The blood rushed to O'Connor's brow as the old man uttered this insulting invective. The fiery impulse which under other circumstances would have been uncontrollable, was, however, speedily, though with difficulty, mastered; and O'Connor replied bitterly,-- "You are an old man, Sir Richard, and _her_ father--you are safe, sir. How much of chivalry or courage is shown in heaping insult upon one who _will_ not retort upon you, judge for yourself. Alter what has passed, I feel that I were, indeed, the vile thing you have described, if I were again to subject myself to your unprovoked insolence: be assured, I shall never place foot of mine within your boundaries again: relieve yourself, sir, of all fears upon that score; and for your language, you know you can appreciate the respect that makes me leave you thus unanswered and unpunished." So saying, he turned, and with long and rapid strides retraced his steps, his heart swelling with a thousand struggling emotions. Scarce knowing what he did, O'Connor rode rapidly to the "Cock and Anchor," and too much stunned and confounded by the scenes in which he had just borne a part to exchange a word with Mr. Audley, whom he found still established in his chamber, he threw himself dejectedly into a chair, and sank into gloomy and obstinate abstraction. The good-natured old gentleman did not care to interrupt his young friend's ruminations, and hours might have passed away and found them still undisturbed, were it not that the door was suddenly thrown open, and the waiter announced Mr. Ashwoode. There was a spell in the name which instantly recalled O'Connor to the scene before him. Had a viper sprung up at his feet, he could not have recoiled with a stronger antipathy. With a mixture of feelings scarcely tolerable, he awaited his arrival, and after a moment or two of suspense, Henry Ashwoode entered the room. Mr. Audley, having heard the name, scowled fearfully from the centre of the room upon the young gentleman as he entered, stuffed his hands half-way to the elbows in his breeches pockets, and turning briskly upon his heel, marched emphatically to the window, and gazed out into the inn yard with remarkable perseverance. The obvious coldness with which he was received did not embarrass young Ashwoode in the least. With perfect ease and a graceful frankness of demeanour, he advanced to O'Connor, and after a greeting of extraordinary warmth, inquired how he had gotten home, and whether he had suffered since any inconvenience from the fall which he had. He then went on to renew his protestations of gratitude for O'Connor's services, with so much ardour and apparent heartiness, that spite of his prejudices, the old man was moved in his favour; and when Ashwoode expressed in a low voice to O'Connor his wish to be introduced to his friend, honest Mr. Audley felt his heart quite softened, and instead of merely bowing to him, absolutely shook him by the hand. The young man then, spite of O'Connor's evident reluctance, proceeded to relate to his new acquaintance the details of the adventures of the preceding night, in doing which, he took occasion to dwell, in the most glowing terms, upon his obligations to O'Connor. After sitting with them for nearly half an hour, young Ashwoode took his leave in the most affectionate manner possible, and withdrew. "Well, that _is_ a good-looking young fellow, and a warm-hearted," exclaimed the old gentleman, as soon as the visitor had disappeared--"what a pity he should be cursed with such a confounded old father." CHAPTER XII. THE APPOINTED HOUR--THE SCHEMERS AND THE PLOT. "And here comes my dear brother," exclaimed Mary Ashwoode, joyously, as she ran to welcome the young man, now entering her father's room, in which, for more than an hour previously, she had been sitting. Throwing her arm round his neck, and looking sweetly in his face, she continued--"You _will_ stay with us this evening, dear Harry--do, for my sake--you won't refuse--it is so long since we have had you;" and though she spoke with a gay look and a gladsome voice, a sense of real solitariness called a tear to her dark eye. "No, Mary--not this evening," said the young man coldly; "I must be in town again to-night, and before I go must have some conversation upon business with my father, so that I may not see you again till morning." "But, dear Henry," said she, still clinging affectionately to his arm, "you have been in such danger, and I knew nothing of it until after you went out this morning: are you quite well, Henry?--you were not hurt--were you?" "No, no--nothing--nothing--I never was better," said he, impatiently. "Well, brother--_dear_ brother," she continued imploringly, "come early home to-night--do not be upon the road late--won't you promise?" "There, there, there," said he rudely, "run away--take your work, or your book, or whatever it may be, down stairs; your father wants to speak with me alone," and so saying, he turned pettishly from her. His habitual coldness and carelessness of manner had never before seemed so ungracious. The poor girl felt her heart swell within her, as though it would burst. She had never felt so keenly that in all this world there lived but one being upon whose love she might rely, and he separated, it might be for ever, from her: she gathered up her work, and ran quickly from the room, to hide the tears which she could not restrain. Young Ashwoode was to the full as worldly and as unprincipled a man as was his father; and whatever reluctance he may have felt as to adopting Sir Richard's plans respecting O'Connor, the reader would grievously wrong him in attributing his unwillingness to any visitings of gratitude, or, indeed, to any other feeling than that which he had himself avowed. A few hours' reflection had satisfied the young man of the transcendent importance of securing Lord Aspenly; and by a corresponding induction he had arrived at the conclusion to which his father had already come--namely, that it was imperatively necessary by all means to put an end effectually to his sister's correspondence with O'Connor. To effect this object both were equally resolved; and with respect to the means to be employed both were equally unscrupulous. With Henry Ashwoode courage was constitutional, and art habitual. If, therefore, either duplicity or daring could ensure success, he felt that he must triumph; and, at all events, he was sufficiently impressed with the importance of the object, to resolve to leave nothing untried for its achievement. "You _are_ punctual, sir," said Sir Richard, glancing at his richly-chased watch; "sit down; I have considered your suggestions of this morning, and I am inclined to adopt them; it is most probable that Mary, like the rest of her sex, will be taken by the splendour of the proposal--fascinated--in short, as I said this morning--dazzled. Now, whether she be or not--observe me, it shall be our object to make O'Connor believe that she _is_ so. You will have his ear, and through her maid, Carey, I can manage their correspondence; not a letter from either can reach the other, without first meeting my eye. I am very certain that the young fellow will lose no time in writing to her some more of those passionate epistles, of which, as I told you, I have seen a sample. I shall take care to have their letters _re_-written for the future, before they come to hand; and it shall go hard, or between us we shall manage to give each a very moderate opinion of the other's constancy; thus the affair will--or rather must--die a natural death--after all, the most effectual kind of mortality in such cases." "I called to-day upon the fellow," said the young man. "I made him out, and without approaching the point of nearest interest, I have, nevertheless, opened operations successfully--so far as a most auspicious re-commencement of our acquaintance may be so accounted." "And, stranger still to say," rejoined the baronet, "I also encountered him to-day; but only for some dozen seconds." "How!--saw O'Connor!" exclaimed young Ashwoode. "Yes, sir, O'Connor--Edmond O'Connor," repeated Sir Richard. "He was coolly walking up to the house to see me, as it would seem; and I do believe the fellow speaks truth--he _did_ see me, and that is all. I fancy he will scarcely come here again uninvited; he said so pretty plainly, and I believe the fellow has spirit enough to feel an affront." "He did not see Mary?" inquired Henry. "I did not ask him, and don't choose to ask her; I don't mean to allude to the subject in her presence," replied Sir Richard, quickly. "I think--indeed I _know_--I can mar their plans better by appearing never once to apprehend anything from O'Connor's pretensions. I have reasons, too, for not wishing to deal harshly with Mary _at present_; we must have no _scenes_, if possible. Were I to appear suspicious and uneasy, it would put them on their guard. And now, upon the other point, did you speak to Craven about the possibility of raising ten thousand pounds on the Glenvarlogh property?" "He says it can be done very easily, if Mary joins you," replied the young man; "but I have been thinking that if you ask her to sign any deed, it might as well be one assigning over her interest absolutely to you. Aspenly does not want a penny with her--in fact, from what fell from him to-day, when I met him in town, I'm inclined to think he believes that she has not a penny in the world; so she may as well make it over to you, and then we can turn it all into money when and how we please. I desired Craven to work night and day at the deeds, and have them over by ten o'clock to-morrow morning." "You did quite rightly," rejoined the old gentleman. "I hardly expect any opposition from the girl--at least no more than I can easily frighten her out of. Should she prove sulky, however, I do not well know where to turn: as to asking my brother Oliver, I might as well, or _better_, ask a Jew broker; he hates me and mine with his whole heart; and to say the truth, there is not much love lost between us. No, no, there's nothing to be looked for in that quarter. I daresay we'll manage one way or another--lead or drive to get Mary to sign the deed, and if so, the ship rights again. Craven comes, you say, at ten to-morrow?" "He engaged to be here at that hour with the deeds," repeated the young man. "Well," said his father, yawning, "you have nothing more to say, nor I neither--oblige me by withdrawing." So parted these congenial relations. The past day had been an agitating one to Mary Ashwoode. Still suspense was to be her doom, and the same alternations of hope and of despair were again to rob her pillow of repose; yet even thus, happy was she in comparison with what she must have been, had she but known the schemes of which she was the unconscious subject. At this juncture we shall leave the actors in this true tale, and conclude the chapter with the close of day. CHAPTER XIII. THE INTERVIEW--THE PARCHMENT--AND THE NOBLEMAN'S COACH. Sir Richard Ashwoode had never in the whole course of his life denied himself the indulgence of any passion or of any whim. From his childhood upward he had never considered the feelings or comforts of any living being but himself alone. As he advanced in life, this selfishness had improved to a degree of hardness and coldness so intense, that if ever he had felt a kindly impulse at any moment in his existence, the very remembrance of it had entirely faded from his mind: so that generosity, compassion, and natural affection were to him not only unknown, but incredible. To him mankind seemed all either fools, or such as he himself was. Without one particle of principle of any kind, he had uniformly maintained in the world the character of an honourable man. The ordinary rules of honesty and morality he regarded as so many conventional sentiments, to which every gentleman subscribed, as a matter of course, in public, but which in private he had an unquestionable right to dispense with at his own convenience. He was imperious, fiery, and unforgiving to the uttermost; but when he conceived it advantageous to do so, he could practise as well as any man the convenient art of masking malignity, hatred, and inveteracy behind the pleasantest of all pleasant smiles. Capable of any secret meanness for the sake of the smallest advantage to be gained by it, he was yet full of fierce and overbearing pride; and although this world was all in all to him, yet there never breathed a man who could on the slightest provocation risk his life in mortal combat with more alacrity and absolute _sang froid_ than Sir Richard Ashwoode. In his habits he was unboundedly luxurious--in his expenditure prodigal to recklessness. His own and his son's extravagance, which he had indulged from a kind of pride, was now, however, beginning to make itself sorely felt in formidable and rapidly accumulating pecuniary embarrassments. These had served to embitter and exasperate a temper which at the best had never been a very sweet one, and of whose ordinary pitch the reader may form an estimate, when he hears that in the short glimpses which he has had of Sir Richard, the baronet happened to be, owing to the circumstances with which we have acquainted him, in extraordinarily good humour. Sir Richard had not married young; and when he did marry it was to pay his debts. The lady of his choice was beautiful, accomplished, and an heiress; and, won by his agreeability, and by his well-assumed devotedness and passion, she yielded to the pressure of his suit. They were married, and she gave birth successively to a son and a daughter. Sir Richard's temper, as we have hinted, was not very placid, nor his habits very domestic; nevertheless, the world thought the match (putting his money difficulties out of the question) a very suitable and a very desirable one, and took it for granted that the gay baronet and his lady were just as happy as a fashionable man and wife ought to be--and perhaps they were so; but, for all that, it happened that at the end of some four years the young wife died of a broken heart. Some strange scenes, it is said, followed between Sir Richard and the brother of the deceased lady, Oliver French. It is believed that this gentleman suspected the cause of Lady Ashwoode's death--at all events he had ascertained that she had not been kindly used, and after one or two interviews with the baronet, in which bitter words were exchanged, the matter ended in a fierce and bloodily contested duel, in which the baronet received three desperate wounds. His recovery was long doubtful; but life burns strongly in some breasts; and, contrary to the desponding predictions of his surgeons, the valuable life of Sir Richard Ashwoode was prolonged to his family and friends. Since then, Sir Richard had by different agencies sought to bring about a reconciliation with his brother-in-law, but without the smallest success. Oliver French was a bachelor, and a very wealthy one. Moreover, he had it in his power to dispose of his lands and money just as he pleased. These circumstances had strongly impressed Sir Richard with a conviction that quarrels among relations are not only unseemly, but un-Christian. He was never in a more forgiving and forgetting mood. He was willing even to make concessions--anything that could be reasonably asked of him, and even more, he was ready to do--but all in vain. Oliver was obdurate. He knew his man well. He saw and appreciated the baronet's motives, and hated and despised him ten thousand times more than ever. Repulsed in his first attempt, Sir Richard resolved to give his adversary time to cool a little; and accordingly, after a lapse of twelve or fourteen years, his son Henry being then a handsome lad, he wrote to his brother-in-law a very long and touching epistle, in which he proposed to send his son down to Ardgillagh, the place where the alienated relative resided, with a portrait of his deceased lady, which, of course, with no object less sacred, and to no relative less near and respected, could he have induced himself to part. This, too, was a total failure. Oliver French, Esquire, wrote back a very succinct epistle, but one very full of unpleasant meaning. He said that the portrait would be odious to him, inasmuch as it would be necessarily associated in his mind with a marriage which had killed his sister, and with persons whom he abhorred--that therefore he would not allow it into his house. He stated, that to the motives which prompted his attention he was wide awake--that he was, however, perfectly determined that no person bearing the name or the blood of Sir Richard Ashwoode should ever have one penny of his; adding, that the baronet could leave his son, Mr. Henry Ashwoode, quite enough for a gentleman to live upon respectably; and that, at all events, in his father's virtues the young gentleman would inherit a legacy such as would insure him universal respect, and a general welcome wherever he might happen to go, excepting only one locality, called Ardgillagh. With the failure of this last attempt, of course, disappeared every hope of success with the rich old bachelor; and the forgiving baronet was forced to content himself, in the absence of all more substantial rewards, with the consciousness of having done what was, under all the circumstances, the most Christian thing he could have done, as well as played the most knowing game, though unsuccessful, which he could have played. Sir Richard Ashwoode limped downstairs to receive his intended son-in-law, Lord Aspenly, on the day following the events which we have detailed in our last and the preceding chapters. That nobleman had intimated his intention to be with Sir Richard about noon. It was now little more than ten, and the baronet was, nevertheless, restless and fidgety. The room he occupied was a large parlour, commanding a view of the approach to the house. Again and again he consulted his watch, and as often hobbled over, as well as he could, to the window, where he gazed in evident discontent down the long, straight avenue, with its double row of fine old giant lime-trees. "Nearly half-past ten," muttered Sir Richard, to himself, for at his desire he had been left absolutely alone--"ay, fully half-past, and the fellow not come yet. No less than, two notes since eight this morning, both of them with gratuitous mendacity renewing the appointment for ten o'clock; and ten o'clock comes and goes, and half-an-hour more along with it, and still no sign of Mr. Craven. If I had fixed ten o'clock to pay his accursed, unconscionable bill of costs, he'd have been prowling about the grounds from sunrise, and pounced upon me before the last stroke of the clock had sounded." While thus the baronet was engaged in muttering his discontent, and venting secret imprecations on the whole race of attorneys, a vehicle rolled up to the hall-door. The bell pealed, and the knocker thundered, and in a moment a servant entered, and announced Mr. Craven--a square-built man of low stature, wearing his own long, grizzled hair instead of a wig--having a florid complexion, hooked nose, beetle brows, and long-cut, Jewish, black eyes, set close under the bridge of his nose--who stepped with a velvet tread into the room. An unvarying smile sate upon his thin lips, and about his whole air and manner there was a certain indescribable sanctimoniousness, which was rather enhanced by the puritanical plainness of his attire. "Sir Richard, I beg pardon--rather late, I fear," said he, in a dulcet, insinuating tone--"hard work, nevertheless, I do assure you--ninety-seven skins--splendidly engrossed--quite a treat--five of my young men up all night--I have got one of them outside to witness it along with me. Some reading in the thing, I promise you; but I hope--I _do_ hope, I am not very late?" "Not at all--not at all, my dear Mr. Craven," said Sir Richard, with his most engaging smile; for, as we have hinted, "dear Mr. Craven" had not made the science of conveyancing peculiarly cheap in practice to the baronet, who accordingly owed him more costs than it would have been quite convenient to pay upon a short notice--"I'll just, with your assistance, glance through these parchments, though to do so be but a matter of form. Pray take a chair beside me--there. Now then to business." Accordingly to business they went. Practice, they say, makes perfect, and the baronet had had, unfortunately for himself, a great deal of it in such matters during the course of his life. He knew how to read a deed as well as the most experienced counsel at the Irish bar, and was able consequently to detect with wonderfully little rummaging and fumbling in the ninety-seven skins of closely written verbiage, the seven lines of sense which they enveloped. Little more than half-an-hour had therefore satisfied Sir Richard that the mass of parchment before him, after reciting with very considerable accuracy the deeds and process by which the lands of Glenvarlogh were settled upon his daughter, went on to state that for and in consideration of the sum of five shillings, good and lawful money, she, being past the age of twenty-one, in every possible phrase and by every word which tautology could accumulate, handed over the said lands, absolutely to her father, Sir Richard Ashwoode, Bart., of Morley Court, in the county of Dublin, to have, and to hold, and to make ducks and drakes of, to the end of time, constantly affirming at the end of every sentence that she was led to do all this for and in consideration of the sum of five shillings, good and lawful money. As soon as Sir Richard had seen all this, which was, as we have said, in little more than half-an-hour, he pulled the bell, and courteously informing Mr. Craven, the immortal author of the interesting document which he had just perused, that he would find chocolate and other refreshments in the library, and intimating that he would perhaps disturb him in about ten minutes, he consigned that gentleman to the guidance of the servant, whom he also directed to summon Miss Ashwoode to his presence. "Her signing this deed," thought he, as he awaited her arrival, "will make her absolutely dependent upon me--it will make rebellion, resistance, murmuring, impossible; she then _must_ do as I would have her, or--Ah? my dear child," exclaimed the baronet, as his daughter entered the room, addressing her in the sweetest imaginable voice, and instantaneously dismissing the sinister menace which had sat upon his countenance, and clothing it instead as suddenly with an absolute radiance of affection, "come here and kiss me and sit down by my side--are you well to-day? you look pale--you smile--well, well! it cannot be anything _very_ bad. You shall run out just now with Emily. But first, I must talk with you for a little, and, strange enough, on business too." The old gentleman paused for an instant to arrange the order of his address, and then continued. "Mary, I will tell you frankly more of my affairs than I have told to almost any person breathing. In my early days, and indeed _after_ my marriage, I was far, _far_ too careless in money matters. I involved myself considerably, and owing to various circumstances, tiresome now to dwell upon, I have never been able to extricate myself from these difficulties. Henry too, your brother, is fearfully prodigal--fearfully; and has within the last three or four years enormously aggravated my embarrassments, and of course multiplied my anxieties most grievously, most distractingly. I feel that my spirits are gone, my health declining, and, worse than all, my temper, yes--my _temper_ soured. You do not know, you cannot know, how bitterly I feel, with what intense pain, and sorrow, and contrition, and--and _remorse_, I reflect upon those bursts of ill-temper, of acrimony, of passion, to which, spite of every resistance, I am becoming every day more and more prone." Here the baronet paused to call up a look of compunctious anguish, an effort in which he was considerably assisted by an acute twinge in his great toe. "Yes," he continued, when the pain had subsided, "I am now growing old, I am breaking very fast, sinking, I feel it--I cannot be very long a trouble to anybody--embarrassments are closing around me on all sides--I have not the means of extricating myself--despondency, despair have come upon me, and with them loss of spirits, loss of health, of strength, of everything which makes life a blessing; and, all these privations rendered more horrible, more agonizing, by the reflection that my ill-humour, my peevish temper, are continually taxing the patience, wounding the feelings, perhaps alienating the affections of those who are nearest and dearest to me." Here the baronet became _very_ much affected; but, lest his agitation should be seen, he turned his head away, while he grasped his daughter's hand convulsively: the poor girl covered his with kisses. He had wrung her very heart. "There is one course," continued he, "by adopting which I might extricate myself from all my difficulties"--here he raised his eyes with a haggard expression, and glared wildly along the cornice--"but I confess I have great hesitation in leaving _you_." He wrung her hand very hard, and groaned slightly. "Father, dear father," said she, "do not speak thus--do not--you frighten me." "I was wrong, my dear child, to tell you of struggles of which none but myself ought to have known anything," said the baronet, gloomily. "One person indeed has the power to assist, I may say, to _save_ me." "And who is that person, father?" asked the girl. "Yourself," replied Sir Richard, emphatically. "How?--I!" said she, turning very pale, for a dreadful suspicion crossed her mind--"how can _I_ help you, father?" The old gentleman explained briefly; and the girl, relieved of her worst fears, started joyously from her seat, clapped her hands together with gladness, and, throwing her arms about her father's neck, exclaimed,-- "And is that all?--oh, father; why did you defer telling me so long? you ought to have known how delighted I would have been to do anything for you; indeed you ought; tell them to get the papers ready immediately." "They _are_ ready, my dear," said Sir Richard, recovering his self-possession wonderfully, and ringing the bell with a good deal of hurry--for he fully acknowledged the wisdom of the old proverb, which inculcates the expediency of striking while the iron's hot--"your brother had them prepared yesterday, I believe. Inform Mr. Craven," he continued, addressing the servant, "that I would be very glad to see him now, and say he may as well bring in the young gentleman who has accompanied him." Mr. Craven accordingly appeared, and the "young gentleman," who had but one eye, and a very seedy coat, entered along with him. The latter personage bustled about a good deal, slapped the deeds very emphatically down on the table, and rumpled the parchments sonorously, looked about for pen and ink, set a chair before the document, and then held one side of the parchment, while Mr. Craven screwed his knuckles down upon the other, and the parties forthwith signed; whereupon Mr. Craven and the one-eyed young gentleman both sat down, and began to sign away with a great deal of scratching and flourishing on the places allotted for witnesses; after all which, Mr. Craven, raising himself with a smile, told Miss Ashwoode, facetiously, that the Chancellor could not have done so much for the deed as she had done; and the one-eyed young gentleman held his nose contemplatively between his finger and thumb, and reviewed the signatures with his solitary optic. Miss Ashwoode then withdrew, and Mr. Craven and the "young gentleman" made their bows. Sir Richard beckoned to Mr. Craven, and he glided back and closed the door, having commanded the "young gentleman" to see if the coach was ready. "You see, Mr. Craven," said Sir Richard, who, spite of all his philosophy, felt a little ashamed even that the attorney should have seen the transaction which had just been completed--"you see, sir, I may as well tell you candidly: my daughter, who has just signed this deed, is about immediately to be married to Lord Aspenly; _he_ kindly offered to lend me some fifteen thousand pounds, or thereabouts, and I converted this offer (which I, of course, accepted), into the assignment, from his bride, that is to be, of this little property, giving, of course, to his lordship my personal security for the debt which I consider as owed to him: this arrangement his lordship preferred as the most convenient possible. I thought it right, in strict confidence, of course, to explain the real state of the case to you, as at first sight the thing looks selfish, and I do not wish to stand worse in my friends' books than I actually deserve to do." This was spoken with Sir Richard's most engaging smile, and Mr. Craven smiled in return, most artlessly--at the same time he mentally ejaculated, "d----d sly!" "You'll bring this security, my dear Mr. Craven," continued the baronet, "into the market with all dispatch--do you think you can manage twenty thousand upon it?" "I fear not more than fourteen, or perhaps, sixteen, with an effort. I do not think Glenvarlogh would carry much more--I fear not; but rely upon me, Sir Richard; I'll do everything that can be done--at all events, I'll lose no time about it, depend upon it--I may as well take this deed along with me--I have the rest; and title is very--_very_ satisfactory--good-morning, Sir Richard," and the man of parchments withdrew, leaving Sir Richard in a more benevolent mood than he had experienced for many a long day. The attorney had not been many seconds gone, when a second vehicle thundered up to the door, and a perfect storm of knocking and ringing announced the arrival of Lord Aspenly himself. CHAPTER XIV. ABOUT A CERTAIN GARDEN AND A DAMSEL--AND ALSO CONCERNING A LETTER AND A RED LEATHERN BOX. Several days passed smoothly away--Lord Aspenly was a perfect paragon of politeness; but although his manner invariably assumed a peculiar tenderness whenever he approached Miss Ashwoode, yet that young lady remained in happy ignorance of his real intentions. She saw before her a grotesque old fop, who might without any extraordinary parental precocity have very easily been her grandfather, and in his airs and graces, his rappee and his rouge (for his lordship condescended to borrow a few attractions from art), and in the thousand-and-one _et ceteras_ of foppery which were accumulated, with great exactitude and precision, on and about his little person, she beheld nothing more than so many indications of obstinate and inveterate celibacy, and, of course, interpreted the exquisite attentions which were meant to enchain her young heart, merely as so much of that formal target practice in love's archery, in which gallant single gentlemen of seventy, or thereabout, will sometimes indulge themselves. Emily Copland, however, at a glance, saw and understood the nature of Lord Aspenly's attentions, and she saw just as clearly the intended parts and the real position of the other actors in this somewhat ill-assorted drama, and thereupon she took counsel with herself, like a wise damsel, and arrived at the conclusion, that with some little management she might, very possibly, play her own cards to advantage among them. We must here, however, glance for a few minutes at some of the subordinate agents in our narrative, whose interposition, nevertheless, deeply, as well as permanently, affected the destinies of more important personages. It was the habit of the beautiful Mistress Betsy Carey, every morning, weather permitting, to enjoy a ramble in the grounds of Morley Court; and as chance (of course it was chance) would have it, this early ramble invariably led her through several quiet fields, and over a stile, into a prettily-situated, but neglected flower-garden, which was now, however, undergoing a thorough reform, according to the Dutch taste, under the presiding inspiration of Tobias Potts. Now Tobias Potts was a widower, having been in the course of his life twice disencumbered. The last Mrs. Potts had disappeared some five winters since, and Tobias was now well stricken in years; he possessed the eyes of an owl, and the complexion of a turkey-cock, and was, moreover, extremely hard of hearing, and, withal, a man of few words; he was, however, hale, upright, and burly--perfectly sound in wind and limb, and free from vice and children--had a snug domicile, consisting of two rooms and a loft, enjoyed a comfortable salary, and had, it was confidently rumoured, put by a good round sum of money somewhere or other. It therefore struck Mrs. Carey very forcibly, that to be Mrs. Potts was a position worth attaining; and accordingly, without incurring any suspicion--for the young women generally regarded Potts with awe, and the young men with contempt--she began, according to the expressive phrase in such case made and provided, to set her cap at Tobias. In this, his usual haunt, she discovered the object of her search, busily employed in superintending the construction of a terrace walk, and issuing his orders with the brevity, decision, and clearness of a consummate gardener. "Good-morning, Mr. Potts," said the charming Betsy. Mr. Potts did not hear. "Good-morning, Mr. Potts," repeated the damsel, raising her voice to a scream. Tobias touched his hat with a gruff acknowledgment. "Well, but how beautiful you are doing it," shouted the handmaid again, gazing rapturously upon the red earthen rampart, in which none but the eye of an artist could have detected the rudiments of a terrace, "it's wonderful neat, all must allow, and indeed it puzzles my head to think how you can think of it all; it _is_ now, _raly_ elegant, so it is." Tobias did not reply, and the maiden continued, with a sentimental air, and still hallooing at the top of her voice-- "Well, of all the trades that is--and big and little, there's a plenty of them--there's none I'd choose, if I was a man, before the trade of a gardener." "No, you would not, _I'm_ sure," was the laconic reply. "Oh, but I declare and purtest _I would_ though," bawled the young woman; "for gardeners, old or young, is always so good-humoured, and pleasant, and fresh-like. Oh, dear, but I would like to be a gardener." "Not an _old_ one, howsomever," growled Mr. Potts. "Yes, but I would though, I declare and purtest to goodness gracious," persisted the nymph; "I'd rather of the two perfer to be an _old_ gardener" (this was a bold stroke of oratory; but Potts did not hear it); "I'd rather be an _old_ gardener," she screamed a second time; "I'd rather be an _old_ gardener of the two, so I would." "That's more than _I_ would," replied Potts, very abruptly, and with an air of uncommon asperity, for he silently cherished a lingering belief in his own juvenility, and not the less obstinately that it was fast becoming desperate--a peculiarity of which, unfortunately, until that moment the damsel had never been apprised. This, therefore, was a turn which a good deal disconcerted the young woman, especially as she thought she detected a satirical leer upon the countenance of a young man in crazy inexpressibles, who was trundling a wheelbarrow in the immediate vicinity; she accordingly exclaimed not loud enough for Tobias, but quite loud enough for the young man in the infirm breeches to hear,-- "What an old fool. I purtest it's meat and drink to me to tease him--so it is;" and with a forced giggle she tripped lightly away to retrace her steps towards the house. As she approached the stile we have mentioned, she thought she distinguished what appeared to be the inarticulate murmurings of some subterranean voice almost beneath her feet. A good deal startled at so prodigious a phenomenon, she stopped short, and immediately heard the following brief apostrophe delivered in a rich brogue:-- "Aiqually beautiful and engaging--vartuous Betsy Carey--listen to the voice of tindher emotion." The party addressed looked with some alarm in all directions for any visible intimation of the speaker's presence, but in vain. At length, from among an unusually thick and luxuriant tuft of docks and other weeds, which grew at the edge of a ditch close by, she beheld something red emerging, which in a few moments she clearly perceived to be the classical countenance of Larry Toole. "The Lord _purtect_ us all, Mr. Toole. Why in the world do you frighten people this way?" ejaculated the nymph, rather shrilly. "Whist! most evangelical iv women," exclaimed Larry in a low key, and looking round suspiciously--"whisht! or we are ruined." "La! Mr. Laurence, what _are_ you after?" rejoined the damsel, with a good deal of asperity. "I'll have you to know I'm not used to talk with a man that's squat in a ditch, and his head in a dock plant. That's not the way for to come up to an honest woman, sir--no more it is." "I'd live ten years in a ditch, and die in a dock plant," replied Larry with enthusiasm, "for one sight iv you." "And is that what brought you here?" replied she, with a toss of her head. "I purtest some people's quite overbearing, so they are, and knows no bounds." "Stop a minute, most beautiful bayin'--for one instant minute pay attintion," exclaimed Mr. Toole, eagerly, for he perceived that she had commenced her retreat. "Tare an' owns! divine crature, it's not _goin'_ you are?" "I have no notions, good or bad, Mr. Toole," replied the young lady, with great volubility and dignity, "and no idaya in the wide world for to be standing here prating, and talking, and losing my time with such as you--if my business is neglected, it is not on your back the blame will light. I have my work, and my duty, and my business to mind, and if I do not mind them, no one else will do it for me; and I am astonished and surprised beyant telling, so I am, at the impittence of some people, thinking that the likes of me has nothing else to be doing but listening to them discoorsing in a dirty ditch, and more particular when their conduct has been sich as some people's that is old enough at any rate to know better." The fair handmaiden had now resumed her retreat; so that Larry, having raised himself from his lowly hiding-place, was obliged to follow for some twenty yards before he again came up with her. "Wait one half second--stop a bit, for the Lord's sake," exclaimed he, with most earnest energy. "Well, wonst for all, Mr. Laurence," exclaimed Mistress Carey severely, "what _is_ your business with me?" "Jist this," rejoined Larry, with a mysterious wink, and lowering his voice--"a letter to the young mistress from"--here he glanced jealously round, and then bringing himself close beside her, he whispered in her ear--"from Mr. O'Connor--whisht--not a word--into her own hand, mind." The young woman took the letter, read the superscription, and forthwith placed it in her bosom, and rearranged her kerchief. "Never fear--never fear," said she, "Miss Mary shall have it in half an hour. And how," added she, maliciously, "_is_ Mr. O'Connor? He is a lovely gentleman, is not he?" "He's uncommonly well in health, the Lord be praised," replied Mr. Toole, with very unaccountable severity. "Well, for my part," continued the girl, "I never seen the man yet to put beside him--unless, indeed, the young master may be. He's a very pretty young man--and so shocking agreeable." Mr. Toole nodded a pettish assent, coughed, muttered something to himself, and then inquired when he should come for an answer. "I'll have an answer to-morrow morning--maybe this evening," pursued she; "but do not be coming so close up to the house. Who knows who might be on our backs in an instant here? I'll walk down whenever I get it to the two mulberries at the old gate; and I'll go there either in the morning at this hour, or else a little before supper-time in the evening." Mr. Toole, having gazed rapturously at the object of his tenderest aspirations during the delivery of this address, was at its termination so far transported by his feelings, as absolutely to make a kind of indistinct and flurried attempt to kiss her. "Well, I purtest, this is overbearing," exclaimed the virgin; and at the same time bestowing Mr. Toole a sound box on the ear, she tripped lightly toward the house, leaving her admirer a prey to what are usually termed conflicting emotions. When Sir Richard returned to his dressing-room at about noon, to prepare for dinner, he had hardly walked to the toilet, and rung for his Italian servant, when a knock was heard at his chamber door, and, in obedience to his summons, Mistress Carey entered. "Well, Carey," inquired the baronet, as soon as she had appeared, "do you bring me any news?" The lady's-maid closed the door carefully. "News?" she repeated. "Indeed, but I do, Sir Richard--and bad news, I'm afeard, sir. Mr. O'Connor has written a great long letter to my mistress, if you please, sir." "Have you gotten it?" inquired the baronet, quickly. "Yes, sir," rejoined she, "safe and sound here in my breast, Sir Richard." "Your young mistress has not opened it--or read it?" inquired he. "Oh, dear! Sir Richard, it is after all you said to me only the other day," rejoined she, in virtuous horror. "I hope I know my place better than to be fetching and carrying notes and letters, and all soarts, unnonst to my master. Don't I know, sir, very well how that you're the best judge what's fitting and what isn't for the sight of your own precious child? and wouldn't I be very unnatural, and very hardened and ungrateful, if I was to be making secrets in the family, and if any ill-will or misfortunes was to come out of it? I purtest I never--never would forgive myself--never--no more I ought--never." Here Mistress Carey absolutely wept. "Give me the letter," said Sir Richard, drily. The damsel handed it to him; and he, having glanced at the seal and the address, deposited the document safely in a small leathern box which stood upon his toilet, and having locked it safely therein, he turned to the maid, and patting her on the cheek with a smile, he remarked,-- "Be a good girl, Carey, and you shall find you have consulted your interest best." Here Mistress Carey was about to do justice to her own disinterestedness in a very strong protestation, but the baronet checked her with an impatient wave of the hand, and continued,-- "Say not on any account one word to any person touching this letter, until you have your directions from me. Stay--this will buy you a ribbon. Good-bye--be a good girl." So saying, the baronet placed a guinea in the girl's hand, which, with a courtesy, having transferred to her pocket, she withdrew rather hurriedly, for she heard the valet in the next room. CHAPTER XV. THE TRAITOR. Upon the day following, O'Connor had not yet received any answer to his letter. He was, however, not a little surprised instead to receive a second visit from young Ashwoode. "I am very glad, my dear O'Connor," said the young man as he entered, "to have found you alone. I have been wishing very much for this opportunity, and was half afraid as I came upstairs that I should again have been disappointed. The fact is, I wish much to speak to you upon a subject of great difficulty and delicacy--one in which, however, I naturally feel so strong an interest, that I may speak to you upon it, and freely, too, without impertinence. I allude to your attachment to my sister. Do not imagine, my dear O'Connor, that I am going to lecture you on prudence and all that; and above all, my dear fellow, do not think I want to tax your confidence more deeply than you are willing I should; I know quite enough for all I would suggest; I know the plain fact that you love my sister--I have long known it, and this is enough." "Well, sir, what follows?" said O'Connor, dejectedly. "Do not call me _sir_--call me friend--fellow--fool--anything you please but that," replied Ashwoode, kindly; and after a brief pause, he continued: "I need not, and cannot disguise it from you, that I was much opposed to this, and vexed extremely at the girl's encouragement of what I considered a most imprudent suit. I have, however, learned to think differently--very differently. After all my littlenesses and pettishness, for which you must have, if not abhorred, at least despised me from your very heart--after all this, I say, your noble conduct in risking your own life to save my worthless blood is what I never can enough admire, and honour, and thank." Here he grasped O'Connor's hand, and shook it warmly. "After this, I tell you, O'Connor, that were there offered to me, on my sister's behoof, on the one side the most brilliant alliance in wealth and rank that ever ambition dreamed of, and upon the other side this hand of yours, I would, so heaven is my witness, forego every allurement of titles, rank, and riches, and give my sister to you. I have come here, O'Connor, frankly to offer you my aid and advice--to prove to you my sincerity, and, if possible, to realize your wishes." O'Connor could hardly believe his senses. Here was the man who, scarcely six days since, he felt assured, would more readily have suffered him to thrust him through the body than consent to his marriage with Mary Ashwoode, now not merely consenting to it, but offering cordially and spontaneously all the assistance in his power towards effecting that very object. Had he heard him aright? One look at his expressive face--the kindly pressure of his hand--everything assured him that he had justly comprehended all that Ashwoode had spoken, and a glow of hope, warmer than had visited him for years, cheered his heart. "In the meantime," continued Ashwoode, "I must tell you exactly how matters stand at Morley Court. The Earl of Aspenly, of whom you may have heard, is paying his addresses to my sister." "The Earl of Aspenly," echoed O'Connor, slightly colouring. "I had not heard of this before--she did not name him." "Yet she has known it a good while," returned Ashwoode, with well-affected surprise--"a month, I believe, or more. He's now at Morley Court, and means to make some stay--are you sure she never mentioned him?" "Titled, and, of course, rich," said O'Connor, scarce hearing the question. "Why should I have heard of this by chance, and from another--why this reserve--this silence?" "Nay, nay," replied Henry, "you must not run away with the matter thus. Mary may have forgotten it, _or_--or not liked to tell you--not cared to give you needless uneasiness." "I wish she had--I wish she had--I am--I am, indeed, Ashwoode, very, very unhappy," said O'Connor, with extreme dejection. "Forgive me--forgive my folly, since folly it seems--I fear I weary you." "Well, well, since it seems you have _not_ heard of it," rejoined Henry, carelessly throwing himself back in his chair, "you may as well learn it now--not that there is any real cause of alarm in the matter, as I shall presently show you, but simply that you may understand the position of the enemy. Lord Aspenly, then, is at present at Morley Court, where he is received as Mary's lover--observe me, only as her lover--not yet, and I trust _never_ as her _accepted_ lover." "Go on--pray go on," said O'Connor, with suppressed but agonized anxiety. "Now, though my father is very hot about the match," resumed his visitor, "it may appear strange enough to you that _I_ never was. There are a few--a very few--advantages in the matter, of course, viewing it merely in its worldly aspect. But Lord Aspenly's property is a good deal embarrassed, and he is of violently Whig politics and connections, the very thing most hated by my old Tory uncle, Oliver French, whom my father has been anxious to cultivate; besides, the disparity in years is so very great that it is ridiculous--I might almost say _indecent_--and this even in point of family standing, and indeed of reputation, putting aside every better consideration, is objectionable. I have urged all these things upon my father, and perhaps we should not find any insurmountable obstacle _there_; but the fact is, there is another difficulty, one of which until this morning I never dreamed--the most whimsical difficulty imaginable." Here the young man raised his eyebrows, and laughed faintly, while he looked upon the floor, and O'Connor, with increasing earnestness, implored him to proceed. "It appears so very absurd and perverse an obstacle," continued Ashwoode, with a very quizzical expression, "that one does not exactly know how to encounter it--to say the truth, I think that the girl is a little--perhaps the least imaginable degree--taken--dazzled--caught by the notion of being a countess; it's very natural, you know, but then I would have expected better from her." "By heavens, it is impossible!" exclaimed O'Connor, starting to his feet; "I cannot believe it; you must, indeed, my dear Ashwoode, you _must_ have been deceived." "Well, then," rejoined the young man, "I have lost my skill in reading young ladies' minds--that's all; but even though I should be right--and never believe me if I am _not_ right--it does not follow that the giddy whim won't pass away just as suddenly as it came; her most lasting impressions--with, I should hope, one exception--were never very enduring. I have been talking to her for nearly half an hour this morning--laughing with her about Lord Aspenly's suit, and building castles in the air about what she will and what she won't do when she's a countess. But, by the way, how did you let her know that you intend returning to France at the end of this month, only, as she told me, however, for a few weeks? She mentioned it yesterday incidentally. Well, it is a comfort that I hear your secrets, though _you_ won't entrust them to me. But do not, my dear fellow--_do_ not look so very black--you very much overrate the firmness of women's minds, and greatly indeed exaggerate that of my sister's character if you believe that this vexatious whim which has entered her giddy pate will remain there longer than a week. The simple fact is that the excitement and bustle of all this has produced an unusual flow of high spirits, which will, of course, subside with the novelty of the occasion. Pshaw! why so cast down?--there is nothing in the matter to surprise one--the caprice of women knows do rule. I tell you I would almost stake my reputation as a prophet, that when this giddy excitement passes away, her feelings will return to their old channel." O'Connor still paced the room in silence. "Meanwhile," continued the young man, "if anything occur to you--if I can be useful to you in any way, command me absolutely, and till you see me next, take heart of grace." He grasped O'Connor's hand--it was cold as clay; and bidding him farewell, once more took his departure. "Well," thought he, as he threw his leg across his high-bred gelding at the inn door, "I have shot the first shaft home." And so he had, for the heart at which it was directed, unfenced by suspicion, lay open to his traitorous practices. O'Connor's letter, an urgent and a touching one, was still unanswered; it never for a moment crossed his mind that it had not reached the hand for which it was intended. The maid who had faithfully delivered all the letters which had passed between them had herself received it; and young Ashwoode had but the moment before mentioned, from his sister's lips, the subject on which it was written--his meditated departure for France. This, too, it appeared, she had spoken of in the midst of gay and light-hearted trilling, and projects of approaching magnificence and dissipation with his rich and noble rival. Twice since the delivery of that letter had his servant seen Miss Ashwoode's maid; and in the communicative colloquy which had ensued she had told--no doubt according to well-planned instructions--how gay and unusually merry her mistress was, and how she passed whole hours at her toilet, and the rest of her time in the companionship of Lord Aspenly--so that between his lordship's society, and her own preparations for it, she had scarcely allowed herself time to read the letter in question, much less to answer it. All these things served to fill O'Connor's mind with vague but agonizing doubts--doubts which he vainly strove to combat; fears which had not their birth in an alarmed imagination, but which, alas! were but too surely approved by reason. The notion of a systematic plot, embracing so many agents, and conducted with such deep and hellish hypocrisy, with the sole purpose of destroying affections the most beautiful, and of alienating hearts the truest, was a thought so monstrous and unnatural that it never for a second flashed upon his mind; still his heart struggled strongly against despair. Spite of all that looked gloomy in what he saw--spite of the boding suggestions of his worst fears, he would not believe her false to him--that she who had so long and so well loved and trusted him--she whose gentle heart he knew unchanged and unchilled by years, and distance, and misfortunes--that she should, after all, have fallen away from him, and given up that heart, which once was his, to vanity and the hollow glitter of the world--this he could hardly bring himself to believe, yet what was he to think? alas! what? CHAPTER XVI. SHOWING SIGNOR PARUCCI ALONE WITH THE WIG-BLOCKS--THE BARONET'S HAND-BELL AND THE ITALIAN'S TASK. Morley Court was a queer old building--very large and very irregular. The main part of the dwelling, and what appeared to be the original nucleus, upon which after-additions had grown like fantastic incrustations, was built of deep-red brick, with many recesses and projections and gables, and tall and grotesquely-shaped chimneys, and having broad, jutting, heavily-sashed windows, such as belonged to Henry the Eighth's time, to which period the origin of the building was, with sufficient probability, referred. The great avenue, which extended in a direct line to more than the long half of an Irish mile, led through double rows of splendid old lime-trees, some thirty paces apart, and arching in a vast and shadowy groining overhead, to the front of the building. To the rearward extended the rambling additions which necessity or caprice had from time to time suggested, as the place, in the lapse of years, passed into the hands of different masters. One of these excrescences, a quaint little prominence, with a fanciful gable and chimney of its own, jutted pleasantly out upon the green sward, courting the friendly shelter of the wild and graceful trees, and from its casement commanding through the parting boughs no views but those of quiet fields, distant woodlands, and the far-off blue hills. This portion of the building contained in the upper story one small room, to the full as oddly shaped as the outer casing of fantastic masonry in which it was inclosed--the door opened upon a back staircase which led from the lower apartments to Sir Richard's dressing-room; and partly owing to this convenient arrangement, and partly perhaps to the comfort and seclusion of the chamber itself, it had been long appropriated to the exclusive occupation of Signor Jacopo Parucci, Sir Richard's valet and confidential servant. This man was, as his name would imply, an Italian. Sir Richard had picked him up, some thirty years before the period at which we have dated our story, in Naples, where it was said the baronet had received from him very important instructions in the inner mysteries of that golden science which converts chance into certainty--a science in which Sir Richard was said to have become a masterly proficient; and indeed so loudly had fame begun to bruit his excellence therein, that he found it at last necessary, or at least highly advisable, to forego the fascinations of the gaming-table, and to bid to the worship of fortune an eternal farewell, just at the moment when the fickle goddess promised with golden profusion to reward his devotion. Whatever his reason was, Sir Richard had been to this man a good master; he had, it was said, and not without reason, enriched him; and, moreover, it was a strange fact, that in all his capricious and savage moods, from whose consequences not only his servants but his own children had no exemption, he had never once treated this person otherwise than with the most marked civility. What the man's services had actually been, and to what secret influence he owed the close and confidential terms upon which he unquestionably stood with Sir Richard, these things were mysteries, and, of course, furnished inexhaustible matter of scandalous speculation among the baronet's dependents and most intimate friends. The room of which we speak was Parucci's snuggery. It contained in a recess behind the door that gentleman's bed--a plain, low, uncurtained couch; and variously disposed about the apartment an abundance of furniture of much better kind; the recess of the window was filled by a kind of squat press, which was constructed in the lower part, and which contained, as certain adventurous chambermaids averred, having peeped into its dim recesses when some precious opportunity presented itself, among other shadowy shapes, the forms of certain flasks and bottles with long necks, and several tall glasses of different dimensions. Two or three tables of various sizes of dark shining wood, with legs after the fashion of the nether limbs of hippogriffs and fauns, seemed about to walk from their places, and to stamp and claw at random about the floor. A large, old press of polished oak, with spiral pillars of the same flanking it in front, contained the more precious articles of Signor Parucci's wardrobe. Close beside it, in a small recess, stood a set of shelves, on which were piled various matters, literary and otherwise, among which perhaps none were disturbed twice in the year, with the exception of six or eight packs of cards, with which, for old associations' sake, Signor Jacopo used to amuse himself now and again in his solitary hours. On one of the tables stood two blocks supporting each a flowing black peruke, which it was almost the only duty of the tenant of this interesting sanctuary to tend, and trim, and curl. Upon the dusky tapestry were pinned several coloured prints, somewhat dimmed by time, but evidently of very equivocal morality. A birding-piece and a fragment of a fishing-rod covered with dust, neither of which Signor Parucci had ever touched for the last twenty years, were suspended over the mantelpiece; and upon the side of the recess, and fully lighted by the window, in attestation of his gentler and more refined pursuits, hung a dingy old guitar apparently still in use, for the strings, though a good deal cobbled and knotted, were perfect in number. A huge, high-backed, well-stuffed chair, in which a man might lie as snugly as a kernel in its shell, was placed at the window, and in it reclined the presiding genius of the place himself, with his legs elevated so as to rest upon the broad window-sill, formed by the roof of the mysterious press which we have already mentioned. The Italian was a little man, very slight, with long hair, a good deal grizzled, flowing upon his shoulders; he had a sallow complexion and thin hooked nose, piercing black eyes, lean cheeks, and sharp chin--and altogether a lank, attenuated, and somewhat intellectual cast of face, with, however, a certain expression of malice and cunning about the leer of his eye, as well as in the character of his thin and colourless lip, which made him by no means a very pleasant object to look upon. "Fine weather--almost Italy," said the little man, lazily pushing open the casement with his foot. "I am surprise, good, dear, sweet Sir Richard, his bell is stop so long quiet. Why is it not go ding, ding, dingeri, dingeri, ding-a-ding, ding, as usual. Damnation! what do I care he ring de bell and I leesten. We are not always young, and I must be allow to be a leetle deaf when he is allow to be a leetle gouty. Gode blace my body, how hot is de sun. Come down here, leer of Apollo--come to my arm, meestress of my heart--Orpheus' leer, come queekly." This was addressed to the ancient instrument of music which we have already mentioned, and the invitation was accompanied by an appropriate elevation of his two little legs, which he raised until he gently closed his feet upon the sides of the "leer of Apollo," which, with a good deal of dexterity, he unhung from its peg, and conveyed within reach of his hand. He cast a look of fond admiration at its dingy and time-dried face, and forthwith, his heels still resting upon the window-sill, he was soon thrumming a tinkling symphony, none of the most harmonious, and then, with uncommon zeal, he began, to his own accompaniment, to sing some ditty of Italian love. While engaged in this refined and touching employment, he espied, with unutterable indignation, a young urchin, who, attracted by the sounds of his amorous minstrelsy, and with a view to torment the performer, who was an extremely unpopular personage, had stationed himself at a little distance before the casement, and accompanied the vocal performance of the Italian with the most hideous grimaces, and the most absurd and insulting gesticulations. Signor Parucci would have given a good round sum to have had the engaging boy by the ears; but this he knew was out of the question; he therefore (for he was a philosopher) played and sung on without evincing the smallest consciousness of what was going forward. His plans of vengeance were, however, speedily devised and no less quickly executed. There lay upon the window-sill a fragment of biscuit, which in the course of an ecstatic flourish the little man kicked carelessly over. The bait had hardly touched the ground beneath the casement when Jacopo, continuing to play and sing the while, and apparently unconscious of anything but his own music, to his infinite delight beheld the boy first abate his exertions, and finally put an end to his affronting pantomime altogether, and begin to manoeuvre in the direction of the treacherous windfall. The youth gradually approached it, and just at the moment when it was within his grasp, Signor Parucci, with another careless touch of his foot, sent over a large bow-pot well stored with clay, which stood upon the window-block. The descent of this ponderous missile was followed by a most heart-stirring acclamation from below; and good Mr. Parucci, clambering along the window-sill, and gazing downward, was regaled by the spectacle of the gesticulating youth stamping about the grass among what appeared to be the fragments of a hundred flower-pots, writhing and bellowing in transports of indignation and bodily torment. "Povero ragazzo--Carissimo figlio," exclaimed the valet, looking out with an expression of infinite sweetness, "my dear child and charming boy, how 'av you broke my flower-pote, and when 'av you come here. Ah! per Bacco, I think I 'av see you before. Ah! yees, you are that sweetest leetel boy that was leestening at my music--so charming just now. How much clay is on your back! a cielo! amiable child, you might 'av keel yourself. Sacro numine, what an escape! Say your prayer, and thank heaven you are safe, my beautiful, sweetest, leetel boy. God blace you. Now rone away very fast, for fear you pool the other two flower-potes on your back, sweetest child. Gode bless you, amiable boy--they are very large and very heavy." The youth took the hint, and having had quite enough of Mr. Parucci's music for the evening, withdrew under the combined influences of fury and lumbago. The little man threw himself back in his chair, and hugged his shins in sheer delight, grinning and chattering like a delirious monkey, and rolling himself about, and laughing with the most exquisite relish. At length, after this had gone on for some time, with the air of a man who has had enough of trifling, and must now apply himself to matters of graver importance, he arose, hung up his guitar, sent his chair, which was upon casters, rolling to the far end of the room, and proceeded to arrange the curls of one of the two magnificent perukes, on which it was his privilege to operate. After having applied himself with uncommon attention to this labour of taste for some time in silence, he retired a few paces to contemplate the effect of his performance--whereupon he fell into a musing mood, and began after his fashion to soliloquize with a good deal of energy and volubility in that dialect which had become more easy to him than his mother tongue. "_Corpo di Bacco!_ what thing is life! who would believe thirty years ago I should be here now in a barbaroose island to curl the wig of an old gouty blackguard--but what matter. I am a philosopher--damnation--it is very well as it is--per Bacco! I can go way when I like. I am reech leetle fellow, and with Sir Richard, good Sir Richard, I do always whatever I may choose. Good Sir Richard," he continued, addressing the block on which hung the object of his tasteful labours, as if it had been the baronet in person--"good Sir Richard, why are you so kind to me, when you are so cross as the old devil in hell with all the rest of the world?--why, why, why? Shall I say to you the reason, good, kind Sir Richard? Well, I weel. It is because you dare not--dare not--dare not-da-a-a-are not vaix me. I am, you know, dear Sir Richard, a poor, leetle foreigner, who is depending on your goodness. I 'ave nothing but your great pity and good charity--oh, no! I am nothing at all; but still you dare not vaix me--you moste not be angry--note at all--but very quiet--you moste not go in a passion--oh! never--weeth me--even if I was to make game of you, and to insult you, and to pool your nose." Here the Italian seized, with the tongs which he had in his hand, upon that prominence in the wooden block which corresponded in position with the nose, which at other times the peruke overshadowed, and with a grin of infinite glee pinched and twisted the iron instrument until the requirements of his dramatic fancy were satisfied, when he delivered two or three sharp knocks on the smooth face of the block, and resumed his address. "No, no--you moste not be angry, fore it would be great misfortune--oh, it would--if you and I should quarrel together; but tell me now, old _truffatore_--tell me, I say, am I not very quiet, good-nature, merciful, peetying faylow? Ah, yees--very, very--_Madre di Dio_--very moche; and dear, good Sir Richard, shall I tell you why I am so very good-nature? It is because I love you joste as moche as you love me--it is because, most charitable patron, it is my convenience to go on weeth you quietly and 'av no fighting yet--bote you are going to get money. Oh! so coning you are, you think I know nothing--you think I am asleep--bote I know it--I know it quite well. You think I know nothing about the land you take from Miss Mary. Ah! you are very coning--oh! very; but I 'av hear it all, and I tell you--and I swear _per sangue di D----_, when you get that money I shall, and will, and moste--_mo-ooste_ 'av a very large, comfortable, beeg handful--do you hear me? Oh, you very coning old rascal; and if you weel not geeve it, oh, my dear Sir Richard, echellent master, I am so moche afaid we will 'av a fight between us--a quarrel--that will spoil our love and friendship, and maybe, helas! horte your reputation--shoking--make the gentlemen spit on you, and avoid you, and call you all the ogly names--oh! shoking." Here he was interrupted by a loud ringing in Sir Richard's chamber. "There he is to pool his leetle bell--damnation, what noise. I weel go up joste now--time enough, dear, good, patient Sir Richard--time enough--oh, plainty, plainty." The little man then leisurely fumbled in his pocket until he brought forth a bunch of keys, from which, having selected one, he applied it to the lock of the little press which we have already mentioned, whence he deliberately produced one of the flasks which we have hinted at, along with a tall glass with a spiral stem, and filling himself a bumper of the liquor therein contained, he coolly sipped it to the bottom, accompanied throughout the performance by the incessant tinkling of Sir Richard's hand-bell. "Ah, very good, most echellent--thank you, Sir Richard, you 'av give me so moche time and so moche music, I 'av drunk your very good health." So saying, he locked up the flask and glass again, and taking the block which had just represented Sir Richard in the imaginary colloquy in his hand, he left his own chamber, and ran upstairs to the baronet's dressing-room. He found his master alone. "Ah, Jacopo," exclaimed the baronet, looking somewhat flushed, but speaking, nevertheless, in a dulcet tone enough, "I have been ringing for nearly ten minutes; but I suppose you did not hear me." "Joste so as you 'av say," replied the man. "Your _signoria_ is very seldom wrong. I was so charmed with my work I could not hear nothing." "Parucci," rejoined Sir Richard, after a slight pause, "you know I keep no secrets from you." "Ah, you flatter me, Signor--you flatter me--indeed you do," said the valet, with ironical humility. His master well understood the tone in which the fellow spoke, but did not care to notice it. "The fact is, Jacopo," continued Sir Richard, "you already know so many of my secrets, that I have now no motive in excluding you from any." "Goode, kind--oh, very kind," ejaculated the valet. "In short," continued his master, who felt a little uneasy under the praises of his attendant--"in short, to speak plainly, I want your assistance. I know your talents well. You can imitate any handwriting you please to copy with perfect accuracy. You must copy, in the handwriting of this manuscript, the draft of a letter which I will hand you this evening. You require some little time to study the character; so take the letter with you, and be in my room at ten to-night. I will then hand you the draft of what I want written. You understand?" "Understand! To be sure--most certilly I weel do it," replied the Italian, "so that the great devil himself will not tell the writing of the two, _l'un dall' altro_, one from the other. Never fear--geeve me the letter. I must learn the writing. I weel be here to-night before you are arrive, and I weel do it very fast, and so like--bote you know how well I can copy. Ah! yees; you know it, Signor. I need not tell." "No more at present," said the baronet, with a gesture of caution. "Assist me to dress." The Italian accordingly was soon deep in the mysteries of his elaborate functions, where we shall leave him and his master for the present. CHAPTER XVII. DUBLIN CASTLE BY NIGHT--THE DRAWING-ROOM--LORD WHARTON AND HIS COURT. Sir Richard Ashwoode had set his heart upon having Lord Aspenly for his son-in-law; and all things considered, his lordship was, perhaps, according to the standard by which the baronet measured merit, as good a son-in-law as he had any right to hope for. It was true, Lord Aspenly was neither very young nor very beautiful. Spite of all the ingenious arts by which he reinforced his declining graces, it was clear as the light that his lordship was not very far from seventy; and it was just as apparent that it was not to any extraordinary supply of bone, muscle, or flesh that his vitality was attributable. His lordship was a little, spindle-shanked gentleman, with the complexion of a consumptive frog, and features as sharp as edged tools. He condescended to borrow from the artistic talents of his valet the exquisite pencilling of his eyebrows, as well as the fine black line which gave effect to a set of imaginary eyelashes, and depth and brilliancy to a pair of eyes which, although naturally not very singularly effective, had, nevertheless, nearly as much vivacity in them as they had ever had. His smiles were perennial and unceasing, very winning and rather ghastly. He used much gesticulation, and his shrug was absolutely Parisian. To all these perfections he added a wonderful facility in rounding the periods of a compliment, and an inexhaustible affluence of something which passed for conversation. Thus endowed, and having, moreover, the additional recommendation of a handsome income, a peerage, and an unencumbered celibacy, it is hardly wonderful that his lordship was unanimously voted by all prudent and discriminating persons, without exception, the most fascinating man in all Ireland. Sir Richard Ashwoode was not one whit more in earnest in desiring the match than was Lord Aspenly himself. His lordship had for some time begun to suspect that he had nearly sown his wild oats--that it was time for him to reform--that he was ripe for the domestic virtues, and ought to renounce scamp-hood. He therefore, in the laboratory of his secret soul, compounded a virtuous passion, which he resolved to expend upon the first eligible object who might present herself. Mary Ashwoode was the fortunate damsel who first happened to come within the scope and range of his lordship's premeditated love; and he forthwith in a matrimonial paroxysm applied, according to the good old custom, not to the lady herself, but to Sir Richard Ashwoode, and was received with open arms. The baronet indeed, as the reader is aware, anticipated many difficulties in bringing the match about; for he well knew how deeply his daughter's heart was engaged, and his misgivings were more sombre and frequent than he cared to acknowledge even to himself. He resolved, however, that the thing should be; and he was convinced, that if his lordship only were firm, spite of fate he would effect it. In order then to inspire Lord Aspenly with this desirable firmness, he not unwisely believed that his best course was to exhibit him as much as possible in public places, in the character of the avowed lover of Mary Ashwoode; a position which, when once unequivocally assumed, afforded no creditable retreat, except through the gates of matrimony. It was arranged, therefore, that the young lady, under the protection of Lady Stukely, and accompanied by Lord Aspenly and Henry Ashwoode, should attend the first drawing-room at the Castle, a ceremonial which had been fixed to take place a few days subsequently to the arrival of Lord Aspenly at Morley Court. Those who have seen the Castle of Dublin only as it now stands, have beheld but the creation of the last sixty or seventy years, with the exception only of the wardrobe tower, an old grey cylinder of masonry, very dingy and dirty, which appears to have gone into half mourning for its departed companions, and presents something of the imposing character of an overgrown, mouldy band-box. At the beginning of the last century, however, matters were very different. The trim brick buildings, with their spacious windows and symmetrical regularity of structure, which now complete the quadrangles of the castle, had not yet appeared; but in their stead masses of building, constructed with very little attention to architectural precision, either in their individual formation or in their relative position, stood ranged together, so as to form two irregular and gloomy squares. That portion of the building which was set apart for state occasions and the vice-regal residence, had undergone so many repairs and modifications, that very little if any of it could have been recognized by its original builder. Not so, however, with other portions of the pile: the ponderous old towers, which have since disappeared, with their narrow loop-holes and iron-studded doors looming darkly over the less massive fabrics of the place with stern and gloomy aspect, reminded the passer every moment, that the building whose courts he trod was not merely the theatre of stately ceremonies, but a fortress and a prison. The viceroyalty of the Earl of Wharton was within a few weeks of its abrupt termination; the approaching discomfiture of the Whigs was not, however, sufficiently clearly revealed, to thin the levees and drawing-rooms of the Whig lord-lieutenant. The castle yards were, therefore, upon the occasion in question, crowded to excess with the gorgeous equipages in which the Irish aristocracy of the time delighted. The night had closed in unusual darkness, and the massive buildings, whose summits were buried in dense and black obscurity, were lighted only by the red reflected glow of crowded flambeaux and links--which, as the respective footmen, who attended the crowding chairs and coaches flourished them according to the approved fashion, scattered their wide showers of sparks into the eddying air, and illumined in a broad and ruddy glare, like that of a bonfire, the gorgeous equipages with which the square was now thronged, and the splendid figures which they successively discharged. There were coaches-and-four--out-riders--running footmen and hanging footmen--crushing and rushing--jostling and swearing--and burly coachmen, with inflamed visages, lashing one another's horses and their own. Lackeys collaring and throttling one another, all "for their master's honour," in the hot and disorderly dispute for precedence, and some even threatening an appeal to the swords--which, according to the barbarous fashion of the day, they carried, to the no small peril of the public and themselves. Others dragging the reins of strangers' horses, and backing them to make way for their own--a proceeding which, of course, involved no small expenditure of blasphemy and vociferation. On the whole, it would not be easy to exaggerate the scene of riot and confusion which, under the very eye of the civil and military executive of the country, was perpetually recurring, and that, too, ostensibly in honour of the supreme head of the Irish Government. Through all this crash, and clatter, and brawling, and vociferation, the party whom we are bound to follow made their way with some difficulty and considerable delay. The Earl of Wharton with his countess, surrounded by a brilliant staff, and amid all the pomp and state of vice-regal dignity, received the distinguished courtiers who thronged the castle chambers. At the time of which we write, Lord Wharton was in his seventieth year. Few, however, would have guessed his age at more than sixty, though many might have supposed it under that. He was rather a spare figure, with an erect and dignified bearing, and a countenance which combined vivacity, good-humour, and boldness in an eminent degree. His manners were, to those who did not know how unreal was everything in them that bore the promise of good, singularly engaging, and that in spite of a very strong spice of coarseness, and a very determined addiction to profane swearing. He had, however, in his whole air and address a kind of rollicking, good-humoured familiarity, which was very generally mistaken for the quintessence of candour and good-fellowship, and which consequently rendered him unboundedly popular among those who were not aware of the fact that his complimentary speeches meant just nothing, and were very often followed, the moment the object of them had withdrawn, by the coarsest ridicule, and even by the grossest abuse. For the rest, he was undoubtedly an able statesman, and had clearly discerned and adroitly steered his way through the straits and perils of troublous and eventful times. He was, moreover, a steady and uncompromising Whig, upon whom, throughout a long and active life, the stain of inconsistency had never rested; a thorough partisan, a quick and ready debater, and an unscrupulous and daring political intriguer. In private, however, entirely profligate--a sensualist and an infidel, and in both characters equally without shame. Through the rooms there wandered a very wild, madcap boy of some ten or eleven years, venting his turbulent spirits in all kinds of mischievous pranks--sometimes planting himself behind Lord Wharton, and mimicking, with ludicrous exaggeration, which the courtly spectators had enough to do to resist, the ceremonious gestures and gracious nods of the viceroy; at other times assuming a staid and manly carriage, and chatting with his elders with the air of perfect equality, and upon subjects which one would have thought immeasurably beyond his years, and this with a sound sense, suavity, and precision which would have done honour to many grey heads in the room. This strange, bold, precocious boy of eleven was Philip, afterwards Duke of Wharton, the wonder and the disgrace of the British peerage. "Ah! Mr. Morris," exclaimed his excellency, as a middle-aged gentleman, with a fluttered air, a round face, and vacant smile, approached, "I am delighted to see you--by ---- Almighty I am--give me your hand. I have written across about the matter we wot of: but for these cursed contrary winds, I make no doubt I should have had a letter before now. Is the young gentleman himself here?" "A--a--not quite, your excellency. That is, not at--all," stammered the gentleman, in mingled delight and alarm. "He is, my lord, a--a--laid up. He--a--it is a sore throat. Your excellency is most gracious." "Tell him from me," rejoined Wharton, "that he must get well as quickly as may be. We don't know the moment he may be wanted. You understand me?" "I--a--do indeed," replied Mr. Morris, retiring in graceful confusion. "A d----d impudent booby," whispered Wharton to Addison, who stood beside him, uttering the remark without the change of a single muscle. "He has made some cursed unconscionable request about his son. I'gad, I forget what; but we want his vote on Tuesday; and civility, you know, costs no coin." Addison smiled faintly, and shook his head. "May the Lord pardon us all," exclaimed a country clergyman in a rusty gown and ill-dressed wig, with a pale, attenuated, eager face, which told mournful tales of short commons and hard work; he had been for some time an intense and a grieved listener to the lord-lieutenant's conversation, and was now slowly retiring with a companion as humble as himself from the circle which surrounded his excellency, with simple horror impressed upon his pale features--"may the Lord preserve us all, how awful it is to hear one so highly trusted by _Him_, take His name thus momentarily in vain. Lord Wharton is, I fear me much, an habitual profane swearer." "Believe me, sir, you are very simple," rejoined a young clergyman who stood close to the position which the speaker now occupied. "His excellency's object in swearing by the different persons of the Trinity is to show that he believes in revealed religion--a fact which else were doubtful; and this being his main object, it is manifestly a secondary consideration to what particular asseveration or promises his excellency happens to tack his oaths." The lank, pale-faced prebendary looked suddenly and earnestly round upon the person who had accosted him, with an expression of curiosity and wonder, evidently in some doubt as to the spirit in which the observation had been made. He beheld a tall, stalwart man, arrayed in a clerical costume as rich as that of a churchman who has not attained to the rank of a dignitary in his profession could well be, and in all points equipped with the most perfect neatness. In the face he looked in vain for any indication of jocularity. It was a striking countenance--striking for the extreme severity of its expression, and for its stern and handsome outline. The eye which encountered the inquiring glance of the elder man was of the clearest blue, singularly penetrating and commanding--the eyebrow dark and shaggy--the lips full and finely formed, but in their habitual expression bearing a character of haughty and indomitable determination--the complexion of the face was dark; and as the country prebendary gazed upon the countenance, full, as it seemed, of a scornful, stern, merciless energy and decision, something told him, that he looked upon one born to lead and to command the people. All this he took in at a glance: and while he looked, Addison, who had detached himself from the vice-regal coterie, laid his hand upon the shoulder of the stern-featured young clergyman. "Swift," said he, drawing him aside, "we see you too seldom here. His excellency begins to think and to hope you have reconsidered what I spoke about when last we met. Believe me, you wrong yourself in not rendering what service you can to men who are not ungrateful, and who have the power to reward. You were always a Whig, and a pamphlet were with you but the work of a few days." "Were I to write a pamphlet," rejoined Swift, "it is odds his excellency would not like it." "Have you not always been a Whig?" urged Addison. "Sir, I am not to be taken by nicknames," rejoined Swift. "I know Godolphin, and I know Lord Wharton. I have long distrusted the government of each. I am no courtier, Mr. Secretary. What I suspect I will not seem to trust--what I hate I hate entirely, and renounce openly. I have heard of my Lord Wharton's doing, too. When I refused before to understand your overtures to me to write a pamphlet for his friends, he was pleased to say I refused because he would not make me his chaplain--in saying which he knowingly and malignantly lied; and to this lie he, after his accustomed fashion, tacked a blasphemous oath. He is therefore a perjured liar. I renounce him as heartily as I renounce the devil. I am come here, Mr. Secretary, not to do reverence to Lord Wharton--God forbid!--but to offer my homage to the majesty of England, whose brightness is reflected even in that cracked and battered piece of pinchbeck yonder. Believe me, should his excellency be rash enough to engage me in talk to-night, I shall take care to let him know what opinion I have of him." "Come, come, you must not be so dogged," rejoined Addison. "You know Lord Wharton's ways. He says a good deal more than he cares to be believed--everybody knows _that_--and all take his lordship's asseverations with a grain of allowance; besides, you ought to consider that when a man unused to contradiction is crossed by disappointment, he is apt to be choleric, and to forget his discretion. We all know his faults; but even you will not deny his merits." Thus speaking, he led Swift toward the vice-regal circle, which they had no sooner reached than Wharton, with his most good-humoured smile, advanced to meet the young clergyman, exclaiming,-- "Swift! so it is, by ----! I am glad to see you--by ---- I am." "I am glad, my lord," replied Swift, gravely, "that you take such frequent occasion to remind this godless company of the presence of the Almighty." "Well, you know," rejoined Wharton, good-humouredly, "the Scripture saith that the righteous man sweareth to his neighbour." "And _disappointeth_ him not," rejoined Swift. "And disappointeth him not," repeated Wharton; "and by ----," continued he, with marked earnestness, and drawing the young politician aside as he spoke, "in whatsoever I swear to thee there shall be no disappointment." He paused, but Swift remained silent. The lord-lieutenant well knew that an English preferment was the nearest object of the young churchman's ambition. He therefore continued,-- "On my soul, we want you in England--this is no stage for you. By ---- you cannot hope to serve either yourself or your friends in this place." "Very few thrive here but scoundrels, my lord," rejoined Swift. "Even so," replied Wharton, with perfect equanimity--"it is a nation of scoundrels--dissent on the one side and popery on the other. The upper order harpies, and the lower a mere prey--and all equally liars, rogues, rebels, slaves, and robbers. By ---- some fine day the devil will carry off the island bodily. For very safety you must get out of it. By ---- he'll have it." "I am not enough in the devil's confidence to speak of his designs with so much authority as your lordship," rejoined Swift; "but I incline to think that under your excellency's administration it will answer his end as well to leave the island where it is." "Ah! Swift, you are a wag," rejoined the viceroy; "but by ---- I honour and respect your spirit. I know we shall agree yet--by ---- I know it. I respect your independence and honesty all the more that they are seldom met with in a presence-chamber. By ---- I respect and love you more and more every day." "If your lordship will forego your professions of love, and graciously confine yourself to the backbiting which must follow, you will do for me to the full as much as I either expect or desire," rejoined Swift, with a grave reverence. "Well, well," rejoined the viceroy, with the most unruffled good-humour, "I see, Swift, you are in no mood to play the courtier just now. Nevertheless, bear in mind what Addison advised you to attempt; and though we part thus for the present, believe me, I love you all the better for your honest humour." "Farewell, my lord," repeated Swift, abruptly, and with a formal bow he retired among the common throng. "A hungry, ill-conditioned dog," said Wharton, turning to the person next him, "who, having never a bone to gnaw, whets his teeth on the shins of the company." Having vented this little criticism, the viceroy resumed once more the formal routine of state hospitality. "It is time we were going," suggested Mary Ashwoode to Emily Copland. "My lord," she continued, turning to Lord Aspenly, whose attentions had been just as conspicuous and incessant as Sir Richard Ashwoode could have wished them, "Do you know where Lady Stukely is?" Lord Aspenly professed his ignorance. "Have _you_ seen her ladyship?" inquired Emily Copland of the gallant Major O'Leary, who stood near her. "Upon my conscience, I have," rejoined the major. "I'm not considered a poltroon; but I plead guilty to one weakness. I am bothered if I can stand fire when it appears in the nose of a gentlewoman; so as soon as I saw her I beat a retreat, and left my valorous young nephew to stand or fall under the blaze of her artillery. She is at the far end of the room." The major was easily persuaded to undertake the mission, and a word to young Ashwoode settled the matter. The party accordingly left the rooms, having, however, previously to their doing so, arranged that Major O'Leary should pass the next day at Morley Court, and afterwards accompany them in the evening to the theatre, whither Sir Richard, in pursuance of his plans, had arranged that they should all repair. CHAPTER XVIII. THE TWO COUSINS--THE NEGLECTED JEWELS AND THE BROKEN SEAL. It was drawing toward evening when Emily Copland, in high spirits, and richly and becomingly dressed, ran lightly to the door of her cousin's chamber. She knocked, but no answer was returned. She knocked again, but still without any reply. Then opening the door, she entered the room, and beheld her cousin Mary seated at a small work-table, at which it was her wont to read. There she lay motionless--her small head leaned upon her graceful arms, over which flowed all negligently the dark luxuriant hair. An open letter was on the table before her, and two or three rich ornaments lay unheeded on the floor beside her, as if they had fallen from her hand. There was in her attitude such a passionate abandonment of grief, that she seemed the breathing image of despair. Spite of all her levity, the young lady was touched at the sight. She approached her gently, and laying her hand upon her shoulder, she stooped down and kissed her. "Mary, dear Mary, what grieves you?" she said. "Tell me. It's I, dear--your cousin Emily. There's a good girl--what has happened to vex you?" Mary raised her head, and looked in her cousin's face. Her eye was wild--she was pale as marble, and in her beautiful face was an expression so utterly woeful and piteous, that Emily was almost moved. "Oh! I have lost him--for ever and ever I have lost him," said she, despairingly. "Oh! cousin, dear cousin, he is gone from me. God pity me--I am forsaken." "Nay, cousin, do not say so--be cheerful--it cannot be--there, there," and Emily Copland kissed the poor girl's pale lips. "Forsaken--forsaken," continued Mary, for she heard not and heeded not the voice of vain consolation. "He has thrown me off for ever--for ever--quite--quite. God pity me, where shall I look for hope?" "Mary, dear Mary," said her cousin, "you are ill--do not give way thus. Be assured it is not as you think. You must be in error." "In error! Oh! that I could think so. God knows how gladly I would give my poor life to think so. No, no--it is real--all real. Oh! cousin, he has forsaken me." "I cannot believe it--I _can_ not," said Emily Copland. "Such folly can hardly exist. I will not believe it. What reason have you for thinking him changed?" "Read--oh, read it, cousin," replied the girl, motioning toward the letter, which lay open on the table--"read it once, and you will not bid me hope any more. Oh! cousin, dear cousin, there is no more joy for me in this world, turn where I will, do what I may--I am heart-broken." Emily Copland glanced through the letter, shook her head, and dropped the note again where it had been lying. "You know, cousin Emily, how I loved him," continued Mary, while for the first time the tears flowed fast--"you know that day after day, among all that happened to grieve me, my heart found rest in his love--in the hope and trust that he would never grow cold; and--and--oh! God pity me--_now_ where is it all? You see--you know his love is gone from me--for evermore--gone from me. Oh! how I used to count the days and hours till the time would come round when I could see him and speak to him--but this has all gone. Hereafter all days are to be the same--morning or evening, summer time or winter--no change of seasons or of hours can bring to me any more hope or gladness, but ever the same--sorrow and desolate loneliness--for oh! cousin, I am very desolate, and hopeless, and heart-broken." The poor girl threw her arms round her cousin's neck, and sobbed and wept, and wept and sobbed again, as though her heart would break. Long and bitterly she wept upon her cousin's neck in silence, unbroken, except by her sobs. After a time, however, Emily Copland exclaimed,-- "Well, Mary, to say the truth, I never much liked the matter; and as he is a fool, and an _ungrateful_ fool to boot, I am not sorry that he has shown his character as he has done. Believe me, painful as such discoveries are when made thus early, they are incomparably more agonizing when made too late. A little--a very little--time will enable you quite to forget him." "No, cousin," replied Mary--"no, I never will forget him. He is changed indeed--greatly changed from what he was--bitterly has he disappointed and betrayed me; but I cannot forget him. There shall indeed never more pass word or look between us; he shall be to me as one that is dead, whom I shall hear and see no more; but the memory of what he was--the memory of what I vainly thought him--shall remain with me while my poor heart beats." "Well, Mary, time will show," said Emily. "Yes, time will show--time will show," replied she, mournfully; "be the time long or short, it will show." "You _must_ forget him--you _will_ forget him; a few weeks, and you will thank your stars you found him out so soon." "Ah, cousin," replied Mary, "you do not know how all my thoughts, and hopes, and recollections--everything I liked to remember, and to look forward to; you cannot know how all that was happy in my life--but what boots it, I will keep my troth with him; I will love no other, and wed with no other; and while this sorrowful life remains I will never--never--forget him." "I can only say, that were the case my own," rejoined Emily, "I would show the fellow how lightly I held him and his worthless heart, and marry within a month; but every one has her own way of doing things. Remember it is nearly time to start for the theatre; the coach will be at the door in half-an-hour. Surely you will come; it would seem so very strange were you to change your mind thus suddenly; and you may be very sure that, by some means or other, the impudent fellow--about whom, I cannot see why, you care so much--would hear of all your grieving, and pining, and love-sickness. Pah! I'd rather die than please the hollow, worthless creature by letting him think he had caused me a moment's uneasiness; and then, above all, Sir Richard would be so outrageously angry--why, you would never hear the end of it. Come, come, be a good girl. After all, it is only holding up your head, and looking pretty, which you can't help, for an hour or two. You must come to silence gossip abroad, as well as for the sake of peace at home--you _must_ come." "I would fain stay here at home," said the poor girl; "heart and head are sick: but if you think my father would be angry with me for staying at home, I will go. It is indeed, as you say, a small matter to me where I pass an hour or two; all times, all places--crowds or solitudes--are henceforward indifferent to me. What care I where they bring me! Cousin Emily, I will do whatever you think best." The poor girl spoke with a voice and look of such utter wretchedness, that even her light-hearted, worldly, selfish cousin was touched with pity. "Come, then; I will assist you," said she, kissing the pale cheek of the heart-stricken girl. "Come, Mary, cheer up, you must call up your good looks it would never do to be seen thus." And so talking on, she assisted her to dress. Gaily and richly arrayed in the gorgeous and by no means unbecoming style of the times, and sparkling with brilliant jewels, poor Mary Ashwoode--a changed and stricken creature, scarcely conscious of what was going on around her--took her place in her father's carriage, and was borne rapidly toward the theatre. The party consisted of the two young ladies, who were respectively under the protection of Lord Aspenly, who sate beside Mary Ashwoode, happily too much pleased with his own voluble frivolity to require anything more from her than her appearing to hear it, and young Ashwoode, who chatted gaily with his pretty cousin. "What has become of my venerable true-love, Major O'Leary?" inquired Miss Copland. "He will follow on horseback," replied Ashwoode. "I beheld him, as I passed downstairs, admiring himself before the looking-glass in his new regimentals. He designs tremendous havoc to-night. His coat is a perfect phenomenon--the investment of a year's pay at least--with more gold about it than I thought the country could afford, and scarlet enough to make a whole wardrobe for the lady of Babylon--a coat which, if left to itself, would storm the hearts of nine girls out of ten, and which, even with an officer in it, will enthral half the sex." "And here comes the coat itself," exclaimed the young lady, as the major rode up to the coach-window--"I'm half in love with it myself already." "Ladies, your devoted slave: gentlemen, your most obedient," said the major, raising his three-cornered hat. "I hope to see you before half-an-hour, under circumstances more favourable to conversation. Miss Copland, depend upon it, with your permission, I'll pay my homage to you before half-an-hour, the more especially as I have a scandalous story to tell you. Meanwhile, I wish you all a safe journey, and a pleasant one." So saying, the major rode on, at a brisk pace, to the "Cock and Anchor," there intending to put up his horse, and to exchange a few words with young O'Connor. In the meantime the huge old coach, which contained the rest of the party, jolted and rumbled on, until at length, amid the confusion and clatter of crowded vehicles, restive horses, and vociferous coachmen, with all their accompaniments of swearing and whipping, the clank of scrambling hoofs, the bumping and hustling of carriages, and the desperate rushing of chairmen, bolting this way or that, with their living loads of foppery and fashion--the coach-door was thrown open at the box-entrance of the Theatre Royal, in Smock Alley. CHAPTER XIX. THE THEATRE--THE RUFFIAN--THE ASSAULT, AND THE RENCONTRE. Major O'Leary had hardly dismounted in the quadrangle of the "Cock and Anchor," when O'Connor rode slowly into the inn-yard. "How are you, my dear fellow?" exclaimed the man of scarlet and gold; "I was just asking where you were. Come down off that beast, I want to have a word in your ear--a bit of news--some fun. Descend, I say, descend." O'Connor accordingly dismounted. "Now then--a hearty shake--so. I have great news, and only a minute to tell it. Jack, run like a shot, and get me a chair. Here, Tim, take a napkin and an oyster-knife, and do not leave a bit of mud, or the sign of it, upon my back: take a general survey of the coat and breeches, and a particular review of the wig. And, Jem, do you give my boots a harum-scarum shot of a superficial scrub, and touch up the hat--gently, do you mind--and take care of the lace. So while the fellows are finishing my toilet, I may as well tell you my morsel of news. Do you know who is to be at the playhouse to-night?" O'Connor expressed his ignorance. "Well, then, I'll tell you, and make what use you like of it," resumed the major. "Miss Mary Ashwoode! There's for you. Take my advice, get into a decent coat and breeches, and run down to the theatre--it is not five minutes' walk from this; you'll easily find us, and I'll take care to make room for you. Why, you do not seem half pleased: what more can you wish for, unless you expect the girl to put up for the evening at the "Cock and Anchor"? Rouse yourself. If you feel modest, there is nothing like a pint or two of Madeira: don't try brandy--it's the father and mother of all sorts of indiscretions. Now, mind, you have the hint; it is an opportunity you ought to improve. By the powers, if I was in your place--but no matter. You may not have an opportunity of seeing her again these six months; and unless I'm completely mistaken, you are as much in love with the girl as I am with--several that shall be nameless. Heigho! next after Burgundy, and the cock-pit, and the fox-hounds, and two or three more frailties of the kind, there is nothing in the world I prefer to flirtation, without much minding whether I'm the principal or the second in the affair. But here comes the vehicle." Accordingly, without waiting to say any more, the major took his seat in the chair, and was borne by the lusty chairmen, at a swinging pace, through the narrow streets, and, without let or accident, safely deposited within the principal entrance of the theatre. The theatre of Smock Alley (or, as it was then called, Orange Street) was not quite what theatres are nowadays. It was a large building of the kind, as theatres were then rated, and contained three galleries, one above the other, supported by heavy wooden caryatides, and richly gilded and painted. The curtain, instead of rising and falling, opened, according to the old fashion, in the middle, and was drawn sideways apart, disclosing no triumphs of illusive colouring and perspective, but a succession of plain tapestry-covered screens, which, from early habit, the audience accommodatingly accepted for town or country, dry land or sea, or, in short, for any locality whatsoever, according to the manager's good will and pleasure. This docility and good faith on the part of the audience were, perhaps, the more praiseworthy, inasmuch as a very considerable number of the aristocratic spectators actually sate in long lines down either side of the stage--a circumstance involving, by the continuous presence of the same perukes, and the same embroidered waistcoats, the same set of countenances, and the same set of legs, in every variety of clime and situation through which the wayward invention of the playwright hurried his action, a very severe additional tax upon the imaginative faculties of the audience. But perhaps the most striking peculiarities of the place were exhibited in the grim persons of two _bonâ fide_ sentries, in genuine cocked hats and scarlet coats, with their enormous muskets shouldered, and the ball-cartridges dangling in ostentatious rows from their bandoleers, planted at the front, and facing the audience, one at each side of the stage--a vivid evidence of the stern vicissitudes and insecurity of the times. For the rest, the audience of those days, in the brilliant colours, and glittering lace, and profuse ornament, which the gorgeous fashion of the time allowed, presented a spectacle of rich and dazzling magnificence, such as no modern assembly of the kind can even faintly approach. The major had hardly made his way to the box where his party were seated, when his attention was caught by an object which had for him all but irresistible attractions: this was the buxom person of Mistress Jannet Rumble, a plump, good-looking, young widow of five-and-forty, with a jolly smile, a hearty laugh, and a killing acquaintance with the language of the eyes. These perfections--for of course her jointure, which, by the way, was very considerable, could have had nothing to do with it--were too much for Major O'Leary. He met the widow accidentally, made a few careless inquiries about her finances, and fell over head and ears in love with her upon the shortest possible notice. Our friend had, therefore, hardly caught a glimpse of her, when Miss Copland, beside whom he was seated, observed that he became unusually meditative, and at length, after two or three attempts to enter again into conversation--all resulting in total and incoherent failure, the major made some blundering excuse, took his departure, and in a moment had planted himself beside the fascinating Mistress Rumble--where we shall allow him the protection of a generous concealment, and suffer him to read the lady's eyes, and insinuate his soft nonsense, without intruding for a moment upon the sanctity of lovers' mutual confidences. Emily Copland having watched and enjoyed the manoeuvres of her military friend till she was fairly tired of the amusement, and having in vain sought to engage Henry Ashwoode, who was unusually moody and absent, in conversation, at length, as a last desperate resource, turned her attention to what was passing upon the stage. While all this was going forward, young Ashwoode was a good deal disconcerted at observing among the crowd in the pit a personage with whom, in the vicious haunts which he frequented, he had made a sort of ambiguous acquaintance. The man was a bulky, broad-shouldered, ill-looking fellow, with a large, vulgar, red face, and a coarse, sensual mouth, whose blue, swollen lips indicated habitual intemperance, and the nauseous ugliness of which was further enhanced by the loss of two front teeth, probably by some violent agency, as was testified by a deep scar across the mouth; the eyes of the man carried that uncertain expression, half of shame and half of defiance, which belongs to the coward, bully, and ruffian. The blackness of habitually-indulged and ferocious passion was upon his countenance; and the revolting character of the face was the more unequivocally marked by a sort of smile, or rather sneer, which had in it neither intellectuality nor gladness--an odious libel on the human smile, with nothing but brute insolence and scorn, and a sardonic glee in its baleful light--a smile from which every human sympathy recoiled abashed and affrighted. Let not the reader imagine that the man and the character are but the dreams of fiction; the wretch, whose outward seeming we have imperfectly sketched, lived and moved in the scenes where we have fixed our narrative--there grew rich--there rioted in the indulgence of every passion which hell can inspire or to which wealth can pander--there ministered to his insatiate avarice, by the destruction and beggary of thousands of the young and thoughtless--and there at length, in the fulness of his time, died--in the midst of splendour and infamy: with malignant and triumphant perseverance having persisted to his latest hour in the prosecution of his Satanic mission; luring the unwary into the toils of crime and inextricable madness, and thence into the pit of temporal and eternal ruin. This man, Nicholas Blarden, Esquire, was the proprietor of one of those places where fortunes are squandered, time sunk, habits, temper, character, morals, all, corrupted, blasted, destroyed--one of those places which are set apart as the especial temples of avarice, in which, year after year, are for ever recurring the same perennial scenes of mad excess, of calculating, merciless fraud, of bleak, brain-stricken despair--places to which has been assigned, in a spirit of fearful truth, the appellative of "hell." The man whom we have mentioned, it had never been young Ashwoode's misfortune to meet, except in those scenes where his acquaintance was useful, without being actually discreditable; for it was the fellow's habit, with the instinctive caution which marks such gentlemen, to court public observation as little as possible, and to skulk systematically from the eye of popular scrutiny--seldom embarrassing his aristocratic acquaintances by claiming the privilege of recognition at unseasonable times; and confining himself, for the most part, exclusively to his own coterie. Independently of his unpleasant natural peculiarities there were other circumstances which tended to make him a conspicuous object in the crowd--the fellow was extravagantly over-dressed, and had planted himself in a standing posture upon a bench, and from this elevated position was, with steady effrontery, gazing into the box in which young Ashwoode's party were seated, exchanging whispers and horse-laughs with three or four men who looked scarcely less villainous than himself, and, as soon became apparent, directing his marked and exclusive attention to Miss Ashwoode, who was too deeply absorbed in her own sorrowful reflections to heed what was passing around her. The young man felt his choler mount, as he beheld the insolent conduct of the fellow--he saw, however, that Blarden was evidently not perfectly sober, and hesitated what course he should take. Strongly as he was tempted to spring at once into the pit, and put an end to the impertinence by caning the fellow within an inch of his life, he yet felt that a disreputable conflict of the kind had better be avoided, and could not well be justified except as a last resource; he, therefore, made up his mind to bear it as long as human endurance could. Whatever hopes he entertained of escaping a collision with this man were, however, destined to be disappointed. Nicky Blarden (as his friends endearingly called him), to the great comfort of that part of the audience in his immediate neighbourhood, at length descended from his elevated stand, but not to conceal himself among the less obtrusive spectators. With an insolent swagger the fellow shouldered his way among the crowd towards the box where the object of his gaze was seated; and, having planted himself directly beneath it, he stared impudently up at young Ashwoode, exclaiming at the same time,-- "I say, Ashwoode, how does the world wag with you?--why ain't you rattling the bones this evening? d----n me, you may as well be off, and let me take care of the dimber mot up there?" "Do you speak to _me_, sir?" inquired young Ashwoode, turning almost livid with passion, and speaking in that subdued tone, and with that constrained coolness, which precedes some ungovernable outburst of fury. "Why, ---- me, how great we've got all at once--I say, you don't know me--Eh! don't you?" exclaimed the fellow, with vulgar scorn, at the same time rather roughly poking Ashwoode's hand with the hilt of his sword. "I shall show you, sir, when your drunken folly has passed away, by very sore proofs, that I _do_ know you," replied the young man, clutching his cane with such a grip as threatened to force his fingers into it--"be assured, sir, I shall know you, and you me, as long as you have the power to remember." "Whieu, d---- it, don't frighten us," said the fellow, looking round for the approbation of his companions. "I say, d----n it, don't frighten the people--come, come, no gammon. I say, Ashwoode, you must introduce me, or present me, or whatever's the word, to your sister up there--I say you _must_." "Quit this part of the house this instant, sir, or nothing shall prevent me flogging you until I leave not a whole bone in your body--this warning is the last--profit by it," rejoined Ashwoode, in a low tone of bitter rage. "Oh, ho! it's there you are--is it?" rejoined the fellow, with a wink at his comrades, "so you're going to beat the people--why, d----n it, you're enough to make a horse laugh. I say I want to know your sister, or your miss, or whatever she is, with the black hair up there, and if you won't introduce me, d----n it, I must only introduce myself." So saying, the fellow made a spring and caught the ledge of the front of the box, with the intention of vaulting into the place. Lord Aspenly and the young ladies had arisen in some alarm. "My lord," said young Ashwoode, "have the goodness to conduct the ladies to the lobby--I will join you in a moment." This direction was promptly obeyed, and at the same moment the young man caught the fellow, already half into the box, by the neckcloth, dragged his body across the wooden parapet, and while he struggled helplessly to disengage himself--half strangled, and without the power to get either up or down--with his heavy cane, the young gentleman--every nerve, sinew, and muscle being strung to tenfold power by fury--inflicted upon his back and ribs a castigation so prolonged and tremendous, that before it had ended, the scoundrel was perfectly insensible, in which state Henry Ashwoode flung him down again into the pit, amid the obstreperous acclamations of all parts of the house--an uproar of applause in which the spectators in the pit joined with such hearty enthusiasm, that at length, touched with a kindred heroism, they turned upon the associates of the fallen champion, and fairly kicked and cuffed them out of the house. This feat accomplished, the young gentleman went down the stairs to the street-entrance, and, after considerable delay, succeeded, with the assistance of the footman who had attended him into the house, in finding out their carriage, and having it brought to the door--not judging it expedient that the ladies should return to their places, where they would, of course, be exposed to the gazing curiosity of the multitude. He found the party in the lobby quite recovered from whatever was unpleasant in the excitement of the scene, the more violent part of which they had not witnessed. Lord Aspenly and Emily Copland were laughing over the adventure; and Mary, flashed and agitated, was looking better than she had before upon that night. Taking his cousin under his own protection, and consigning his sister to that of Lord Aspenly, young Ashwoode led the way to the carriage. As they passed slowly along the lobby, the quick eye of Mary Ashwoode discerned a form, at sight of which her heart swelled and throbbed as though it would burst--the colour fled from her cheeks, and she felt for a moment on the point of swooning; the pride of her sex, however, sustained her; the tingling blood again mounted warmly to her cheeks, her eye brightened, and she listened, with more apparent interest than perhaps she ever did before, to Lord Aspenly's remarks--the form was O'Connor's. As she passed him, she returned his salute with a slight and haughty bow, and saw, and felt the stern, cold, proud expression which marked his pale and handsome features. In another moment she was seated in the carriage; the doors were closed, crack went the whip, and clatter go the iron hoofs on the pavement--but before they had traversed a hundred yards on their homeward way, poor Mary Ashwoode sunk back in her place, and fainted away. CHAPTER XX. THE LODGING--YOUNG MELANCHOLY AND OLD REMEMBRANCES--AN ADVENTURE AMONG THE YEW HEDGES OF MORLEY COURT. "There is no more doubt--no more hope"--said O'Connor, as, wrapt in his cloak, he slowly pursued his way homeward--"the worst _is_ true--she is quite estranged from me--how deceived--how utterly blind I have been--yet who could have thought it? Light-hearted, vain, worthless--it is all, all true--my own eyes have seen it. Well, even this must be borne--borne as best it may, and with a manly spirit. I have been, indeed, miserably cheated"--he continued, with bitter vehemence--"and what remains for me? I've been infatuated--a self-flattered fool, and waken thus to find _all_ lost--but grief avails not--there lie before me many paths of honourable toil, and many avenues to honourable death--the ambition of my life is over--henceforth the world has nothing to offer me. I will leave this, the country of my ill-fated birth--leave it for ever, and end my days honourably, and God grant soon, far away from the only one I ever loved--from her who has betrayed me." Such were the thoughts which darkly and vaguely hurried through O'Connor's mind as he retraced his steps. Before he had arrived, however, at the "Cock and Anchor," whitherward he had mechanically directed his course, he bethought himself, and turned in a different direction towards the house in which his worthy friend, Mr. Audley--having an inveterate prejudice against all inns, which, without exception, he averred to be the especial sanctuaries of damp sheets, bugs, thieves, and rheumatic fevers--had already established himself as a weekly lodger. "Pooh, pooh! you foolish boy," ejaculated the old bachelor, with considerable energy, in reply to O'Connor's gloomy and passionate language; "nonsense, sir, and folly, and absurdity--you'll give me the vapours if you go on this way--what the devil do you want of foreign service and foreign graves--do you think, booby, it was for that I came over here--tilly vally, tilly vally--I know as well as you, or any other jackanapes, what love is. I tell you, sirrah, _I_ have been in love, and _I_ have been jilted--_jilted_, sir! and when I _was_ jilted, I thought the jilting itself quite enough, without improving the matter by getting myself buried, dead or alive." Here the little gentleman knocked the table recklessly with his knuckles, buried his hands in his breeches pockets, and rising from his chair, paced the room with an impressive tread. "Had you ever seen Letty Bodkin you might, indeed, have known what love is"--he continued, breathing very hard--"Letty Bodkin jilted me, and I got over it. I did not ask for razors, or cannon balls, or foreign interment, sir; but I vented my indignation like a man of business, in totting up the books, and running up a heavy arrear in the office accounts--yes, sir, I did more good in the way of arithmetic and book-keeping during that three weeks of love-sick agony, than an ordinary man, without the stimulus, would do in a year"--there was another pause here, and he resumed in a softened tone--"but Letty Bodkin was no ordinary woman. Oh! you scoundrel, had you seen her, you'd have been neither to hold nor to bind--there was nothing she could not do--she embroidered a waistcoat for me--heigho! scarlet geraniums and parsley sprigs--and she danced like--like a--a spring board--she'd sail through a minuet like a duck in a pond, and hop and bounce through 'Sir Roger de Coverley' like a hot chestnut on a griddle;--and then she sang--oh, her singing!--I've heard turtle-doves and thrushes, and, in fact, most kind of fowls of all sorts and sizes; but no nightingale ever came up to her in 'The Captain endearing and tall,' and 'The Shepherdess dying for love'--there never lived a man"--continued he, with increasing vehemence--"I don't care when or where, who could have stood, sate, or walked in her company for half-an-hour, without making an old fool of himself--she was just my age, perhaps a year or two more--I wonder whether she is much changed--heigho!" Having thus delivered himself, Mr. Audley lapsed into meditation, and thence into a faint and rather painful attempt to vocalize his remembrance of "The Captain endearing and tall," engaged in which desperate operation of memory, O'Connor left the old gentleman, and returned to his temporary abode to pass a sleepless night of vain remembrances, regrets, and despair. On the morning subsequent to the somewhat disorderly scene which we have described as having occurred in the theatre, Mary Ashwoode, as usual, sate silent and melancholy, in the dressing-room of her father, Sir Richard. The baronet was not yet sufficiently recovered to venture downstairs to breakfast, which in those days was a very early meal indeed. After an unusually prolonged silence, the old man, turning suddenly to his daughter, abruptly said, "Mary, you have now had some days to study Lord Aspenly--how do you like him?" The girl raised her eyes, not a little surprised at the question, and doubtful whether she had heard it aright. "I say," resumed he, "you ought to have been able by this time to arrive at a fair judgment as to Lord Aspenly's merits--what do you think of him--do you like him?" "Indeed, father," replied she, "I have observed him very little--he may be a very estimable man, but I have not seen enough of him to form any opinion; and indeed, if I had, _my_ opinion must needs be a matter of the merest indifference to him and everyone else." "Your opinion upon this point," replied Sir Richard, tartly, "happens _not_ to be a matter of indifference." A considerable pause again ensued, during which Mary Ashwoode had ample time to reflect upon the very unpleasant doubts which this brief speech, and the tone in which it was uttered, were calculated to inspire. "Lord Aspenly's manners are very agreeable, _very_," continued Sir Richard, meditatively--"I may say, indeed, fascinating--_very_--do you think so?" he added sharply, turning towards his daughter. This was rather a puzzling question. The girl had never thought about him except as a frivolous old beau; yet it was plain she could not say so without vexing her father; she therefore adopted the simplest expedient under such perplexing circumstances, and preserved an embarrassed silence. "The fact is," said Sir Richard, raising himself a little, so as to look full in his daughter's face, at the same time speaking slowly and sternly, "the fact is, I had better be explicit on this subject. _I_ am anxious that you should think well of Lord Aspenly; it is, in short, my wish and pleasure that you should _like_ him; you understand me--you had _better_ understand me." This was said with an emphasis not to be mistaken, and another pause ensued. "For the present," continued he, "run down and amuse yourself--and--stay--offer to show his lordship the old terrace garden--do you mind? Now, once more, run away." So saying, the old gentleman turned coolly from her, and rang his hand-bell vehemently. Scarcely knowing what she did, such was her astonishment at all that had passed, Mary Ashwoode left the room without any very clear notion as to whither she was going, or what to do; nor was her confusion much relieved when, on entering the hall, the first object which encountered her was Lord Aspenly himself, with his triangular hat under his arm, while he adjusted his deep lace ruffles--he had never looked so ugly before. As he stood beneath her while she descended the broad staircase, smiling from ear to ear, and bowing with the most chivalric profundity, his skinny, lemon-coloured face, and cold, glittering little eyes raised toward her--she thought that it was impossible for the human shape so nearly to assume the outward semblance of a squat, emaciated toad. "Miss Ashwoode, as I live!" exclaimed the noble peer, with his most gracious and fascinating smile. "On what mission of love and mercy does she move? Shall I hope that her first act of pity may be exercised in favour of the most devoted of her slaves? I have been looking in vain for a guide through the intricacies of Sir Richard's yew hedges and leaden statues; may I hope that my presiding angel has sent me one in you?" Lord Aspenly paused, and grinned wider and wider, but receiving no answer, he resumed,-- "I understand, Miss Ashwoode, that the pleasure-grounds, which surround us, abound in samples of your exquisite taste; as a votary of Flora, may I ask, if the request be not too bold, that you will vouchsafe to lead a bewildered pilgrim to the object of his search? There is--is there not?--shrined in the centre of these rustic labyrinths, a small flower-garden which owes its sweet existence to your creative genius; if it be not too remote, and if you can afford so much leisure, allow me to implore your guidance." As he thus spoke, with a graceful flourish, the little gentleman extended his hand, and courteously taking hers by the extreme points of the fingers, he led her forward in a manner, as he thought, so engaging as to put resistance out of the question. Mary Ashwoode felt far too little interest in anything but the one ever-present grief which weighed upon her heart, to deny the old fop his trifling request; shrouding her graceful limbs, therefore, in a short cloak, and drawing the hood over her head, she walked forth, with slow steps and an aching heart, among the trim hedges which fenced the old-fashioned pleasure walks. "Beauty," exclaimed the nobleman, as he walked with an air of romantic gallantry by her side, and glancing as he spoke at the flowers which adorned the border of the path--"beauty is nowhere seen to greater advantage than in spots like this; where nature has amassed whatever is most beautiful in the inanimate creation, only to prove how unutterably more exquisite are the charms of _living_ loveliness: these walks, but this moment to me a wilderness, are now so many paths of magic pleasure--how can I enough thank the kind enchantress to whom I owe the transformation?" Here the little gentleman looked unutterable things, and a silence of some minutes ensued, during which he effected some dozen very wheezy sighs. Emboldened by Miss Ashwoode's silence, which he interpreted as a very unequivocal proof of conscious tenderness, he resolved to put an end to the skirmishing with which he had opened his attack, and to commence the action in downright earnestness. "This place breathes an atmosphere of romance; it is a spot consecrated to the worship of love; it is--it is the shrine of passion, and I--_I_ am a votary--a worshipper." Miss Ashwoode paused in mingled surprise and displeasure, for his vehemence had become so excessive as, in conjunction with his asthma, to threaten to choke his lordship outright. When Mary Ashwoode stopped short, Lord Aspenly took it for granted that the crisis had arrived, and that the moment for the decisive onset was now come; he therefore ejaculated with a rapturous croak,-- "And you--_you_ are my divinity!" and at the same moment he descended stiffly upon his two knees, caught her hand in his, and began to mumble it with unmistakable devotion. "My lord--Lord Aspenly!--surely your lordship cannot mean--have done, my lord," exclaimed the astonished girl, withdrawing her hand indignantly from his grasp. "Rise, my lord; you cannot mean otherwise than to mock me by such extravagance. My lord--my lord, you surprise and shock me beyond expression." "Angel of beauty! most exquisite--most perfect of your sex," gasped his lordship, "I love you--yes, to distraction. Answer me, if you would not have me expire at your feet--ugh--ugh--tell me that I may hope--ugh--that I am not indifferent to you--ugh, ugh, ugh,--that--that you can love me?" Here his lordship was seized with so violent a fit of coughing, that Miss Ashwoode began to fear that he would expire at her feet in downright earnest. During the paroxysm, in which, with one hand pressed upon his side, he supported himself by leaning with the other upon the ground, Mary had ample time to collect her thoughts, so that when at length he had recovered his breath, she addressed him with composure and decision. "My lord," she said, "I am grateful for your preference of me; although, when I consider the shortness of my acquaintance with you, and how few have been your opportunities of knowing me, I cannot but wonder very much at its vehemence. For me, your lordship cannot feel more than an idle fancy, which will, no doubt, pass away just as lightly as it came; and as for my feelings, I have only to say, that it is wholly impossible for you ever to establish in them any interest of the kind you look for. Indeed, indeed, my lord, I hope I have not given you pain--nothing can be further from my wish than to do so; but it is my duty to tell you plainly and at once my real feelings. I should otherwise but trifle with your kindness, for which, although I cannot return it as you desire, I shall ever be grateful." Having thus spoken, she turned from her noble suitor, and began to retrace her steps rapidly towards the house. "Stay, Miss Ashwoode--remain here for a moment--you _must_ hear me!" exclaimed Lord Aspenly, in a tone so altered, that she involuntarily paused, while his lordship, with some difficulty, raised himself again to his feet, and with a flushed and haggard face, in which still lingered the ghastly phantom of his habitual smile, he hobbled to her side. "Miss Ashwoode," he exclaimed, in a tone tremulous with emotions very different from love, "I--I--I am not used to be treated cavalierly--I--I will not brook it: I am not to be trifled with--jilted--madam, jilted, and taken in. You have accepted and encouraged my attentions--attentions which you cannot have mistaken; and now, madam, when I make you an offer--such as your ambition, your most presumptuous ambition, dared not have anticipated--the offer of my hand--and--and a coronet, you coolly tell me you never cared for me. Why, what on earth do you look for or expect?--a foreign prince or potentate, an emperor, ha--ha--he--he--ugh--ugh--ugh! I tell you plainly, Miss Ashwoode, that _my_ feelings _must_ be considered. I have long made my passion known to you; it has been encouraged; and I have obtained Sir Richard's--your father's--sanction and approval. You had better reconsider what you have said. I shall give you an hour; at the end of that time, unless you see the propriety of avowing feelings which, you must pardon me when I say it, your encouragement of my advances has long virtually acknowledged, I must lay the whole case, including all the painful details of my own ill-usage, before Sir Richard Ashwoode, and trust to his powers of persuasion to induce you to act reasonably, and, I _will_ add, _honourably_." Here his lordship took several extraordinarily copious pinches of snuff, after which he bowed very low, conjured up an unusually hideous smile, in which spite, fury, and triumph were eagerly mingled, and hobbled away before the astonished girl had time to muster her spirits sufficiently to answer him. CHAPTER XXI. WHO APPEARED TO MARY ASHWOODE AS SHE SATE UNDER THE TREES--THE CHAMPION. With flashing eyes and a swelling heart, struck dumb with unutterable indignation, the beautiful girl stood fixed in the attitude in which his last words had reached her, while the enraged and unmanly old fop hobbled away, with the ease and grace with which a crippled ape might move over a hot griddle. He had disappeared for some minutes before she had recovered herself sufficiently to think or speak. "If _he_ were by my side," she said, "this noble lord dared not have used me thus. Edmond would have died a thousand deaths first. But oh! God look upon me, for _his_ love is gone from me, and I am now a poor, grieved, desolate creature, with none to help me." Thus saying, she sate herself down upon the grass bank, beneath the tall and antique trees, and wept with all the bitter and devoted abandonment of hopeless sorrow. From this unrestrained transport of grief she was at length aroused by the pressure of a hand, gently and kindly laid upon her shoulder. "What vexes you, Mary, my little girl?" inquired Major O'Leary, for he it was that stood by her. "Come, darling, don't fret, but tell your old uncle the whole business, and twenty to one, he has wit enough in his old noddle yet to set matters to rights. So, so, my darling, dry your pretty eyes--wipe the tears away; why should they wet your young cheeks, my poor little doat, that you always were. It is too early yet for sorrow to come on you. Wouldn't I throw myself between my little pet and all grief and danger? Then trust to me, darling; wipe away the tears, or by ---- I'll begin to cry myself. Dry your eyes, and see if I can't help you one way or another." The mellow brogue of the old major had never fallen before with such a tender pathos upon the ear of his beautiful niece, as now that its rich current bore full upon her heart the unlooked-for words of kindness and comfort. "Were not you always _my_ pet," continued he, with the same tenderness and pity in his tone, "from the time I first took you upon my knee, my poor little Mary? And were not you fond of your old rascally uncle O'Leary? Usedn't I always to take your part, right or wrong; and do you think I'll desert you now? Then tell it all to me--ain't I your poor old uncle, the same as ever? Come, then, dry the tears--there's a darling--wipe them away." While thus speaking, the warm-hearted old man took her hand, with a touching mixture of gallantry, pity, and affection, and kissed it again and again, with a thousand accompanying expressions of endearment, such as in the days of her childhood he had been wont to lavish upon his little favourite. The poor girl, touched by the kindness of her early friend, whose good-natured sympathy was not to be mistaken, gradually recovered her composure, and yielding to the urgencies of the major, who clearly perceived that something extraordinarily distressing must have occurred to account for her extreme agitation, she at length told him the immediate cause of her grief and excitement. The major listened to the narrative with growing indignation, and when it had ended, he inquired, in a tone, about whose unnatural calmness there was something infinitely more formidable than in the noisiest clamour of fury,-- "Which way, darling, did his lordship go when he left you?" The girl looked in his face, and saw his deadly purpose there. "Uncle, my own dear uncle," she cried distractedly, "for God's sake do not follow him--for God's sake--I conjure you, I implore--" She would have cast herself at his feet, but the major caught her in his arms. "Well, well, my darling." he exclaimed, "I'll not _kill_ him, well as he deserves it--I'll not: you have saved his life. I pledge you my honour, as a gentleman and a soldier, I'll not harm him for what he has said or done this day--are you satisfied?" "I am, I am! Thank God, thank God!" exclaimed the poor girl, eagerly. "But, Mary, I must see him," rejoined the major; "he has threatened to set Sir Richard upon you--I must see him; you don't object to that, under the promise I have made? I want to--to _reason_ with him. He shall not get you into trouble with the baronet; for though Richard and I came of the same mother, we are not of the same marriage, nor of the same mould--I would not for a cool hundred that he told his story to your father." "Indeed, indeed, dear uncle," replied the girl, "I fear me there is little hope of escape or ease for me. My father must know what has passed; he will learn it inevitably, and then it needs no colouring or misrepresentation to call down upon me his heaviest displeasure; his anger I must endure as best I may. God help me. But neither threats nor violence shall make me retract the answer I have given to Lord Aspenly, nor ever yield consent to marry _him_--nor any other now." "Well, well, little Mary," rejoined the major, "I like your spirit. Stand to that, and you'll never be sorry for it. In the meantime, I'll venture to exercise his lordship's conversational powers in a brief conference of a few minutes, and if I find him as reasonable as I expect, you'll have no cause to regret my interposition. Don't look so frightened--haven't I promised, on the honour of a gentleman, that I will _not_ pink him for anything said or done in his conference with you? To send a small sword through a bolster or a bailiff," he continued, meditatively, "is an _indifferent_ action; but to spit such a poisonous, crawling toad as the respectable old gentleman in question, would be nothing short of _meritorious_--it is an act that 'ud tickle the fancy of every saint in heaven, and, if there's justice on earth, would canonize myself. But never mind, I'll let it alone--the little thing shall escape, since _you_ wish it--Major O'Leary has said it, so let no doubt disturb you. Good-bye, my little darling, dry your eyes, and let me see you, before an hour, as merry as in the merriest days that are gone." So saying, Major O'Leary patted her cheek, and taking her hand affectionately in both his, he added,-- "Sure I am, that there is more in all this than you care to tell me, my little pet. I am sorely afraid there is something beyond my power to remedy, to change your light-hearted nature so mournfully. What it is, I will not inquire, but remember, darling, whenever you want a friend, you'll find a sure one in me." Thus having spoken, he turned from her, and strode rapidly down the walk, until the thick, formal hedges concealed his retreating form behind their impenetrable screens of darksome verdure. Odd as were the manner and style of the major's professions, there was something tender, something of heartiness, in his speech, which assured her that she had indeed found a friend in him--rash, volatile, and violent it might be, but still one on whose truth and energy she might calculate. That there was one being who felt with her and for her, was a discovery which touched her heart and moved her generous spirit, and she now regarded the old major, whose spoiled favourite in childhood she had been, but whom, before, she had never known capable of a serious feeling, with emotions of affection and gratitude, stronger and more ardent than he had ever earned from any other being. Agitated, grieved, and excited, she hurriedly left the scene of this interview, and sought relief for her overcharged feelings in the quiet and seclusion of her chamber. CHAPTER XXII. THE SPINET. In no very pleasant frame of mind did Lord Aspenly retrace his steps toward the old house. His lordship had, all his life, been firmly persuaded that the whole female creation had been sighing and pining for the possession of his heart and equipage. He knew that among those with whom his chief experience lay, his fortune and his coronet were considerations not to be resisted; and he as firmly believed, that even without such recommendations, few women, certainly none of any taste or discrimination, could be found with hearts so steeled against the archery of Cupid, as to resist the fascinations of his manner and conversation, supported and directed, as both were, by the tact and experience drawn from a practice of more years than his lordship cared to count, even to himself. He had, however, smiled, danced, and chatted, in impregnable celibacy, through more than half a century of gaiety and frivolity--breaking, as he thought, hearts innumerable, and, at all events, disappointing very many calculations--until, at length, his lordship had arrived at that precise period of existence at which old gentlemen, not unfrequently, become all at once romantic, disinterested, and indiscreet--nobody exactly knows why--unless it be for variety, or to spite an heir presumptive, or else that, as a preliminary to second childhood, nature has ordained a second _boyhood_ too. Certain, however, it is, that Lord Aspenly was seized, on a sudden, with a matrimonial frenzy; and, tired of the hackneyed schemers, in the centre of whose manoeuvres he had stood and smiled so long in contemptuous security, he resolved that his choice should honour some simple, unsophisticated beauty, who had never plotted his matrimony. Fired with this benevolent resolution, he almost instantly selected Mary Ashwoode as the happy companion of his second childhood, acquainted Sir Richard with his purpose, of course received his consent and blessing, and forthwith opened his entrenchments with the same certainty of success with which the great Duke of Marlborough might have invested a Flanders village. The inexperience of a girl who had mixed, comparatively, so little in gay society, her consequent openness to flattery, and susceptibility of being fascinated by the elegance of his address, and the splendour of his fortune--all these considerations, accompanied by a clear consciousness of his own infinite condescension in thinking of her at all, had completely excluded from all his calculations the very possibility of her doing anything else than jump into his arms the moment he should open them to receive her. The result of the interview which had just taken place, had come upon him with the overwhelming suddenness of a thunderbolt. Rejected!--Lord Aspenly rejected!--a coronet, and a fortune, and a man whom all the male world might envy--each and all rejected!--and by whom?--a chit of a girl, who had no right to look higher than a half-pay captain with a wooden leg, or a fox-hunting boor, with a few inaccessible acres of bog and mountain--the daughter of a spendthrift baronet, who was, as everyone knew, on the high road to ruin. Death and fury! was it to be endured? The little lover, absorbed in such tranquilizing reflections, arrived at the house, and entered the drawing-room. It was not unoccupied; seated by a spinet, and with a sheet of music-paper in her lap, and a pencil in her hand, was the fair Emily Copland. As he entered, she raised her eyes, started a little, became gracefully confused, and then, with her archest smile, exclaimed,-- "What shall I say, my lord? You have detected me. I have neither defence nor palliation to offer; you have fairly caught me. Here am I engaged in perhaps the most presumptuous task that ever silly maiden undertook--I am wedding your beautiful verses to most unworthy music of my own. After all, there is nothing like a simple ballad. Such exquisite lines as these inspire music of themselves. Would that Henry Purcell had had but a peep at them! To what might they not have prompted such a genius--to what, indeed?" So sublime was the flight of fancy suggested by this interrogatory, that Miss Copland shook her head slowly in poetic rapture, and gazed fondly for some seconds upon the carpet, apparently unconscious of Lord Aspenly's presence. "_She_ is a fine creature," half murmured he, with an emphasis upon the identity which implied a contrast not very favourable to Mary--"and--and very pretty--nay, she looks almost beautiful, and so--so lively--so much vivacity. Never was poor poet so much flattered," continued his lordship, approaching, as he spoke, and raising his voice, but not above its most mellifluous pitch; "to have his verses read by _such_ eyes, to have them chanted by such a minstrel, were honour too high for the noblest bards of the noblest days of poetry: for me it is a happiness almost too great; yet, if the request be not a presumptuous one, may I, in all humility, pray that you will favour me with the music to which you have coupled my most undeserving--my most favoured lines?" The young lady looked modest, glanced coyly at the paper which lay in her lap, looked modest once more, and then arch again, and at length, with rather a fluttered air, she threw her hands over the keys of the instrument, and to a tune, of which we say enough when we state that it was in no way unworthy of the words, she sang, rather better than young ladies usually do, the following exquisite stanzas from his lordship's pen:-- "Tho' Chloe slight me when I woo, And scorn the love of poor Philander; The shepherd's heart she scorns is true, His heart is true, his passion tender. "But poor Philander sighs in vain, In vain laments the poor Philander; Fair Chloe scorns with high disdain, His love so true and passion tender. "And here Philander lays him down, Here will expire the poor Philander; The victim of fair Chloe's frown, Of love so true and passion tender. "Ah, well-a-day! the shepherd's dead; Ay, dead and gone, the poor Philander; And Dryads crown with flowers his head, And Cupid mourns his love so tender." During this performance, Lord Aspenly, who had now perfectly recovered his equanimity, marked the time with head and hand, standing the while beside the fair performer, and every note she sang found its way through the wide portals of his vanity, directly to his heart. "Brava! brava! bravissima!" murmured his lordship, from time to time. "Beautiful, beautiful air--most appropriate--most simple; not a note that accords not with the word it carries--beautiful, indeed! A thousand thanks! I have become quite conceited of lines of which heretofore I was half ashamed. I am quite elated--at once overpowered by the characteristic vanity of the poet, and more than recompensed by the reality of his proudest aspiration--that of seeing his verses appreciated by a heart of sensibility, and of hearing them sung by the lips of beauty." "I am but too happy if I am _forgiven_," replied Emily Copland, slightly laughing, and with a heightened colour, while the momentary overflow of merriment was followed by a sigh, and her eyes sank pensively upon the ground. This little by-play was not lost upon Lord Aspenly. "Poor little thing," he inwardly remarked, "she is in a very bad way--desperate--quite desperate. What a devil of a rascal I am to be sure! Egad! it's almost a pity--she's a decidedly superior person; she has an elegant turn of mind--refinement--taste--egad! she is a fine creature--and so simple. She little knows I see it all; perhaps she hardly knows herself what ails her--poor, poor little thing!" While these thoughts floated rapidly through his mind, he felt, along with his spite and anger towards Mary Ashwoode, a feeling of contempt, almost of disgust, engendered by her audacious non-appreciation of his merits--an impertinence which appeared the more monstrous by the contrast of Emily Copland's tenderness. _She_ had made it plain enough, by all the artless signs which simple maidens know not how to hide, that his fascinations had done their fatal work upon her heart. He had seen, this for several days, but not with the overwhelming distinctness with which he now beheld it. "Poor, poor little girl!" said his lordship to himself; "I am very, very sorry, but it cannot be helped; it is no fault of mine. I am really very, very, confoundedly sorry." In saying so to himself, however, he told himself a lie; for, instead of being grieved, he was pleased beyond measure--a fact which he might have ascertained by a single glance at the reflection of his wreathed smiles in the ponderous mirror which hung forward from the pier between the windows, as if staring down in wondering curiosity upon the progress of the flirtation. Not caring to disturb a train of thought which his vanity told him were but riveting the subtle chains which bound another victim to his conquering chariot-wheels, the Earl of Aspenly turned, with careless ease, to a table, on which lay some specimens of that worsted tapestry-work, in which the fair maidens of a century and a half ago were wont to exercise their taste and skill. "Your work is very, very beautiful," said he, after a considerable pause, and laying down the canvas, upon whose unfinished worsted task he had been for some time gazing. "That is my _cousin's_ work," said Emily, not sorry to turn the conversation to a subject upon which, for many reasons, she wished to dwell; "she used to work a great deal with me before she grew romantic--before she fell in love." "In love!--with whom?" inquired Lord Aspenly, with remarkable quickness. "Don't you know, my lord?" inquired Emily Copland, in simple wonder. "May be I ought not to have told you--I am sure I ought not. Do not ask me any more. I am the giddiest girl--the most thoughtless!" "Nay, nay," said Lord Aspenly, "you need not be afraid to trust _me_--I never tell tales; and now that I know the fact that she is in love, there can be no harm in telling me the less important particulars. On my honour," continued his lordship, with real earnestness, and affected playfulness--"upon my sacred honour! I shall not breathe one syllable of it to mortal--I shall be as secret as the tomb. Who is the happy person in question?" "Well, my lord, you'll _promise_ not to betray me," replied she. "I know very well I ought not to have said a word about it; but as I _have_ made the blunder, I see no harm in telling you all I know; but you _will_ be secret?" "On my honour--on my life and soul, I swear!" exclaimed his lordship, with unaffected eagerness. "Well, then, the happy man is a Mr. Edmond O'Connor," replied she. "O'Connor--O'Connor--I never saw nor heard of the man before," rejoined the earl, reflectively. "Is he wealthy?" "Oh! no; a mere beggarman," replied Emily, "and a Papist to boot!" "Ha, ha, ha--he, he, he! a Papist beggar," exclaimed his lordship, with an hysterical giggle, which was intended for a careless laugh. "Has he any conversation--any manner--any attraction of _that_ kind?" "Oh! none in the world!--both ignorant, and I think, vulgar," replied Emily. "In short, he is very nearly a stupid boor!" "Excellent! Ha, ha--he, he, he!--ugh! ugh!--very capital--excellent! excellent!" exclaimed his lordship, although he might have found some difficulty in explaining in what, precisely the peculiar excellence of the announcement consisted. "Is he--is he--a--a--_handsome_?" "Decidedly _not_ what I consider handsome!" replied she; "he is a large, coarse-looking fellow, with very broad shoulders--very large--and as they say of oxen, in very great condition--a sort of a prize man!" "Ha, ha!--ugh! ugh!--he, he, he, he, he!--ugh, ugh, ugh!--de--lightful--quite delightful!" exclaimed the earl, in a tone of intense chagrin, for he was conscious that his own figure was perhaps a little too scraggy, and his legs a _leetle_ too nearly approaching the genus spindle, and being so, there was no trait in the female character which he so inveterately abhorred and despised as their tendency to prefer those figures which exhibited a due proportion of thew and muscle. Under a cloud of rappee, his lordship made a desperate attempt to look perfectly delighted and amused, and effected a retreat to the window, where he again indulged in a titter of unutterable spite and vexation. "And what says Sir Richard to the advances of this very desirable gentleman?" inquired he, after a little time. "Sir Richard is, of course, violently against it," replied Emily Copland. "So I should have supposed," returned the little nobleman, briskly. And turning again to the window, he relapsed into silence, looked out intently for some minutes, took more snuff, and finally, consulting his watch, with a few words of apology, and a gracious smile and a bow, quitted the room. CHAPTER XXIII. THE DARK ROOM--CONTAINING PLENTY OF SCARS AND BRUISES AND PLANS OF VENGEANCE. On the same day a very different scene was passing in another quarter, whither for a few moments we must transport the reader. In a large and aristocratic-looking brick house, situated near the then fashionable suburb of Glasnevin, surrounded by stately trees, and within furnished with the most prodigal splendour, combined with the strictest and most minute attention to comfort and luxury, and in a large and lofty chamber, carefully darkened, screened round by the rich and voluminous folds of the silken curtains, with spider-tables laden with fruits and wines and phials of medicine, crowded around him, and rather buried than supported among a luxurious pile of pillows, lay, in sore bodily torment, with fevered pulse, and heart and brain busy with a thousand projects of revenge, the identical Nicholas Blarden, whose signal misadventure in the theatre, upon the preceding evening, we have already recorded. A decent-looking matron sate in a capacious chair, near the bed, in the capacity of nurse-tender, while her constrained and restless manner, as well as the frightened expression with which, from time to time, she stole a glance at the bloated mass of scars and bruises, of which she had the care, pretty plainly argued the sweet and patient resignation with which her charge endured his sufferings. In the recess of the curtained window sate a little black boy, arrayed according to the prevailing fashion, in a fancy suit, and with a turban on his head, and carrying in his awe-struck countenance, as well as in the immobility of his attitude, a woeful contradiction to the gaiety of his attire. "Drink--drink--where's that d----d hag?--give me drink, I say!" howled the prostrate gambler. The woman started to her feet, and with a step which fell noiselessly upon the deep-piled carpets which covered the floor, she hastened to supply him. He had hardly swallowed the draught, when a low knock at the door announced a visitor. "Come in, can't you?" shouted Blarden. "How do you feel now, Nicky dear?" inquired a female voice--and a handsome face, with rather a bold expression, and crowned by a small mob-cap, overlaid with a profusion of the richest lace, peeped into the room through the half-open door--"how do you feel?" "In _hell_--that's all," shouted he. "Doctor Mallarde is below, love," added she, without evincing either surprise or emotion of any kind at the concise announcement which the patient had just delivered. "Let him come up then," was the reply. "And a Mr. M'Quirk--a messenger from Mr. Chancey." "Let _him_ come up too. But why the hell did not Chancey come himself?--That will do--pack--be off." The lady tossed her head, like one having authority, looked half inclined to say something sharp, but thought better of it, and contented herself with shutting the door with more emphasis than Dr. Mallarde would have recommended. The physician of those days was a solemn personage: he would as readily have appeared without his head, as without his full-bottomed wig; and his ponderous gold-headed cane was a sort of fifth limb, the supposition of whose absence involved a contradiction to the laws of anatomy; his dress was rich and funereal; his step was slow and pompous; his words very long and very few; his look was mysterious; his nod awful; and the shake of his head unfathomable: in short, he was in no respect very much better than a modern charlatan. The science which he professed was then overgrown with absurdities and mystification. The temper of the times was superstitious and credulous, the physician, being wise in his generation, framed his outward man (including his air and language) accordingly, and the populace swallowed his long words and his electuaries with equal faith. Doctor Mallarde was a doctor-like person, and, in theatrical phraseology, looked the part well. He was tall and stately, saturnine and sallow in aspect, had bushy, grizzled brows, and a severe and prominent dark eye, a thin, hooked nose, and a pair of lips just as thin as it. Along with these advantages he had a habit of pressing the gold head of his professional cane against one corner of his mouth, in a way which produced a sinister and mysterious distortion of that organ; and by exhibiting the medical baton, the outward and visible sign of doctorship, in immediate juxtaposition with the fountain of language, added enormously to the gravity and authority of the words which from time to time proceeded therefrom. In the presence of such a spectre as this--intimately associated with all that was nauseous and deadly on earth--it is hardly to be wondered at that even Nicholas Blarden felt himself somewhat uneasy and abashed. The physician felt his pulse, gazing the while upon the ceiling, and pressing the gold head of his cane, as usual, to the corner of his mouth; made him put out his tongue, asked him innumerable questions, which we forbear to publish, and ended by forbidding his patient the use of every comfort in which he had hitherto found relief, and by writing a prescription which might have furnished a country dispensary with good things for a twelvemonth. He then took his leave and his fee, with the grisly announcement, that unless the drugs were all swallowed, and the other matters attended to in a spirit of absolute submission, he would not answer for the life of the patient. "I am d----d glad he's gone at last," exclaimed Blarden, with a kind of gasp, as if a weight had been removed from his breast. "Curse me, if I did not feel all the time as if my coffin was in the room. Are you there, M'Quirk?" "Here I am, Mr. Blarden," rejoined the person addressed, whom we may as well describe, as we shall have more to say about him by-and-by. Mr. M'Quirk was a small, wiry man, of fifty years and upwards, arrayed in that style which is usually described as "shabby genteel." He was gifted with one of those mean and commonplace countenances which seem expressly made for the effectual concealment of the thoughts and feelings of the possessor--an advantage which he further secured by habitually keeping his eyes as nearly closed as might be, so that, for any indication afforded by them of the movements of the inward man, they might as well have been shut up altogether. The peculiarity, if not the grace, of his appearance, was heightened by a contraction of the muscles at the nape of the neck, which drew his head backward, and produced a corresponding elevation of the chin, which, along with a certain habitual toss of the head, gave to his appearance a kind of caricatured affectation of superciliousness and _hauteur_, very impressive to behold. Along with the swing of the head, which we have before noticed, there was, whenever he spoke, a sort of careless libration of the whole body, which, together with a certain way of jerking or twitching the right shoulder from time to time, were the only approaches to gesticulation in which he indulged. "Well, what does your master say?" inquired Blarden--"out with it, can't you." "Master--master--indeed! Cock _him_ up with _master_," echoed the man, with lofty disdain. "Ay! what does he say?" reiterated Blarden, in no very musical tones. "D---- you, are you choking, or moonstruck? Out with it, can't you?" "_Chancey_ says that you had better think the matter over--and that's his opinion," replied M'Quirk. "And a fine opinion it is," rejoined Blarden, furiously. "Why, in hell's name, what's the matter with him--the--drivelling idiot? What's law for--what's the courts for? Am I to be trounced and cudgelled in the face of hundreds, and--and half _murdered_, and nothing for it? I tell you, I'll be beggared before the scoundrel shall escape. If every penny I'm worth in the world can buy it, I'll have justice. Tell that sleepy sot Chancey that I'll _make_ him work. Ho--o--o--oh!" bawled the wretch, as his anguish all returned a hundredfold in the fruitless attempt to raise himself in bed. "Drink, here--_drink_--I'm choking! Hock and water. D---- you, don't look so stupid and frightened. I'll not be bamboozled by an old 'pothecary. Quick with it, you fumbling witch." He finished the draught, and lay silently for a time. "See--mind me, M'Quirk," he said, after a pause, "tell Chancey to come out himself--tell him to be here before evening, or I'll make him sorry for it, do you mind; I want to give him directions. Tell him to come at once, or I'll make him _smoke_ for it, that's all." "I understand--all right--very well; and so, as you seem settling for a snooze, I wish you good-evening, Mr. Blarden, and all sorts of pleasure and happiness," rejoined the messenger. The patient answered by a grin and a stifled howl, and Mr. M'Quirk, having his head within the curtains, which screened him effectually from the observation of the two attendants, and observing that Mr. Blarden's eyes were closely shut in the rigid compression of pain, put out his tongue, and indulged for a few seconds in an exceedingly ugly grimace, after which, repeating his farewell in a tone of respectful sympathy, he took his departure, chuckling inwardly all the way downstairs, for the little gentleman had a playful turn for mischief. When Gordon Chancey, Esquire, barrister-at-law, in obedience to this summons, arrived at Cherry Hill, for so the residence of the sick voluptuary was called, he found his loving friend and patron, Nicholas Blarden, babbling not of green fields, but of green curtains, theatres, dice-boxes, bright eyes, small-swords, and the shades infernal--in a word, in a high state of delirium. On calling next day, however, he beheld him much recovered; and after an extremely animated discussion, these two well-assorted confederates at length, by their united ingenuity, succeeded in roughly sketching the outlines of a plan of terrific vengeance, in all respects worthy of the diabolical council in which it originated, and of whose progress and development this history very fully treats. CHAPTER XXIV. A CRITIC--A CONDITION--AND THE SMALL-SWORDS. Lord Aspenly walked forth among the trim hedges and secluded walks which surrounded the house, and by alternately taking enormous pinches of rappee, and humming a favourite air or two, he wonderfully assisted his philosophy in recovering his equanimity. "It matters but little how the affair ends," thought his lordship, "if in matrimony--the girl is, after all, a very fine girl: but if the matter is fairly off, in that case I shall--look very foolish," suggested his conscience faintly, but his lordship dismissed the thought precipitately--"in that case I shall make it a point to marry within a fortnight. I should like to know the girl who would refuse _me_"--"_the only one you ever asked_," suggested his conscience again, but with no better result--"I should like to see the girl of sense or discrimination who _could_ refuse me. I shall marry the finest girl in the country, and _then_ I presume very few will be inclined to call me fool." "Not _I_ for one, my lord," exclaimed a voice close by. Lord Aspenly started, for he was conscious that in his energy he had uttered the concluding words of his proud peroration with audible emphasis, and became instantly aware that the speaker was no other than Major O'Leary. "Not _I_ for one, my lord," repeated the major, with extreme gravity, "I take it for granted, my lord, that you are no fool." "I am obliged to you, Major O'Leary, for your good opinion," replied his lordship, drily, with a surprised look and a stiff inclination of his person. "Nothing to be grateful for in it," replied the major, returning the bow with grave politeness: "if years and discretion increase together, you and I ought to be models of wisdom by this time of day. I'm proud of my years, my lord, and I would be half as proud again if I could count as many as your lordship." There was something singularly abrupt and uncalled for in all this, which Lord Aspenly did not very well understand; he therefore stopped short, and looked in the major's face; but reading in its staid and formal gravity nothing whatever to furnish a clue to his exact purpose, he made a kind of short bow, and continued his walk in dignified silence. There was something exceedingly disagreeable, he thought, in the manner of his companion--something very near approaching to cool impertinence--which he could not account for upon any other supposition than that the major had been prematurely indulging in the joys of Bacchus. If, however, he thought that by the assumption of the frigid and lofty dignity with which he met the advances of the major, he was likely to relieve himself of his company, he was never more lamentably mistaken. His military companion walked with a careless swagger by his side, exactly regulating his pace by that of the little nobleman, whose meditations he had so cruelly interrupted. "What on earth is to be done with this brute beast?" muttered his lordship, taking care, however, that the query should not reach the subject of it. "I must get rid of him--I must speak with the girl privately--what the deuce is to be done?" They walked on a little further in perfect silence. At length his lordship stopped short and exclaimed,-- "My dear major, I am a very dull companion--quite a bore; there are times when the mind--the--the--spirits require _solitude_--and these walks are the very scene for a lonely ramble. I dare venture to aver that you are courting solitude like myself--your silence betrays you--then pray do not stand on ceremony--_that_ walk leads down toward the river--pray no ceremony." "Upon my conscience, my lord, I never was less inclined to stand on ceremony than I am at this moment," replied the major; "so give yourself no trouble in the world about me. Nothing would annoy me so much as to have you think I was doing anything but precisely what I liked best myself." Lord Aspenly bowed, took a violent pinch of snuff, and walked on, the major still keeping by his side. After a long silence his lordship began to lilt his own sweet verses in a careless sort of a way, which was intended to convey to his tormentor that he had totally forgotten his presence:-- "Tho' Chloe slight me when I woo, And scorn the love of poor Philander; The shepherd's heart she scorns is true, His heart is true, his passion tender." "Passion tender," observed the major--"_passion_ tender--it's a _nurse_-tender the like of you and me ought to be looking for--_passion_ tender--upon my conscience, a good joke." Lord Aspenly was strongly tempted to give vent to his feelings; but even at the imminent risk of bursting, he managed to suppress his fury. The major was certainly (however unaccountable and mysterious the fact might be) in a perfectly cut-throat frame of mind, and Lord Aspenly had no desire to present _his_ weasand for the entertainment of his military friend. "Tender--_tender_," continued the inexorable major, "allow me, my lord, to suggest the word _tough_ as an improvement--_tender_, my lord, is a term which does not apply to chickens beyond a certain time of life, and it strikes me as too bold a license of poetry to apply it to a gentleman of such extreme and venerable old age as your lordship; for I take it for granted that Philander is another name for yourself." As the major uttered this critical remark, Lord Aspenly felt his brain, as it were, fizz with downright fury; the instinct of self-preservation, however, triumphed; he mastered his generous indignation, and resumed his walk in a state of mind nothing short of awful. "My lord," inquired the major, with tragic abruptness, and with very stern emphasis--"I take the liberty of asking, _have you made your soul_?" The precise nature of the major's next proceeding, Lord Aspenly could not exactly predict; of one thing, however, he felt assured, and that was, that the designs of his companion were decidedly of a dangerous character, and as he gazed in mute horror upon the major, confused but terrific ideas of "homicidal monomania," and coroner's inquests floated dimly through his distracted brain. "My soul?" faltered he, in undisguised trepidation. "Yes, my lord," repeated the major, with remarkable coolness, "have you made your soul?" During this conference his lordship's complexion had shifted from its original lemon-colour to a lively orange, and thence faded gradually off into a pea-green; at which hue it remained fixed during the remainder of the interview. "I protest--you cannot be serious--I am wholly in the dark. Positively, Major O'Leary, this is very unaccountable conduct--you really ought--pray explain." "Upon my conscience, I _will_ explain," rejoined the major, "although the explanation won't make you much more in love with your present predicament, unless I am very much out. You made my niece, Mary Ashwoode, an offer of marriage to-day; well, she was much obliged to you, but she did not _want_ to marry you, and she told you so civilly. Did you then, like a man and a gentleman, take your answer from her as you ought to have done, quietly and courteously? No, you did not; you went to bully the poor girl, and to insult her; because she politely declined to marry a--a--an ugly bunch of wrinkles, like you; and you threatened to tell Sir Richard--ay, you _did_--to tell him your pitiful story, you--you--you--but wait awhile. You want to have the poor girl frightened and bullied into marrying you. Where's your spirit or your feeling, my lord? But you don't know what the words mean. If ever you did, you'd sooner have been racked to death, than have terrified and insulted a poor friendless girl, as you thought her. But she's _not_ friendless. I'll teach you she's not. As long as this arm can lift a small-sword, and while the life is in my body, I'll never see any woman maltreated by a scoundrel--a _scoundrel_, my lord; but I'll bring him to his knees for it, or die in the attempt. And holding these opinions, did you think I'd let you offend my niece? _No_, sir, I'd be blown to atoms first." "Major O'Leary," replied his lordship, as soon as he had collected his thoughts and recovered breath to speak, "your conduct is exceedingly violent--very, and, I will add, most hasty and indiscreet. You have entirely misconceived me, you have mistaken the whole affair. You will regret this violence--I protest--I know you will, when you understand the whole matter. At present, knowing the nature of your feelings, I protest, though I might naturally resent your observations, it is not in my nature, in my _heart_ to be angry." This was spoken with a very audible quaver. "You _would_, my lord, you _would_ be angry," rejoined the major, "you'd _dance_ with fury this moment, if you _dared_. You could find it in your heart to go into a passion with a _girl_; but talking with men is a different sort of thing. Now, my lord, we are both here, with our swords; no place can be more secluded, and, I presume, no two men more willing. Pray draw, my lord, or I'll be apt to spoil your velvet and gold lace." "Major O'Leary, I _will_ be heard!" exclaimed Lord Aspenly, with an earnestness which the imminent peril of his person inspired--"I _must_ have a word or two with you, before we put this dispute to so deadly an arbitrament." The major had foreseen and keenly enjoyed the reluctance and the evident tremors of his antagonist. He returned his half-drawn sword to its scabbard with an impatient thrust, and, folding his arms, looked down with supreme contempt upon the little peer. "Major O'Leary, you have been misinformed--Miss Ashwoode has mistaken me. I assure you, I meant no disrespect--none in the world, I protest. I may have spoken hastily--perhaps I did--but I never intended disrespect--never for a moment." "Well, my lord, suppose that I admit that you did _not_ mean any disrespect; and suppose that I distinctly assert that I have neither right nor inclination just now to call you to an account for anything you may have said, in your interview this morning, offensive to my niece; I give you leave to suppose it, and, what's more, in supposing it, I solemnly aver, you suppose neither more nor less than the exact truth," said the major. "Well, then, Major O'Leary," replied Lord Aspenly, "I profess myself wholly at a loss to understand your conduct. I presume, at all events, that nothing further need pass between us about the matter." "Not so fast, my lord, if you please," rejoined the major; "a great deal more must pass between us before I have done with your lordship; although I cannot punish you for the past, I have a perfect right to restrain you for the future. I have a proposal to make, to which I expect your lordship's assent--a proposal which, under the circumstances, I dare say, you will think, however unpleasant, by no means unreasonable." "Pray state it," said Lord Aspenly, considerably reassured on finding that the debate was beginning to take a diplomatic turn. "This is my proposal, then," replied the major: "you shall write a letter to Sir Richard, renouncing all pretensions to his daughter's hand, and taking upon yourself the whole responsibility of the measure, without implicating _her_ directly or indirectly; do you mind: and you shall leave this place, and go wherever you please, before supper-time to-night. These are the conditions on which I will consent to spare you, my lord, and upon no other shall you escape." "Why, what can you mean, Major O'Leary?" exclaimed the little coxcomb, distractedly. "If I did any such thing, I should be run through by Sir Richard or his rakehelly son; besides, I came here for a wife--my friends know it; I _cannot_ consent to make a fool of myself. How _dare_ you presume to propose such conditions to me?" The little gentleman as he wound up, had warmed so much, that he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. Without one word of commentary, the major drew his, and with a nod of invitation, threw himself into an attitude of defence, and resting the point of his weapon upon the ground, awaited the attack of his adversary. Perhaps Lord Aspenly regretted the precipitate valour which had prompted him to place his hand on his sword-hilt, as much as he had ever regretted any act of his whole life; it was, however, too late to recede, and with the hurried manner of one who has made up his mind to a disagreeable thing, and wishes it soon over, he drew his also, and their blades were instantly crossed in mortal opposition. CHAPTER XXV. THE COMBAT AND ITS ISSUE. Lord Aspenly made one or two eager passes at his opponent, which were parried with perfect ease and coolness; and before he had well recovered his position from the last of those lunges, a single clanging sweep of the major's sword, taking his adversary's blade from the point to the hilt with irresistible force, sent his lordship's weapon whirring through the air some eight or ten yards away. "Take your life, my lord," said the major, contemptuously; "I give it to you freely, only wishing the present were more valuable. What do you say _now_, my lord, to the terms?" "I say, sir--what do _I_ say?" echoed his lordship, not very coherently. "Major O'Leary, you have disarmed me, sir, and you ask me what I say to your terms. What do I say? Why, sir, I say again what I said before, that I cannot and will not subscribe to them." Lord Aspenly, having thus delivered himself, looked half astonished and half frightened at his own valour. "Everyone to his taste--your lordship has an uncommon inclination for slaughter," observed the major coolly, walking to the spot where lay the little gentleman's sword, raising it, and carelessly presenting it to him: "take it, my lord, and use it more cautiously than you _have_ done--defend yourself!" Little expecting another encounter, yet ashamed to decline it, his lordship, with a trembling hand, grasped the weapon once more, and again their blades were crossed in deadly combat. This time his lordship prudently forbore to risk his safety by an impetuous attack upon an adversary so cool and practised as the major, and of whose skill he had just had so convincing a proof. Major O'Leary, therefore, began the attack; and pressing his opponent with some slight feints and passes, followed him closely as he retreated for some twenty yards, and then, suddenly striking up to the point of his lordship's sword with his own, he seized the little nobleman's right arm at the wrist with a grasp like a vice, and once more held his life at his disposal. "Take your life for the second and the _last_ time," said the major, having suffered the wretched little gentleman for a brief pause to fully taste the bitterness of death; "mind, my lord, for the _last_ time;" and so saying, he contemptuously flung his lordship from him by the arm which he grasped. "Now, my lord, before we begin for the _last_ time, listen to me," said the major, with a sternness, which commanded all the attention of the affrighted peer; "I desire that you should _fully_ understand what I propose. I would not like to kill you under a mistake--there is nothing like a clear, mutual understanding during a quarrel. Such an understanding being once established, bloodshed, if it unfortunately occurs, can scarcely, even in the most scrupulous bosom, excite the mildest regret. I wish, my lord, to have nothing whatever to reproach myself with in the catastrophe which you appear to have resolved shall overtake you; and, therefore, I'll state the whole case for your dying consolation in as few words as possible. Don't be in a hurry, my lord, I'll not detain you more than five minutes in this miserable world. Now, my lord, you have two strong, indeed I may call them in every sense _fatal_, objections to my proposal. The first is, that if you write the letter I propose, you must fight Sir Richard and young Henry Ashwoode. Now, I pledge myself, my soul, and honour, as a Christian, a soldier, and a gentleman, that I will stand between you and them--that _I_ will protect you completely from all responsibility upon that score--and that if anyone is to fight with either of them, it shall not be you. Your second objection is, that having been fool enough to tell the world that you were coming here for a wife, you are ashamed to go away without one. Now, without meaning to be offensive, I never heard anything more idiotic in the whole course of my life. But if it _must_ be so, and that you cannot go away without a wife, why the d----l don't you ask Emily Copland--a fine girl with some thousands of pounds, I believe, and at all events dying for love of you, as I am sure you see yourself? You can't care for one more than the other, and why the deuce need you trouble your head about their gossip, if anyone wonders at the change? And now, my lord, mark me, I have said all that is to be said in the way of commentary or observation upon my proposal, and I must add a word or two about the consequences of finally rejecting it. I have spared your life twice, my lord, within these five minutes. If you refuse the accommodation I have proposed, I will a third time give you an opportunity of disembarrassing yourself of the whole affair by running me through the body--in which, if you fail, so sure as you are this moment alive and breathing before me, you shall, at the end of the next five, be a corpse. So help me God!" Major O'Leary paused, leaving Lord Aspenly in a state of confusion and horror, scarcely short of distraction. There was no mistaking the major's manner, and the old _beau garçon_ already felt in imagination the cold steel busy with his intestines. "But, Major O'Leary," said he, despairingly, "will you engage--can you pledge yourself that no mischief shall follow from my withdrawing as you say? not that I would care to avoid a duel when occasion required; but no one likes to unnecessarily risk himself. Will you indeed prevent all unpleasantness?" "Did I pledge my soul and honour that I would?" inquired the major sternly. "Well, I am satisfied. I do agree," replied his lordship. "But is there any occasion for me to remove _to-night_?" "Every occasion," replied the major, coolly. "You must come directly with me, and write the letter--and this evening, before supper, you must leave Morley Court. And, above all things, just remember this, let there be no trickery or treachery in this matter. So sure as I see the smallest symptom of anything of the kind, I will bring about such another piece of work as has not been for many a long day. Am I fully understood?" "Perfectly--perfectly, my dear sir," replied the nobleman. "Clearly understood. And believe me, Major, when I say that nothing but the fact that I myself, for private reasons, am not unwilling to break the matter off, could have induced me to co-operate with you in this business. Believe me, sir, otherwise I should have fought until one or other of us had fallen to rise no more." "To be sure you would, my lord," rejoined the major, with edifying gravity. "And in the meantime your lordship will much oblige me by walking up to the house. There's pen and paper in Sir Richard's study; and between us we can compose something worthy of the occasion. Now, my lord, if you please." Thus, side by side, walked the two elderly gentlemen, like the very best friends, towards the old house. And shrewd indeed would have been that observer who could have gathered from the manner of either (whatever their flushed faces and somewhat ruffled exterior might have told), as with formal courtesy they threaded the trim arbours together, that but a few minutes before each had sought the other's life. CHAPTER XXVI. THE HELL--GORDON CHANCEY--LUCK--FRENZY AND A RESOLUTION. The night which followed this day found young Henry Ashwoode, his purse replenished with bank-notes, that day advanced by Craven, to the amount of one thousand pounds, once more engaged in the delirious prosecution of his favourite pursuit--gaming. In the neighbourhood of the theatre, in that narrow street now known as Smock Alley, there stood in those days a kind of coffee-house, rather of the better sort. From the public-room, in which actors, politicians, officers, and occasionally a member of parliament, or madcap Irish peer, chatted, lounged, and sipped their sack or coffee--the initiated, or, in short, any man with a good coat on his back and a few pounds in his pocket, on exchanging a brief whisper with a singularly sleek-looking gentleman, who sate in the prospective of the background, might find his way through a small, baize-covered door in the back of the chamber, and through a lobby or two, and thence upstairs into a suite of rooms, decently hung with gilded leather, and well lighted with a profusion of wax candles, where hazard and cards were played for stakes unlimited, except by the fortunes and the credit of those who gamed. The ceaseless clang of the dice-box and rattle of the dice upon the table, and the clamorous challenging and taking of the odds upon the throwing, accompanied by the ferocious blasphemies of desperate losers, who, with clenched hands and distracted gestures, poured, unheeded, their frantic railings and imprecations, as they, in unpitied agony, withdrew from the fatal table; and now and then the scarcely less hideous interruptions of brutal quarrels, accusations, and recriminations among the excited and half-drunken gamblers, were the sounds which greeted the ear of him who ascended toward this unhallowed scene. The rooms were crowded--the atmosphere hot and stifling, and the company in birth and pretensions, if not in outward attire, to the full as mixed and various as the degrees of fortune, which scattered riches and ruin promiscuously among them. In the midst of all this riotous uproar, several persons sate and played at cards as if (as, perhaps, was really the case), perfectly unconscious of the ceaseless hubbub going on around them. Here you might see in one place the hare-brained young squire, scarcely three months launched upon the road to ruin, snoring in drunken slumber, in his deep-cushioned chair, with his cravat untied, and waistcoat loosened, and his last cup of mulled sack upset upon the table beside him, and streaming upon his velvet breeches and silken hose--while his lightly-won bank notes, stuffed into the loose coat pocket, and peeping temptingly from the aperture, invited the fingers of the first _chevalier d'industrie_ who wished to help himself. In another place you might behold two sharpers fulfilling the conditions of their partnership, by wheedling a half-tipsy simpleton into a quiet game of ombre. And again, elsewhere you might descry some bully captain, whose occupation having ended with the Irish wars, indemnified himself as best he might by such contributions as he could manage to levy from the young and reckless in such haunts as this, busily and energetically engaged in brow-beating a timid greenhorn, who has the presumption to fancy that he has won something from the captain, which the captain has forgotten to pay. In another place you may see, unheeded and unheeding, the wretch who has played and lost his last stake; with white, unmeaning face and idiotic grin, glaring upon the floor, thought and feeling palsied, something worse, and more appalling than a maniac. The whole character of the assembly bespoke the recklessness and the selfishness of its ingredients. There was, too, among them a certain coarse and revolting disregard and defiance of the etiquettes and conventional decencies of social life. More than half the men were either drunk or tipsy; some had thrown off their coats and others wore their hats; altogether the company had more the appearance of a band of reckless rioters in a public street, than of an assembly of persons professing to be gentlemen, and congregated in a drawing-room. By the fireplace in the first and by far the largest and most crowded of the three drawing-rooms, there sate a person whose appearance was somewhat remarkable. He was an ill-made fellow, with long, lank, limber legs and arms, and an habitual lazy stoop. His face was sallow; his mouth, heavy and sensual, was continually moistened with the brandy and water which stood beside him upon a small spider-table, placed there for his especial use. His eyes were long-cut, and seldom more than half open, and carrying in their sleepy glitter a singular expression of treachery and brute cunning. He wore his own lank and grizzled hair, instead of a peruke, and sate before the fire with a drowsy inattention to all that was passing in the room; and, except for the occasional twinkle of his eye as it glanced from the corner of his half-closed lids, he might have been believed to have been actually asleep. His attitude was lounging and listless, and all his movements so languid and heavy, that they seemed to be rather those of a somnambulist than of a waking man. His dress had little pretension, and less neatness; it was a suit of threadbare, mulberry-coloured cloth, with steel buttons, and evidently but little acquainted with the clothes-brush. His linen was soiled and crumpled, his shoes ill-cleaned, his beard had enjoyed at least two days' undisturbed growth; and the dingy hue of his face and hands bespoke altogether the extremest negligence and slovenliness of person. This slovenly and ungainly being, who sate apparently unconscious of the existence of any other earthly thing than the fire on which he gazed, and the grog which from time to time he lazily sipped, was Gordon Chancey, Esquire, of Skycopper Court, Whitefriar Street, in the city of Dublin, barrister-at-law--a gentleman who had never been known to do any professional business, but who managed, nevertheless, to live, and to possess, somehow or other, the command of very considerable sums of money, which he most advantageously invested by discounting, at exorbitant interest, short bills and promissory notes in such places as that in which he now sate--one of his favourite resorts, by the way. At intervals of from five to ten minutes he slowly drew from the vast pocket of his clumsy coat a bulky pocket-book, and sleepily conned over certain memoranda with which its leaves were charged--then having looked into its well-lined receptacles, to satisfy himself that no miracle of legerdemain had abstracted the treasure on which his heart was set, he once more fastened the buckle of the leathern budget, and deposited it again in his pocket. This procedure, and his attentions to the spirits and water, which from time to time he swallowed, succeeded one another with a monotonous regularity altogether undisturbed by the uproarious scene which surrounded him. As the night wore apace, and fortune played her wildest pranks, many an applicant--some successfully, and some in vain--sought Chancey's succour. "Come, my fine fellow, tip me a cool hundred," exclaimed a fashionably-dressed young man, flushed with the combined excitement of wine and the dice, and tapping Chancey on the back impatiently with his knuckles--"this moment--will you, and be d----" "Oh, dear me, dear me, Captain Markham," drawled the barrister in a low, drowsy tone, as he turned sleepily toward the speaker, "have you lost the other hundred so soon? Oh, dear!--oh, dear!" "Never you mind, old fox. Shell out, if you're going to do it," rejoined the applicant. "What is it to you?" "Oh, dear me, dear me!" murmured Chancey, as he languidly drew the pocket-book from his pocket. "When shall I make it payable? To-morrow?" "D----n to-morrow," replied the captain. "I'll sleep all to-morrow. Won't a fortnight do, you harpy?" "Well, well--sign--sign it here," said the usurer, handing the paper, with a pen, to the young gentleman, and indicating with his finger the spot where the name was to be written. The _roué_ wrote his name without ever reading the paper; and Chancey carefully deposited it in his book. "The money--the money--d----n you, will you never give it!" exclaimed the young man, actually stamping with impatience, as if every moment's absence from the hazard-table cost him a fortune. "Give--give--_give_ them." He seized the notes, and without counting, stuffed them into his coat-pocket, and plunged in an instant again among the gamblers who crowded the table. "Mr. Chancey--Mr. Chancey," said a slight young man, whose whole appearance betokened a far progress in the wasting of a mortal decline. His face was pale as death itself, and glittering with the cold, clammy dew of weakness and excitement. The eye was bright, wild, and glassy; and the features of this attenuated face trembled and worked in the spasms of agonized anxiety and despair--with timid voice, and with the fearful earnestness of one pleading for his life--with knees half bent, and head stretched forward, while his thin fingers were clutched and knotted together in restless feverishness. He still repeated at intervals in low, supplicating accents--"Mr. Chancey--Mr. Chancey--can you spare a moment, sir--Mr. Chancey, good sir--Mr. Chancey." For many minutes the worthy barrister gazed on apathetically into the fire, as if wholly unconscious that this piteous spectacle was by his side, and all but begging his attention. "Mr. Chancey, good sir--Mr. Chancey, kind sir--only one moment--one word--Mr. Chancey." This time the wretched young man advanced one of his trembling hands, and laid it hesitatingly upon Chancey's knee--the seat of mercy, as the ancients thought; but truly here it was otherwise. The hand was repulsed with insolent rudeness; and the wretched suppliant stood trembling in silence before the bill-discounter, who looked upon him with a scowl of brute ferocity, which the timid advances he had made could hardly have warranted. "Well," growled Chancey, keeping his baleful eyes fixed not very encouragingly upon the poor young man. "I have been unfortunate, sir--I have lost my last shilling--that is, the last I have about me at present." "Well," repeated he. "I might win it all back," continued the suppliant, becoming more voluble as he proceeded. "I might recover it _all_--it has often happened to me before. Oh, sir, it is possible--_certain_, if I had but a few pounds to play on." "Ay, the old story," rejoined Chancey. "Yes, sir, it is indeed--indeed it is, Mr. Chancey," said the young man, eagerly, catching at this improvement upon his first laconic address as an indication of some tendency to relent, and making, at the same time, a most woeful attempt to look pleasant--"it is, sir--the old story, indeed; but this time it will come out true--indeed it will. Will you do one little note for me--a _little_ one--twenty pounds?" "No, I won't," drawled Chancey, imitating with coarse buffoonery the intonation of the request--"I won't do a _little_ one for you." "Well, for ten pounds--for _ten_ only." "No, nor for ten pence," rejoined Chancey, tranquilly. "You may keep five out of it for the discount--for friendship--only let me have five--just _five_," urged the wasted gambler, with an agony of supplication. "No, I won't; _just five_," replied the lawyer. "I'll make it payable to-morrow," urged the suppliant. "Maybe you'll be dead before that," drawled Chancey, with a sneer; "the life don't look very tough in you." "Ah! Mr. Chancey, dear sir--good Mr. Chancey," said the young man, "you often told me you'd do me a friendly turn yet. Do not you remember it?--when I was able to lend you money. For God's sake, lend me five pounds now, or anything; I'll give you half my winnings. You'll save me from beggary--ah, sir, for old friendship." Mr. Gordon Chancey seemed wondrously tickled by this appeal; he gazed sleepily at the fire while he raked the embers with the toe of his shoe, stuffed his hands deep into his breeches pockets, and indulged in a sort of lazy, comfortable laughter, which lasted for several minutes, until at length it subsided, leaving him again apparently unconscious of the presence of his petitioner. Emboldened by the condescension of his quondam friend, the young man made a piteous effort to join in the laughter--an attempt, however, which was speedily interrupted by the hollow cough of consumption. After a pause of a minute or two, during which Chancey seemed to have forgotten his existence, he once more addressed that gentleman,-- "Well, sir--well, Mr. Chancey?" The barrister turned full upon him with an expression of face not to be mistaken, and in a tone just as unequivocal, he growled,-- "I'm d----d if I give you as much as a leaden penny. Be off; there's no _begging_ allowed here--away with you, you blackguard." Having thus delivered himself, Chancey relapsed into his ordinary dreamy quiet. Every muscle in the pale, wasted face of the ruined, dying gamester quivered with fruitless agony; he opened his mouth to speak, but could not; he gasped and sobbed, and then, clutching his lank hands over his eyes and forehead as though he would fain have crushed his head to pieces, he uttered one low cry of anguish, more despairing and appalling than the loudest shriek of horror, and passed from the room unnoticed. "Jeffries, can you lend me fifty or a hundred pounds till to-morrow?" said young Ashwoode, addressing a middle-aged fop who had just reeled in from an adjoining room. "_Cuss_ me, Ashwoode, if the thing is a possibility," replied he, with a hiccough; "I have just been fairly cleaned out by Snarley and two or three others--not one guinea left--confound them all. I've this moment had to beg a crown to pay my chair and link-boy home; but Chancey is here; I saw him not an hour ago in his old corner." "So he is, egad--thank you," and Ashwoode was instantly by the monied man's side. "Chancey, I want a hundred and fifty--quickly, man, are you awake?" and so saying, he shook the lawyer roughly by the shoulder. "Oh, dear! oh, dear!" exclaimed he, in his usual low, sleepy voice, "it's Mr. Ashwoode, it is indeed--dear me, dear me; and can I oblige you, Mr. Ashwoode?" "Yes; don't I tell you I want a hundred and fifty--or stay, two hundred," said Ashwoode, impatiently. "I'll pay you in a week or less--say to-morrow if you please it." "Whatever sum you like, Mr. Ashwoode," rejoined he--"whatever sum or whatever date you please; I declare to God I'm uncommonly glad to do it. Oh, dear, but them dice _is_ unruly. Two hundred, you say, and a--a _week_ we'll say, not to be pressing. Well, well, this money has luck in it, maybe. That's a long lane that has no turn--fortune changes sides when it's least expected. Your name here, Mr. Ashwoode." The name was signed, the notes taken, and Ashwoode once more at the table; but alack-a-day! fortune was for once steady, and frowned with consistent obdurateness upon Henry Ashwoode. Five minutes had hardly passed, when the two hundred pounds had made themselves wings and followed the larger sums which he had already lost. Again he had recourse to Chancey: again he found that gentleman smooth, gracious, and obliging as he could have wished. Still his luck was adverse: as fast as he drew the notes from his pocket, they were caught and whirled away in the eddy of ruin. Once more from the accommodating barrister he drew a larger sum,--still with a like result. So large and frequent were his drafts, that Chancey was obliged to go away and replenish his exhausted treasury; and still again and again, with a terrible monotony of disaster, young Ashwoode continued to lose. At length the grey, cold light of morning streamed drearily through the chinks of the window-shutters into the hot chamber of destruction and debauchery. The sounds of daily business began to make themselves heard from the streets. The wax lights were flaring in the sockets. The floor strewn with packs of cards, broken glasses, and plates, and fragments of fowls and bread, and a thousand other disgusting indications of recent riot and debauchery which need not to be mentioned. Soiled and jaded, with bloodshot eyes and haggard faces, the gamblers slunk, one by one, in spiritless exhaustion, from the scene of their distracting orgies, to rest the brain and refresh the body as best they might. With a stunning and indistinct sense of disaster and ruin; a vague, fevered, dreamy remembrance of overwhelming calamity: a stupefying, haunting consciousness that all the clatter, and roaring, and stifling heat, and jostling, and angry words, and smooth, civil speeches of the night past, had been, somehow or other, to him fraught with fearful and tremendous agony, and delirium, and ruin--Ashwoode stalked into the street, and mechanically proceeded to the inn where his horse was stabled. The ostler saw, by the haggard, vacant stare with which Ashwoode returned his salutation, that something had gone wrong, and, as he held the stirrup for him, he arrived at the conclusion that the young gentleman must have gotten at least a dozen duels upon his hands, to be settled, one and all, before breakfast. The young man dashed the spurs into the high-mettled horse, and traversing the streets at a perilous speed, without well thinking or knowing whitherward he was proceeding, he found himself at length among the wild lanes and brushwood of the Royal Park, and was recalled to himself by finding his horse rearing and floundering up to his sides in a slough. Having extricated the animal, he dismounted, threw his hat beside him, and, kneeling down, bathed his head and face again and again in the water of a little brook, which ran in many a devious winding through the tangled briars and thorns. The cold, refreshing ablution, assisted by the sharp air of the morning, soon brought him to his recollection. "The fiend himself must have been by my elbow last night," he muttered, as he stood bare-headed, in wild disorder, by the brook's side. "I've lost before, and lost heavily too, but such a run, such an infernal string of ruinous losses. First, a thousand pounds gone--swallowed up in little more than an hour; and then the devil knows how much more--curse me, if I can remember _how_ much I borrowed. I am over head and ears in Chancey's books. How shall I face my father? and how, in the fiend's name, am I to meet my engagements? Craven will hand me no more of the money. Was I mad or drunk, to go on against such an accursed tide of bad luck?--what fury from hell possessed me? I wish I had thrust my hand between the bars, and burnt it to the elbow, before I took the dice-box last night. What's to be done?"--he paused-- "Yes--I _must_ do it--fate, destiny, circumstances drive me to it. I _will_ marry the woman; she can't live very long--it's not likely; and even if she does, what's that to me?--the world is wide enough for us both, and once married, we need not plague one another much with our society. I must see Chancey about those d----d bills or notes: curse me, if I even know when they are payable. My brain swims like a sea. Lady Stukely, Lady Stukely, you are a happy woman: it's an ill wind that blows nobody good--I am resolved--my course is taken. First then for Morley Court, and next for the wealthy widow's. I don't half like the thing, but, d----n it, what other chance have I? Then away with hesitation, away with thought; fate has ordained it." So saying, the young man donned his hat, caught the bridle of his well-trained steed, vaulted into the saddle, and was soon far on his way to Morley Court, where strange and startling tidings awaited his arrival. CHAPTER XXVII. THE DEPARTURE OF THE PEER--THE BILLET AND THE SHATTERED MIRROR. Never yet did day pass more disagreeably to mortal man than that whose early events we have recorded did to Lord Aspenly. His vanity and importance had suffered more mortification within the last few hours than he had ever before encountered in all the eight-and-sixty winters of his previous useful existence. And spite of the major's assurances to the contrary, he could not help feeling certain very unpleasant misgivings, as the evening approached, touching the consequences likely to follow to himself from his meditated retreat. He resolved by the major's advice to leave Morley Court without a formal leave-taking, or, in short, any explanatory interview whatever with Sir Richard. And for the purpose of taking his departure without obstruction or annoyance, he determined that the hour of his setting forth should be that at which the baronet was wont to retire for a time to his dressing-room, previously to appearing at supper. The note which was to announce his departure was written and sealed, and deposited in his waistcoat pocket. He felt that it supplied but a very meagre explanation of so decided a step as he was constrained to take; nevertheless it was the only explanation he had to offer. He well knew that its perusal would be followed by an explosion, and he not unwisely thought it best, under all the circumstances, to withdraw to a reasonable distance before springing the mine. The evening closed ominously in storm and cloud; the wind was hourly rising, and distant mutterings of thunder bespoke a night of tempest. Lord Aspenly had issued his orders with secrecy, and they were punctually obeyed. At the hour indicated, his own and his servant's horses were at the door. Lord Aspenly was crossing the hall, cloaked, booted, and spurred for the road, when he encountered Emily Copland. "Dear me, my lord, can it be possible--surely you are not going to leave us to-night?" "Indeed, it is but too true, fair lady," rejoined his lordship, with a dolorous shrug. "An unlucky _contretemps_ requires my attendance in town; my precipitate flight," he continued, with an attempt at a playful smile, "is accounted for in this note, which perhaps you will kindly deliver to Sir Richard, when next you see him. I trust, Miss Copland, that fortune will often grant me the privilege of meeting you. Be assured it is one which I prize above all others. Adieu." His lordship gallantly kissed the hand which was extended to receive the note, and then, with his best bow, withdrew. A few petulant questions, which bespoke his inward acerbity, he addressed to his servant--glanced with a very sour aspect at the lowering sky--clambered stiffly into the saddle, and then, desiring his attendant to follow him, rode down the avenue at a speed which seemed prompted by an instinctive dread of pursuit. As the wind howled and the thunder rolled and rumbled nearer and nearer, Emily Copland could not but wonder more and more what urgent and peremptory cause could have induced the little peer to adopt this sudden resolution, and to carry it into effect upon such a night of storm. Surely that motive must be a strange and urgent one which would not brook the delay of a few hours, especially during the violence of such weather as the luxurious little nobleman had perhaps never voluntarily encountered in the whole course of his life. Curiosity prompted her to deliver the note which she held in her hand at once; she therefore ran lightly upstairs, and rapidly threading all the intervening lobbies and rambling passages, she knocked at her uncle's door. "Come in, come in," cried the peevish voice of Sir Richard Ashwoode. The girl entered the room. The Italian was at the toilet, arranging his master's dressing-case, and the baronet himself in his night-gown and slippers, and with a pamphlet in his hand, reclined listlessly upon a sofa. "Who is that?--who _is_ it?" inquired he in the same tone, without turning his eyes from the volume which he read. "Per dina!" exclaimed the Neapolitan--"Mees Emily--she is vary seldom come here. You are wailcome, Mees Emily; weel you seet down?--there is chair. Sir Richard, it is Mees Emily." "What does the young lady want?" inquired he, drily. "I have gotten a note for you, uncle," replied she. "Well, put it down?--put it there on the table, anywhere; I presume it will keep till morning," replied he, without removing his eyes from the pages. "It is from Lord Aspenly," urged the girl. "Eh! Lord Aspenly. How--give it to me," said the baronet, raising himself quickly and tossing the pamphlet aside. He broke the seal and read the note. Whatever its contents were, they produced upon the baronet an extraordinary effect; he started from the sofa with clenched hands and frantic gesture. "Who--where--stop him, after him--he shall answer me--he shall!" cried, or rather shrieked, the baronet in the hoarse, choking scream of fury. "After him all--my sword, my horse. By ----, he'll reckon with me this night." Never did the human form more fearfully embody the passions of hell; he stood before them absolutely transformed. The quivering face was pale as ashes; the livid veins, like blue knotted cordage, protruded upon his forehead; the eye glared and rolled with the light of madness, and as he shook and raved there before them, no dream ever conjured up a spectacle more appalling; he spit upon the letter--he tore it into fragments, and with his gouty feet stamped it into the fire. There was no extravagance of frenzy which he did not enact. He tossed his arms into the air, and dashed his clenched hands upon the table; he stamped, he stormed, he howled; and as with thick and furious utterance he volleyed forth his incoherent threats, mandates, and curses, the foam hung upon his blackened lips. "I'll bring him to the dust--to the earth. My very menials shall spurn him. Almighty, that he should dare--trickster--liar--that he should dare to practise upon _me_ this outrageous slight. Ay, ay--ay, ay--laugh, my lord--laugh on; but by the ---- ----, this shall bring you to your knees, ay, and to your grave; and you--_you_," thundered he, turning upon the awe-struck and terrified young lady, "you no doubt had _your_ share in this--ay, you have--you _have_--yes, I know you--you--you--hollow, lying ----, quit my house--out with you--turn her out--drive her out--away with her." As the horrible figure advanced towards her, the girl by an effort roused herself from the dreadful fascination, and turning from him, fled swiftly downstairs, and fell fainting at the parlour door. Sir Richard still strode through his chamber with the same frantic evidences of unabated fury; and the Italian--the only remaining spectator of the hideous scene--sate calmly in a chair by the toilet, with his legs crossed, and his countenance composed into a kind of sanctimonious placidity, which, however, spite of all his efforts, betrayed at the corners of the mouth, and in the twinkle of the eye, a certain enjoyment of the spectacle, which was not altogether consistent with the perfect affection which he professed for his master. "Ay, ay, my lord," continued the baronet, madly, "laugh on--laugh while you may; but by the ---- ----, you shall gnash your teeth for this!" "What coning, old gentleman is mi Lord Aspenly--ah! vary, vary," said the Italian, reflectively. "You _shall_, my lord," continued Sir Richard, furiously. "Your disgrace shall be public--exemplary--the insult shall recoil upon, yourself--your punishment shall be memorable-public--tremendous." "Mi Lord Aspenly and Sir Richard--both so coning," continued the Italian--"yees--yees--set one thief to catch the other." The Neapolitan had, no doubt, bargained for the indulgence of his pleasant humour, as usual, free of cost; but he was mistaken. With the quickness of light, Sir Richard grasped a massive glass decanter, full of water, and hurled it at the head of his valet. Luckily for that gentleman's brains, it missed its object, and, alighting upon a huge mirror, it dashed it to fragments with a stunning crash. In the extremity of his fury, Sir Richard grasped a heavy metal inkstand, and just as the valet escaped through the private door of his room, hurled _it_, too, at his head. Two such escapes were quite enough for Signor Parucci on one evening; and not wishing to tempt his luck further, he ran nimbly down the stairs, leaped into his own room, and bolted and double-locked the door; and thence, as the night wore on, he still heard Sir Richard pacing up and down his chamber, and storming and raving in dreadful rivalry with the thunder and hurricane without. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE THUNDER-STORM--THE EBONY STICK--THE UNSEEN VISITANT--TERROR. At length the uproar in Sir Richard's room died away. The hoarse voice in furious soliloquy, and the rapid tread as he paced the floor, were no longer audible. In their stead was heard alone the stormy wind rushing and yelling through the old trees, and at intervals the deep volleying thunder. In the midst of this hubbub the Italian rubbed his hands, tripped lightly up and down his room, placed his ear at the keyhole, and chuckled and rubbed his hands again in a paroxysm of glee--now and again venting his gratification in brief ejaculations of intense delight--the very incarnation of the spirit of mischief. The sounds in Sir Richard's room had ceased for two hours or more; and the piping wind and the deep-mouthed thunder still roared and rattled. The Neapolitan was too much excited to slumber. He continued, therefore, to pace the floor of his chamber--sometimes gazing through his window upon the black stormy sky and the blue lightning, which leaped in blinding flashes across its darkness, revealing for a moment the ivied walls, and the tossing trees, and the fields and hills, which were as instantaneously again swallowed in the blackness of the tempestuous night; and then turning from the casement, he would plant himself by the door, and listen with eager curiosity for any sound from Sir Richard's room. As we have said before, several hours had passed, and all had long been silent in the baronet's apartment, when on a sudden Parucci thought he heard the sharp and well-known knocking of his patron's ebony stick upon the floor. He ran and listened at his own door. The sound was repeated with unequivocal and vehement distinctness, and was instantaneously followed by a prolonged and violent peal from his master's hand-bell. The summons was so sustained and vehement, that the Italian at length cautiously withdrew the bolt, unlocked the door, and stole out upon the lobby. So far from abating, the sound grew louder and louder. On tip-toe he scaled the stairs, until he reached to about the midway; and he there paused, for he heard his master's voice exerted in a tone of terrified entreaty,-- "Not now--not now--avaunt--not now. Oh, God!--help," cried the well-known voice. These words were followed by a crash, as of some heavy body springing from the bed--then a rush upon the floor--then another crash. The voice was hushed; but in its stead the wild storm made a long and plaintive moan, and the listener's heart turned cold. "_Malora_--_Corpo di Pluto!_" muttered he between his teeth. "What is it? Will he reeng again? _Santo gennaro!_--there is something wrong." He paused in fearful curiosity; but the summons was not repeated. Five minutes passed; and yet no sound but the howling and pealing of the storm. Parucci, with a beating heart, ascended the stairs and knocked at the door of his patron's chamber. No answer was returned. "Sir Richard, Sir Richard," cried the man, "do you want me, Sir Richard?" Still no answer. He pushed open the door and entered. A candle, wasted to the very socket, stood upon a table beside the huge hearse-like bed, which, for the convenience of the invalid, had been removed from his bed-chamber to his dressing-room. The light was dim, and waved uncertainly in the eddies which found their way through the chinks of the window, so that the lights and shadows flitted ambiguously across the objects in the room. At the end of the bed a table had been upset; and lying near it upon the floor was some-thing--a heap of bed-clothes, or--could it be?--yes, it _was_ Sir Richard Ashwoode. Parncci approached the prostrate figure: it was lying upon its back, the countenance fixed and livid, the eyes staring and glazed, and the jaw fallen--he was a corpse. The Italian stooped down and took the hand of the dead man--it was already cold; he called him by his name and shook him, but all in vain. There lay the cunning intriguer, the fierce, fiery prodigal, the impetuous, unrelenting tyrant, the unbelieving, reckless man of the world, a ghastly lump of clay. [Illustration: "Parucci approached the prostate figure." _To face page 156._] With strange emotions the Neapolitan gazed upon the lifeless effigy from which the evil tenant had been so suddenly and fearfully called to its eternal and unseen abode. "Gone--dead--all over--all past," muttered he, slowly, while he pressed his foot upon the dead body, as if to satisfy himself that life was indeed extinct--"quite gone. _Canchero!_ it was ugly death--there was something with him; what was he speaking with?" Parucci walked to the door leading to the great staircase, but found it bolted as usual. "Pshaw! there was nothing," said he, looking fearfully round the room as he approached the body again, and repeating the negative as if to reassure himself--"no, no--nothing, nothing." He gazed again on the awful spectacle in silence for several minutes. "_Corbezzoli_, and so it _is_ over," at length he ejaculated--"the game is ended. See, see, the breast is bare, and there the two marks of Aldini's stiletto. Ah! _briccone_, _briccone_, what wild faylow were you--_panzanera_, for a pretty ankle and a pair of black eyes, you would dare the devil. _Rotto di collo_, his face is moving!--pshaw! it is only the light that wavers. _Diamine!_ the face is terrible. What made him speak? nothing was with him--pshaw! nothing could come to him here--no, no, nothing." As he thus spoke, the wind swept vehemently upon the windows with a sound as if some great thing had rushed, against them, and was pressing for admission, and the gust blew out the candle; the blast died away in a lengthened wail, and then again came rushing and howling up to the windows, as if the very prince of the powers of the air himself were thundering at the casement; then again the blue dazzling lightning glared into the room and gave place to deeper darkness. "Pah! that lightning smells like brimstone. _Sangue d'un dua_, I hear something in the room." Yielding to his terrors, Parucci stumbled to the door opening upon the great lobby, and with cold and trembling fingers drawing the bolt, sprang to the stairs and shouted for assistance in a tone which speedily assembled half the household in the chamber of death. CHAPTER XXIX. THE CRONES--THE CORPSE, AND THE SHARPER. Haggard, exhausted, and in no very pleasant temper, Henry Ashwoode rode up the avenue of Morley Court. "I shall have a blessed conference with my father," thought he, "when he learns the fate of the thousand pounds I was to have brought him--a pleasant interview, by ----. How shall I open it? He'll be no better than a Bedlamite. By ----, a pretty hot kettle of fish this--but through it I must flounder as best I may--curse it, what am I afraid of?" Thus muttering, he leaped from the saddle, leaving the well-trained steed to make his way to the stable, and entered at the half open door. In the hall he encountered a servant, but was too much occupied by his own busy reflections to observe the earnest, awe-struck countenance of the old domestic. "Mr. Henry--Mr. Henry--stay, sir--stay--one moment," said the man, following and endeavouring to detain him. Ashwoode, however, without heeding the interruption, hastened by him, and mounted the stairs with long and rapid strides, resolved not unnecessarily to defer the interview which he believed must come sooner or later. He opened Sir Richard's door, and entered the chamber. He looked round the room for the object of his search in vain; but to his unmeasured astonishment, beheld instead three old shrivelled hags seated by the hearth, who all rose upon his entrance, except one, who was warming something in a saucepan upon the fire, and each and all resumed respectively the visages of woe which best became the occasion. "Eh! How is this? What brings you here, nurse?" exclaimed the young man, in a tone of startled curiosity. The old lady whom he addressed thought it advisable to weep, and instead of returning any answer, covered her face with her apron, turned away her head, and shook her palsied hand towards him with a gesture which was meant to express the mute anguish of unutterable sorrow. "What _is_ it?" said Ashwoode. "Are you all tongue-tied? Speak, some of you." "Oh, musha! musha! the crathur," observed the second witch, with a most lugubrious shake of the head, "but it is _he_ that's to be pitied. Oh, wisha--wisha--wiristhroo!" "What the d----l ails you? Can't you speak out? Where's my father?" repeated the young man, with impatient perplexity. "With the blessed saints in glory," replied the third hag, giving the saucepan a slight whisk to prevent the contents from burning, "and if ever there was an angel on earth, _he_ was one. Well, well, he has his reward--that's one comfort, sure. The crown of glory, with the holy apostles--it's _he's_ to be envied--up in heaven, though he wint mighty suddint, surely." This was followed by a kind of semi-dolorous shake of the head, in which the three old women joined. With a hurried step, young Ashwoode strode to the bedside, drew the curtain, and gazed upon the sharp and fixed features of the corpse, as it leered with unclosed eyes from among the bed-clothes. It would not have been easy to analyze the feelings with which he looked upon this spectacle. A kind of incredulous horror sate upon his compressed features. He touched the hand, which rested stiffly upon the coverlet, as if doubtful that the old man, whom he had so long feared and obeyed, was actually _dead_. The cold, dull touch that met his was not to be mistaken, and he gazed fixedly with that awful curiosity with which in death the well-known features of a familiar face are looked on. There lay the being whose fierce passions had been to him from his earliest days a source of habitual fear--in childhood, even of terror--henceforth to be no more to him than a thing which had never been. There lay the scheming, busy head, but what availed all its calculations and its cunning now! No more thought or power has it than the cushion on which it stiffly rests. There lies the proud, worldly, unforgiving, violent man, a senseless effigy of cold clay--a grim, impassive monument of the recent presence of the unearthly visitant. "It's a beautiful corpse, if the eyes were only shut," observed one of the crones, approaching; "a purty corpse as ever was stretched." "The hands is very handsome entirely," observed another of them, "and so small, like a lady's." "It's himself was the good master," observed the old nurse, with a slow shake of the head; "the likes of him did not thread in shoe leather. Oh! but my heart's sore for you this day, Misther Harry." Thus speaking, with a good deal of screwing and puckering, she succeeded in squeezing a tear from one eye, like the last drop from an exhausted lemon, and suffering it to rest upon her cheek, that it might not escape observation, she looked round with a most pity-moving visage upon her companions, and an expression of face which said as plainly as words, "What a faithful, attached, old creature I am, and how well I deserve any little token of regard which Sir Richard's will may have bequeathed me." "Ah! then, look at him," said the matron of the saucepan, gazing with the most touching commiseration upon Henry Ashwoode, "see how he looks at it. Oh, but it's he that adored him! Oh, the crathur, what will he do this day? Look at him there--he's an orphan now--God help him." "Be off with yourselves, and leave me here," said Henry (now Sir Henry) Ashwoode, turning sharply upon them. "Send me some one that can speak a word of sense: call Parucci here, and get out of the room every one of you--away!" With abundance of muttering and grumbling, and many an indignant toss of the head, and many a dignified sniff, the old women hobbled from the room; and Henry Ashwoode had hardly been left alone, when the small private door communicating with Parucci's apartment, opened, and the valet peeped in. "Come in--come in, Jacopo," said the young man; "come in, and close the door. When did this happen?" The Neapolitan recounted briefly the events which we have already recorded. "It was a fit--some sudden seizure," said the young man, glancing at the features of the corpse. "Yes, vary like, vary like," said Parucci; "he used to complain sometimes that his head was sweeming round, and pains and aches; but there was something more--something more." "What do you mean?--don't speak riddles," said Ashwoode. "I mean this, then," replied the Italian; "something came to him--something was in the room when he died." "How do you know that?" inquired the young man. "I heard him talking loudly with it," replied he--"talking and praying it to go away from him." "Why did you not come into the room yourself?" asked Ashwoode. "So I did, _Diamine_, so I did," replied he. "Well, what saw you?" "Nothing bote Sir Richard, dead--quite dead; and the far door was bolted inside, just so as he always used to do; and when the candle went out, the thing was here again. I heard it myself, as sure as I am leeving man--I heard it--close up with me--by the body." "Tut, tut, man; speak sense. Do you mean to say that anyone talked with you?" said Ashwoode. "I mean this, that something was in the chamber with me beside the dead man," replied the valet, doggedly. "I heard it with my own ears. _Zucche!_ I moste 'av been deaf, if I did not hear it. It said 'hish,' and then again, close up to my face, it said it--'hish, hish,' and laughed below its breath. Pah! the place smelt of brimstone." "In plain terms, then, you believe that the devil was in the room; is that it?" said Ashwoode, with a ghastly smile of contempt. "Oh! no," replied the servant, with a sneer as ghastly; "it was an angel, of course--an angel from heaven." "No more of this folly, sirrah," said Ashwoode, sharply. "Your own d----d cowardice fills your brain with these fancies. Here, give me the keys, and show me where the papers are laid. I shall first examine the cabinets here, and then in the library. Now open this one; and do you hear, Parucci, not one word of this cock-and-bull story of yours to the servants. Good God! my brain's unsettled. I can scarcely believe my father dead--dead," and again he stood by the bedside, and looked upon the still face of the corpse. "We must send for Craven at once," said Ashwoode, turning from the bed; "I must confer with him; he knows better than anyone else how all my father's affairs stand. There are some d----d bills out, I believe, but we'll soon know." Having despatched an urgent note to Craven, the insinuating attorney, to whom we have already introduced the reader, Sir Henry Ashwoode proceeded roughly to examine the contents of boxes, escritoires, and cabinets filled with dusty papers, and accompanied and directed in his search by the Italian. "You never heard him mention a will, did you?" inquired the young man. The Neapolitan shook his head. "You did not know of his making one?" he resumed. "No, no, I cannot remember," said the Italian, reflectively; "but," he added quickly, while a peculiar meaning lit up the piercing eyes which he turned upon the interrogator--"but do you weesh to _find_ one? Maybe I could help you to find one." "Pshaw! folly; what do you take me for?" retorted Ashwoode, slightly colouring, in spite of his habitual insensibility, for Parucci was too intimate with his principles for him to assume ignorance of his meaning. "Why the devil should I wish to find a will, since I inherit everything without it?" "Signor," said the little man, after an interval of silence, during which he seemed absorbed in deep reflection, "I have moche to say about what I shall do with myself, and some things to ask from you. I will begin and end it here and now--it is best over at once. I have served Sir Richard there for thirty-four years. I have served him well--vary well. I have taught him great secrets. I have won great abundance of good moneys for him; if he was not reech it is not my fault. I attend him through his sickness; and 'av been his companion for the half of a long life. What else I 'av done for him I need not count up, but most of it you know well. Sir Richard is there--dead and gone--the service is ended, and now I 'av resolved I will go back again to Italy--to Naples--where I was born. You shall never hear of me any more if you will do for me one little thing." "What is it?--speak out. You want to extort money--is it so?" said Ashwoode, slowly and sternly. "I want," continued the man, with equal distinctness and deliberateness, "I want one thousand pounds. I do not ask a penny more, and I will not take a penny less; and if you give me that, I will never trouble you more with word of mine--you will never hear or see honest Jacopo Parucci any more." "Come, come, Jacopo, that were paying a little too dear, even for such a luxury," replied Ashwoode. "A thousand pounds! Ha! ha! A modest request, truly. I half suspect your brain is a little crazed." "Remember what I have done--all I have done for him." rejoined the Italian, coolly. "And above all, remember what I have _not_ done for him. I could have had him hanged up by the neck--hanged like a dog--but I never did. Oh! no, never--though not a day went by that I might not 'av brought the house full of officers, and have him away to jail and get him hanged. Remember all that, signor, and say is it in conscience too moche?--_rotta di collo!_ It is not half--no, nor quarter so moche as I ought to ask. No, nor as you ought to give, signor, without me to ask at all." "Parucci, you are either mad or drunk, or take me to be so," said Ashwoode, who could not feel quite comfortable in disputing the claims of the Italian, nor secure in provoking his anger. "But at all events, there is ample time to talk about these matters. We can settle it all more at our ease in a week or so." "No, no, signor. I will have my answer now," replied the man, doggedly. "Mr. Craven has money now--the money of Miss Mary's land that Sir Richard got from her. But though the money is there _now_, in a week or leetle more we will not see moche of it, and my pocket weel remain aimpty--_corbezzoli!_ am I a fool?" "I tell you, Parucci, I will give you no promises now," exclaimed the young man, vehemently. "Why, d---- it, the blood is hardly cold in the old man's veins, and you begin to pester me for money. Can't you wait till he's buried?" "Ay--yees--yees--wait till he's buried--and then wait till the mourning's off--and then wait for something more," said the Neapolitan, with a sneer, "and so wait on till the money's all spent. No, no, signor--_corpo di Bacco!_ I will have it now. I will have my answer now, before Mr. Craven comes--_giuro di Dio_, I _will_ have my answer." "Don't talk like a madman, Parucci," replied the young man, angrily. "I have no money here. I will make no promises. And besides, your request is perfectly ridiculous and unconscionable." "I ask for a thousand pounds," replied the valet. "I must have the promise _now_, signor, and the money to-day. If you do not promise it here and at once, I will not ask again, and maybe you weel be sorry. I will take one thousand pounds. I want no more, and I accept no less. Signor, your answer." There was a cool, menacing insolence in the manner of the fellow which stung the pride of the young baronet to the quick. "Scoundrel," said he, "do you think I am to be bullied by your audacious threats? Do you dream that I am weak enough to suffer a wretch like you to practise his extortions upon me? By ----, you'll find to your cost that you have no longer to deal with a master who is in your power. What care I for your utmost? Do your worst, miscreant--I defy you. I warn you only to beware of giving an undue license to your foul, lying tongue--for if I find that you have been spreading your libellous tales abroad, I'll have you pilloried and whipped." "Well, you 'av given me an answer," replied the Italian coolly. "I weel ask no more; and now, signor, farewell--adieu. I think, perhaps, you will hear of me again. I will not return here any more after I go out; and so, for the last time," he continued, approaching the cold form which lay upon the bed, "farewell to you, Sir Richard Ashwoode. While I am alive I will never see your face again--perhaps, if holy friars tell true, we may meet again. Till then--till then--farewell." With this strange speech the Neapolitan, having gazed for a brief space, with a strange expression, in which was a dash of something very nearly approaching to sorrow, upon the stern, moveless face before him, and then with an effort, and one long-drawn sigh, having turned away, deliberately withdrew from the room through the small door which led to his own apartment. "The lazzarone will come to himself in a little," muttered Ashwoode; "he will think twice before he leaves this place--he'll cool--he'll cool." Thus soliloquizing, the young man locked up the presses and desks which he had opened, bolted the door after the Italian, and hurried from the room; for, somehow or other, he felt uneasy and fearful alone in the chamber with the body. CHAPTER XXX. SKY-COPPER COURT. Upon the evening of the same day, the Italian having collected together the few movables which he called his own, and left them ready for removal in the chamber which he had for so long exclusively occupied, might have been seen, emerging from the old manor-house, and with a small parcel in his hand, wending his solitary, moon-lit way across the broad wooded pasture-lands of Morley Court. Without turning to look back upon the familiar scene, which he was now for ever leaving--for all his faculties and feelings, such as they were, had busy occupation in the measures of revenge which he was keenly pursuing, he crossed the little stile which terminated the pathway he was following, and descended upon the public road--shaking from his hat and cloak the heavy drops, which in his progress the close underwood through which he brushed had shed upon him. With a quickened pace, and with a stern, almost a savage countenance, over which from time to time there flitted a still more ominous smile, and muttering between his teeth many a short and vehement apostrophe as he went, he held his way directly toward the city of Dublin; and once within the streets, he was not long in reaching the ancient, and by this time to the reader, familiar mansion, over whose portal swung the glittering sign of the "Cock and Anchor." "Now, then," thought Parucci, "let us see whether I have not one card left, and that a trump. What, because I wear no sword myself, shall you escape unpunished? Fool--miscreant, I will this night conjure up such an avenger as will appal even you; I will send him with a thousand atrocious wrongs upon his head, frantic into your presence--you had better cope with an actual incarnate demon." Such were the exulting thoughts which lighted the features of Parucci with a fitful smile of singular grimness as he entered the inn yard, where meeting one of the waiters, he promptly inquired for O'Connor. To his dismay, however, he learnt that that gentleman had quitted the "Cock and Anchor" on the day before, and whither he had gone, none could inform him. As he stood, pondering in bitter disappointment what step was next to be taken, somebody tapped his shoulder smartly from behind. He turned, and beheld the square form and swarthy features of O'Hanlon, whose interview with O'Connor is recorded early in these pages. After a few brief questions and answers, in which, by a reference to the portly proprietor of the "Cock and Anchor," who vouched for the accuracy of his representations, O'Hanlon satisfied the vindictive foreigner that he might safely communicate the subject of his intended communication to _him_, as to the sure friend of Mr. O'Connor. Both personages, Parucci and O'Hanlon--or, as he was there called, Dwyer--repaired to a private room, where they remained closeted for fully half an hour. That interview had its consequences--consequences of which sooner or later the reader shall fully hear, and which were perhaps somewhat unlike those calculated upon by honest Jacopo. It is not necessary to detain the reader with a description of the ceremonial which conducted the mortal remains of Sir Henry Ashwoode to the grave. It is enough to say that if pomp and pageantry, lavished upon the fleeting tenement of clay which it has deserted, can delight the departed spirit, that of the deceased baronet was happy. The funeral was an aristocratic procession, well worthy of the rank and pretensions of the distinguished dead, and in numbers and _éclat_ such as to satisfy even the exactions of Irish pride. Carriages and four were there in abundance, and others of lesser note without number. Outriders, and footmen, and corpulent coachmen filled the court and avenue of the manor, and crowded its hall, where refreshments enough for a garrison were heaped together upon the tables. The funeral feasting and revelry finished, the enormous mob of coaches, horses, and lacqueys began to arrange itself, and assume something like order. The great velvet-covered coffin was carried out upon the shoulders of six footmen, staggering under the leaden load, and was laid in the hearse. The high-born company, dressed in the fantastic trappings of mourning, began to show themselves one by one, or in groups, at the hall-door, and took their places in their respective vehicles; and at length the enormous volume began to uncoil, and gradually passing down the great avenue, and winding along the road, to proceed toward the city, covering from the coffin to the last carriage a space of more than a mile in length. The body was laid in the aisle of St. Audoen's Church, and a comely monument, recording in eloquent periods the virtues of the deceased, was reared by the piety of his son. The aisle, however, in which it stood, is now a rootless ruin; and this, along with many a more curious relic, has crumbled into dust from its time-worn wall: so that there now remains, except in these idle pages, no record to tell posterity that so important a personage as Sir Richard Ashwoode ever existed at all. Of all who donned "the customary suit of solemn black" upon the death of Sir Richard Ashwoode, but one human being felt a pang of sorrow. But there _was_ one whose grief was real and poignant--one who mourned for him as though he had been all that was fond and tender--who forgot and forgave all his faults and failings, and remembered only that he had been her father and she his child, and companion, and gentle, patient nurse-tender through many an hour of pain and sickness. Mary wept for his death bitterly for many a day and night; for all that he had ever done or said to give her pain, her noble nature found entire forgiveness, and every look, and smile, and word, and tone that had ever borne the semblance of kindness, were all treasured in her memory, and all called up again in affectionate and sorrowful review. Seldom indeed had the hard nature of Sir Richard evinced even such transient indications of tenderness, and when they did appear they were still more rarely genuine. But Mary felt that an object of her kindly care and companionship was gone--a familiar face for ever hidden--one of the only two who were near to her in the ties of blood, departed to return no more, and with all the deep, strong yearnings of kindred, she wept and mourned after her father. Emily Copland had left Morley Court and was now residing with her gay relative, Lady Stukely, so that poor Mary was left almost entirely alone, and her brother, Sir Henry, was so immersed in business and papers that she scarcely saw him even for a moment except while he swallowed his hasty meals; and sooth to say, his thoughts were not much oftener with her than his person. Though, as the reader is no doubt fully aware, Sir Henry's grief for the loss of his parent was by no means of that violent kind which refuses to be comforted, yet he was too chary of the world's opinion, as well as too punctilious an observer of etiquette, to make the cheerfulness of his resignation under this dispensation startlingly apparent by any overt act of levity or indifference. Sir Henry, however, must see Gordon Chancey; he must ascertain how much he owes him, and when it is all payable--facts of which he has, if any, the very dimmest and vaguest possible recollection. Therefore, upon the very day on which the funeral had taken place, as soon as the evening had closed, and darkness succeeded the twilight, the young baronet ordered his trusty servant to bring the horses to the door, and then muffling himself in his cloak, and drawing it about his face, so that even in the reflection of an accidental link he might not by possibility be recognized, he threw himself into the saddle, and telling his servant to follow him, rode rapidly through the dense obscurity towards the town. When he had reached Whitefriar Street, he checked his pace to a walk, and calling his attendant to his side, directed him to await his return there; then dismounting, he threw him the bridle, and proceeded upon his way. Guided by the hazy starlight and by an occasional gleam from a shop-window or tavern-door, as well as by the dusky glimmer of the wretched street lamps, the young man directed his course for some way along the open street, and then turning to the right into a dark archway which opened from it, he found himself in a small, square court, surrounded by tall, dingy, half-ruinous houses which loomed darkly around, deepening the shadows of the night into impenetrable gloom. From some of these dilapidated tenements issued smothered sounds of quarrelling, indistinctly mingled with the crying of children and the shrill accents of angry females; from others the sounds of discordant singing and riotous carousal; while, as far as the eye could discern, few places could have been conceived with an aspect more dreary, forbidding, and cut-throat, and, in all respects, more depressing and suspicious. "This is unquestionably the place," exclaimed Ashwoode, as he stepped cautiously over the broken pavement; "there is scarcely another like it in this town or any other; but beshrew me if I remember which is the house." He entered one of them, the hall-door of which stood half open, and through the chinks of whose parlour-door were issuing faint streams of light and gruff sounds of talking. At one of these doors he knocked sharply with his whip-handle, and instantly the voices were hushed. After a silence of a minute or two, the parties inside resumed their conversation, and Ashwoode more impatiently repeated his summons. "There _is_ someone knocking--I tould you there was," exclaimed a harsh voice from within. "Open the doore, Corny, and take a squint." The door opened cautiously; a great head, covered with shaggy elf-locks, was thrust through the aperture, and a singularly ill-looking face, as well as the imperfect light would allow Ashwoode to judge, was advanced towards his. The fellow just opened the door far enough to suffer the ray of the candle to fall upon the countenance of his visitant, and staring suspiciously into his face for some time, while he held the lock of the door in his hand, he asked,-- "Well, neighbour, did you rap at this doore?" "Yes, I want to be directed to Mr. Chancey's rooms." replied Ashwoode. "Misthur who?" repeated the man. "Mr. Chancey--_Chancey_: he lives in this court, and, unless I am mistaken, in this house, or the next to it," rejoined Ashwoode. "_Chancey_: I don't know him," answered the man. "Do _you_ know where Mr. Chancey lives, Garvey?" "Not I, nor don't care," rejoined the person addressed, with a hoarse growl, and without taking the trouble to turn from the fire, over which he was cowering, with his back toward the door. "Slap the _doore_ to, can't you? and don't keep gostherin' there all night." "No, he won't slap the doore," exclaimed the shrill voice of a female. "I'll see the gentleman myself. Well, sir," she cried, presenting a tall, raw-boned figure, arrayed in tawdry rags, at the door, and shoving the man with the unkempt locks aside, she eyed Ashwoode with a leer and a grin that were anything but inviting--"well, sir, is there anything I can do for you. The chaps here is not used to quality, an' Pather has a mighty ignorant manner; but they are placible boys, an' manes no offence. Who is it you're lookin' for, sir?" "Mr. Gordon Chancey: he lives in one of these houses. Can you direct me to him?" "No, we can't," said the fellow from the fire, in a savage tone. "I tould you before. Won't you _take_ your answer--won't you? Slap that _doore_, Corny, or I'll get up to him myself." "Hould your tongue, you gaol bird, won't you?" rejoined the female, in accents of shrill displeasure. "_Chancey!_ is not he the counsellor gentleman; he has a yallow face an' a down look, and never has his hands out of his breeches' pockets?" "The very man," replied Ashwoode. "Well, sir, _he does_ live in this court: he has the parlour next doore. The street _doore_ stands open--it's a lodging-house. One doore further on; you can't miss him." "Thank you, thank you," said Ashwoode. "Good-night." And as the door was closed upon him, he heard the voices of those within raised in hot debate. He stumbled and groped his way into the hall of the house which the gracious nymph, to whom he had just bidden farewell, indicated, and knocked stoutly at the parlour-door. It was opened by a sluttish girl, with bare feet, and a black eye, which had reached the green and yellow stage of recovery. She had probably been interrupted in the midst of a spirited altercation with the barrister, for ill humour and excitement were unequivocally glowing in her face. Ashwoode walked in, and found matters as we shall describe them in the next chapter. CHAPTER XXXI. THE USURER AND THE OAKEN BOX. The room which Sir Henry Ashwoode entered was one of squalid disorder. It was a large apartment, originally handsomely wainscoted, but damp and vermin had made woeful havoc in the broad panels, and the ceiling was covered with green and black blotches of mildew. No carpet covered the bare boards, which were strewn with fragments of papers, rags, splinters of an old chest, which had been partially broken up to light the fire, and occasionally a potato-skin, a bone, or an old shoe. The furniture was scant, and no one piece matched the other. Little and bad as it was, its distribution about the room was more comfortless and wretched still. All was dreary disorder, dust, and dirt, and damp, and mildew, and rat-holes. By a large grate, scarcely half filled with a pile of ashes and a few fragments of smouldering turf, sat Gordon Chancey, the master of this notable establishment; his arm rested upon a dirty deal table, and his fingers played listlessly with a dull and battered pewter goblet, which he had just replenished from a two-quart measure of strong beer which stood upon the table, and whose contents had dabbled that piece of furniture with sundry mimic lakes and rivers. Unrestrained by the ungenerous confinement of a fender, the cinders strayed over the cracked hearthstone, and even wandered to the boards beyond it. Mr. Gordon Chancey was himself, too, rather in deshabille. He had thrown off his shoes, and was in his stockings, which were unfortunately rather imperfect at the extremities. His waistcoat was unbuttoned, and his cravat lay upon the table, swimming in a sea of beer. As Ashwoode entered, with ill-suppressed disgust, this loathly den, the object of his visit languidly turned his head and his sleepy eyes over his shoulder, in the direction of the door, and without making the smallest effort to rise, contented himself with extending his hand along the sloppy table, palm upwards, for Ashwoode to shake, at the same time exclaiming, with a drawl of gentle placidity,-- "Oh, dear--oh, dear me! Mr. Ashwoode, I declare to God I am very glad to see you. Won't you sit down and have some beer? Eliza, bring a cup for my friend, Mr. Ashwoode. Will you take a pipe too? I have some elegant tobacco. Bring _my_ pipe to Mr. Ashwoode, and the little canister that M'Quirk left here last night." "I am much obliged to you," said Ashwoode, with difficulty swallowing his anger, and speaking with marked _hauteur_, "my visit, though an unseasonable one, is entirely one of business. I shall not give you the trouble of providing any refreshment for me; in a word, I have neither time nor appetite for it. I want to learn exactly how you and I stand: five minutes will show me the state of the account." "Oh, dear--oh, dear! and won't you take any beer, then? it's elegant beer, from Mr. M'Gin's there, round the corner." Ashwoode bit his lips, and remained silent. "Eliza, bring a chair for my friend, Sir Henry Ashwoode," continued Chancey; "he must be very tired--indeed he must, after his long walk; and here, Eliza, take the key and open the press, and do you see, bring me the little oak box on the second shelf. She's a very good little girl, Mr. Ashwoode, I assure you. Eliza is a very sensible, good little girl. Oh, dear!--oh, dear! but your father's death was very sudden; but old chaps always goes off that way, on short notice. Oh, dear me!--I declare to ----, only I had a pain in my--(here he mentioned his lower stomach somewhat abruptly)--I'd have gone to the funeral this morning. There was a great lot of coaches, wasn't there?" "Pray, Mr. Chancey," said Ashwoode, preserving his temper with an effort, "let us proceed at once to business. I am pressed for time, and I shall be glad, with as little delay as possible, to ascertain--what I suppose there can be no difficulty in learning--the exact state of our account." "Well, I'm very sorry, so I am, Mr. Ashwoode, that you are in such a hurry--I declare to ---- I am," observed Chancey, supplying big goblet afresh from the larger measure. "Eliza, have you the box? Well, bring it here, and put it down on the table, like an elegant little girl." The girl shoved a small oaken chest over to Chancey's elbow; and he forthwith proceeded to unlock it, and to draw forth the identical red leather pocket-book which had received in its pages the records of Ashwoode's disasters upon the evening of their last meeting. "Here I have them. Captain Markham--no, that is not it," said Chancey, sleepily turning over the leaves; "but this is it, Mr. Ashwoode--ay, here; first, two hundred pounds, promissory note--payable one week after date. Mr. Ashwoode, again, one hundred and fifty--promissory note--one week. Lord Kilblatters--no--ay, here again--Mr. Ashwoode, two hundred--promissory note--one week. Mr. Ashwoode, two hundred and fifty--promissory note--one week. Mr. Ashwoode, one hundred; Mr. Ashwoode, fifty. Oh, dear me! dear me! Mr. Ashwoode, three hundred." And so on, till it appeared that Sir Henry Ashwoode stood indebted to Gordon Chancey, Esq., in the sum of six thousand four hundred and fifty pounds, for which he had passed promissory notes which would all become due in two days' time. "I suppose," said Ashwoode, "these notes have hardly been negotiated. Eh?" "Oh, dear me! No--oh, no, Mr. Ashwoode," replied Chancey. "They have not gone out of my desk. I would not put them into the hands of a stranger for any trifling advantage to myself. Oh, dear me! not at all." "Well, then, I suppose you can renew them for a fortnight or so, or hold them over--eh?" asked Ashwoode. "I'm sure I can," rejoined Chancey. "The bills belong to the old cripple that lent the money; and _he_ does whatever I bid him. He trusts it all to me. He gives me the trouble, and takes the profit himself. Oh! he _does_ confide in me. I have only to say the word, and it's done. They shall be renewed or held over as often as you wish. Indeed, I can answer for it. Dear me, it would be very hard if I could not." "Well, then, Mr. Chancey," replied Ashwoode, "I may require it, or I may not. Craven has the promise of a large sum of money, within two or three days--part of the loan he has already gotten. Will you favour me with a call on to-morrow afternoon at Morley Court. I will then have heard definitely from Craven, and can tell you whether I require time or not." "Very good, sir--very fair, indeed, Mr. Ashwoode. Nothing fairer," rejoined the lawyer. "But don't give yourself any uneasiness. Oh, dear, on no account; for I declare to ---- I would hold them over as long as you like. Oh, dear me--indeed but I would. Well, then, I'll call out at about four o'clock." "Very good, Mr. Chancey," replied Ashwoode. "I shall expect you. Meanwhile, good-night." So they separated. The young baronet reached his ancestral dwelling without adventure of any kind, and Mr. Gordon Chancey poured out the last drops of beer from the inverted can into his pewter cup, and draining it calmly, anon buttoned his waistcoat, shook the wet from his cravat, and tied it on, thrust his feet into his shoes, and flinging his cocked hat carelessly upon his head, walked forth in deep thought into the street, whistling a concerto of his own invention. CHAPTER XXXII. THE DIABOLIC WHISPER. Gordon Chancey sauntered in his usual lazy, lounging way, with his hands in his pockets, down the street. After a listless walk of half-an-hour he found himself at the door of a handsome house, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Castle. He knocked, and was admitted by a servant in full livery. "Is he in the same room?" inquired Chancey. "Yes, sir," replied the man; and without further parley, the learned counsel proceeded upstairs, and knocked at the drawing-room door, which, without waiting for any answer, he forthwith opened. Nicholas Blarden--with two ugly black plaisters across his face, his arm in a sling, and his countenance bearing in abundance the livid marks of his late rencounter--stood with his back to the fire-place; a table, blazing with wax-lights, and stored with glittering wine-flasks and other matters, was placed at a little distance before him. As the man of law entered the room, the countenance of the invalid relaxed into an ugly grin of welcome. "Well, Gordy, boy, how goes the game? Out with your news, old rat-catcher," said Blarden, in high good humour. "Dear me, dear me! but the night is mighty chill, Mr. Blarden," observed Chancey, filling a glass of wine to the brim, and sipping it uninvited. "News," he continued, letting himself drop into a chair--"news; well, there's not much stirring worth telling you." "Come, what _is_ it? You're not come here for nothing, old fox," rejoined Blarden, "I know by the ---- twinkle in the corner of your eye." "Well, _he_ has been with me, just now," drawled Chancey. "Ashwoode?" "Yes." "Well! what does he want--what does he want, eh?" asked Blarden, with intense excitement. "He says he'll want time for the notes," replied Chancey. "God be thanked!" ejaculated Blarden, and followed this ejaculation with a ferocious burst of laughter. "We'll have him, Chancey, boy, if only we know how to play him--by ----, we'll have him, as sure as there's heat in hell." "Well, maybe we will," rejoined Chancey. "Does he say he can't pay them on the day?" asked Blarden, exultingly. "No; he says _maybe_ he can't," replied the jackal. "That's all one," cried Blarden. "What do you think? Do you think he can?" "I think maybe he can, if we _squeeze_ him," replied Chancey. "Then _don't_ squeeze him--he must not get out of our books on any terms--we'll lose him if he does," said Nicholas. "We'll not renew the notes, but hold them over," said Chancey. "He must not feel them till he _can't_ pay them. We'll make them sit light on him till then--give him plenty of line for a while--rope enough and a little patience--and the devil himself can't keep him out of the noose." "You're right--you _are_, Gordy, boy," rejoined Blarden. "Let him get through the ready money first--eh?--and then into the stone jug with him--we'll just choose our own time for striking." "I tell you what it is, if you are just said and led by me, you'll have a _quare_ hold on him before three months are past and gone," said Chancey, lazily--"mind I tell you, you will." "Well, Gordy, boy, fill again--fill again--here's success to you." Chancey filled, and quaffed his bumper, with, a matter-of-fact, business-like air. "And do you mind me, boy," continued Blarden, "spare _nothing_ in this business--bring Ashwoode entirely under my knuckle--and, by ----, I'll make it a great job for you." "Indeed--indeed but I will, Mr. Blarden, if I can," rejoined Chancey; "and I _think_ I can--I think I know a way, so I do, to get a _halter_ round his neck--do you mind?--and leave the rope's end in your hand, to hang him or not, as you like." "To _hang_ him!" echoed Blarden, like one who hears something too good to be true. "Yes, to hang him by the neck till he's dead--dead--dead," repeated Chancey, imperturbably. "How the blazes will you do it?" demanded the wretch, anxiously. "Pish, it's all prate and vapour." Gordon Chancey stole a suspicious glance round the room from the corner of his eye, and then suffering his gaze to rest sleepily upon the fire once more, he stretched out one of his lank arms, and after a little uncertain groping, succeeding in grasping the collar of his companion's coat, and drawing his head down toward him. Blarden knew Mr. Chancey's way, and without a word, lowered his ear to that gentleman's mouth, who forthwith whispered something into it which produced a marked effect upon Mr. Blarden. "If you do _that_," replied he with ferocious exultation, "by ----, I'll make your fortune for you at a slap." And so saving, he struck his hand with heavy emphasis upon the barrister's shoulder, like a man who clenches a bargain. "Well, Mr. Blarden," replied Chancey, in the same drowsy tone, "as I said before, I declare it's my opinion I can, so it is--I think I can." "And so do _I_ think you can--by ----, I'm _sure_ of it," exclaimed Blarden triumphantly; "but take some more--more wine, won't you? take some more, and stay a bit, can't you?" Chancey had made his way to the door with his usual drowsy gait; and, passing out without deigning any answer or word of farewell, stumbled lazily downstairs. There was nothing odd, however, in this leave-taking; it was Chancey's way. "We'll do it, and easily too," muttered Blarden with a grin of exultation. "I never knew him fail--that fellow is worth a mine. Ho! ho! Sir Henry, beware--beware. Egad, you had better keep a bright look-out. It's rather late for green goslings to look to their necks, when the fox claps his nose in the poultry-yard." CHAPTER XXXIII. SHOWING HOW SIR HENRY ASHWOODE PLAYED AND PLOTTED--AND OF THE SUDDEN SUMMONS OF GORDON CHANCEY. Henry Ashwoode was but too anxious to avail himself of the indulgence offered by Gordon Chancey. With the immediate urgency of distress, any thoughts of prudence or retrenchment which may have crossed his mind vanished, and along with the command of new resources came new wants and still more extravagant prodigality. His passion for gaming was now indulged without restraint, and almost without the interruption of a day. For a time his fortune rallied, and sums, whose amount would startle credulity, flowed into his hands, only to be lost and squandered again in dissipation and extravagance, which grew but the wilder and more reckless, in proportion as the sources which supplied them were temporarily increased. At length, after some coquetting, the giddy goddess again deserted him. Night after night brought new and heavier disasters; and with this reverse of fortune came its invariable accompaniment--a wilder and more daring recklessness, and a more unmeasured prodigality in hazarding larger and larger sums; as if the victims of ill luck sought, by this frantic defiance, to bully and browbeat their capricious persecutor into subjection. There was scarcely an available security of any kind which he had not already turned into money, and now he began to feel, in downright earnest, the iron gripe of ruin closing upon him. He was changed--in spirit and in aspect changed. The unwearied fire of a secret fever preyed upon his heart and brain; an untold horror robbed him of his rest, and haunted him night and day. "Brother," said Mary Ashwoode, throwing one hand fondly round his neck, and with the other pressing his, as he sate moodily, with compressed lips and haggard face, and eyes fixed upon the floor, in the old parlour of Morley Court--"dear brother, you are greatly changed; you are ill; some great trouble weighs upon your mind. Why will you keep all your cares and griefs from me? I would try to comfort you, whatever your sorrows may be. Then let me know it all, dear brother; why should your griefs be hidden from me? Are there not now but the two of us in the wide world to care for each other?" and as she said this her eyes filled with tears. "You would know what grieves me?" said Ashwoode, after a short silence, and gazing fixedly in her face, with stern, dilated eyes, and pale features. He remained again silent for a time, and then uttered the emphatic word--"_Ruin._" "How, dear brother, what has befallen you?" asked the poor girl, pressing her brother's hand more kindly. "I say, we are ruined--both of us. I've lost everything. We are little better than beggars," replied he. "There's nothing I can call my own," he resumed, abruptly, after a pause, "but that old place, Incharden. It's worth next to nothing--bog, rocks, brushwood, old stables, and all--absolutely nothing. We are ruined--beggared--that's all." "Oh! brother, I am glad we have still that dear old place. Oh, let us go down and live there together, among the quiet glens, and the old green woods; for amongst its pleasant shades I have known happier times than shall ever come again for me. I would like to ramble there again in the pleasant summer time, and hear the birds sing, and the sound of the rustling leaves, and the clear winding brook, as I used to hear them long ago. _There_ I could think over many things, that it breaks my heart to think of here; and you and I, brother, would be always together, and we would soon be as happy as either of us can be in this sorrowful world." She threw her arms around her brother's neck, and while the tears flowed fast and silently, she kissed his pale and wasted cheeks again and again. "In the meantime," said Ashwoode, starting up abruptly, and looking at his watch, "I must go into town, and see some of these harpies--usurers--that have gotten their fangs in me. It is as well to keep out of jail as long as one can," and, with a very joyless laugh, he strode from the room. As he rode into town, his thoughts again and again recurred to his old scheme respecting Lady Stukely. "It is after all my only chance," said he. "I have made my mind up fifty times to it, but somehow or other, d----n me, if I could ever bring myself to _do_ it. That woman will live for five-and-twenty years to come, and she would as easily part with the control of her property as with her life. While she lives I must be her dependent--her slave: there is no use in mincing the matter, I shall not have the command of a shilling, but as she pleases; but patience--patience, Henry Ashwoode, sooner or later death _will_ come, and then begins your jubilee." As these thoughts hurried through his brain, he checked his horse at Lady Betty Stukely's door. As he traversed the capacious hall, and ascended the handsome staircase--"Well," thought he, "even _with_ her ladyship, this were better than the jail." In the drawing-room he found Lady Stukely, Emily Copland, and Lord Aspenly. The two latter evidently deep in a very desperate flirtation, and her ladyship meanwhile very considerately employed in trying a piece of music on the spinet. The entrance of Sir Henry produced a very manifest sensation among the little party. Lady Stukely looked charmingly conscious and fluttered. Emily Copland smiled a gracious welcome, for though she and her handsome cousin perfectly well understood each other, and both well knew that marriage was out of the question, they had each, what is called, a fancy for the other; and Emily, with the unreasonable jealousy of a woman, felt a kind of soreness, secretly and almost unacknowledged to herself, at Sir Henry's marked devotion to Lady Stukely, though, at the same time, no feeling of her own heart, beyond the lightest and the merest vanity, had ever been engaged in favour of Henry Ashwoode. Of the whole party, Lord Aspenly alone was a good deal disconcerted, and no wonder, for he had not the smallest notion upon what kind of terms he and Henry Ashwoode were to meet;--whether that young gentleman would shake hands with him as usual, or proceed to throttle him on the spot. Ashwoode was, however, too completely a man of the world to make any unnecessary fuss about the awkward affair of Morley Court; he therefore met the little nobleman with cold and easy politeness; and, turning from him, was soon engaged in an animated and somewhat tender colloquy with the love-stricken widow, whose last words to him, as at length he arose to take his leave, were,-- "Remember to-morrow evening, Sir Henry, we shall look for you early; and you have promised not to disappoint your cousin Emily--has not he, Emily? I shall positively be affronted with you for a week at least if you are late. I am very absolute, and never forgive an act of rebellion. I'm quite a little sovereign here, and very despotic; so you had better not venture to be naughty." Here she raised her finger, and shook it in playful menace at her admirer. Lady Stukely had, however, little reason to doubt his punctuality. If she had but known the true state of the case she would have been aware that in literal matter-of-fact she had become as necessary to Sir Henry Ashwoode as his daily bread. Accordingly, next evening Sir Henry Ashwoode was one of the gayest of the guests in Lady Stukely's drawing-rooms. His resolution was taken; and he now looked round upon the splendid rooms and all their rich furniture as already his own. Some chatted, some played cards, some danced the courtly minuet, and some hovered about from group to group, without any determinate occupation, and sharing by turns in the frivolities of all. Ashwoode was, of course, devoted exclusively to his fair hostess. She was all smiles, and sighs, and bashful coyness; he all tenderness and fire. In short, he felt that all he wanted at that moment was the opportunity of asking, to ensure his instantaneous acceptance. While thus agreeably employed, the young baronet was interrupted by a footman, who, with a solemn bow, presented a silver salver, on which was placed an exceedingly dirty and crumpled little note. Ashwoode instantly recognized the hand in which the address was written, and snatching the filthy billet from its conspicuous position, he thrust it into his waistcoat pocket. "A messenger, sir, waits for an answer," murmured the servant. "Where is he?" "He waits in the hall, sir." "Then I shall see him in a moment--tell him so," said Ashwoode; and turning to Lady Stukely, he spoke a few sweet words of gallantry, and with a forced smile, and casting a longing, lingering look behind, he glided from the room. "So, what can this mean?" muttered he, as he placed himself immediately under a cluster of lights in the lobby, and hastily drew forth the crumpled note. He read as follows:-- "MY DEAR SIR HENRY,--There is bad news--as bad as can be. Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, come on receipt of these, on the moment, to me. If you don't, you'll be done for to-morrow; so come at once. Bobby M'Quirk will hand you these, and if you follow him, will bring you where I am now. I am desirous to serve you, and if the art of man can do it, to keep you out of this pickle. "Your obedient, humble servant, "GORDON CHANCEY." "N.B.--It is about these infernal notes, so come quickly." Through this production did Ashwoode glance with no very enviable feelings; and tearing the note into the very smallest possible pieces, he ran downstairs to the hall, where he found the aristocratic Mr. M'Quirk, with his chin as high as ever, marching up and down with a free and easy swagger, and one arm akimbo, and whistling the while an air of martial defiance. "Did you bring a note to me just now?" inquired Ashwoode. "I have had that pleasure," replied M'Quirk, with an aristocratic air. "I presume I am addressed by Sir Henry Ashwoode, baronet. _I_ am Mr. M'Quirk--Mr. Robert M'Quirk. Sir Henry, I kiss your hands--proud of the honour of your acquaintance." "Is Mr. Chancey at his own lodging now?" inquired Ashwoode, without appearing to hear the speeches which M'Quirk thought proper to deliver. "Why, no," replied the little gentleman. "Our friend Chancey is just now swigging his pot of beer, and smoking his pen'orth of pigtail in the "Old Saint Columbkil," in Ship Street--a comfortable house, Sir Henry, as any in Dublin, and very cheap--cheap as dirt, sir. A Welsh rarebit, one penny; a black pudding, and neat cut of bread, and three leeks, for--how much do you guess?" "Have the goodness to conduct me to Mr. Chancey, wherever he is," said Ashwoode drily. "I will follow--go on, sir." "Well, Sir Henry, I'm your man--I'm your man--glad of your company, Sir Henry," exclaimed the insinuating Bobby M'Quirk; and following his voluble conductor in obstinate silence, Sir Henry Ashwoode found himself, after a dark and sloppy walk, for the first, though not for the last time in his life, under the roof tree of the "Old Saint Columbkil." CHAPTER XXXIV. THE "OLD ST. COLUMBKIL"--A T�TE-�-T�TE IN THE "ROYAL RAM"--THE TEMPTER. The "Old Saint Columbkil" was a sort of low sporting tavern frequented chiefly by horse-jockeys, cock-fighters, and dog-fanciers; it had its cock-pits, and its badger-baits, and an unpretending little "hell" of its own; and, in short, was deficient in none of the attractions most potent in alluring such company as it was intended to receive. As Ashwoode, preceded by his agreeable companion, made his way into the low-roofed and irregular chamber, his senses were assailed by the thick fumes of tobacco, the reek of spirits, and the heavy steams of the hot dainties which ministered to the refined palates of the patrons of the "Old Saint Columbkil;" and through the hazy atmosphere, seated at a table by himself, and lighted by a solitary tallow candle with a portentous snuff, and canopied in the clouds of tobacco smoke which he himself emitted, Gordon Chancey was dimly discernible. "Ah! dear me, dear me. I'm right glad to see you--I declare to ----, I am, Mr. Ashwoode," said that eminent barrister, when the young gentleman had reached his side. "Indeed, I was thinking it was maybe too late to see you to-night, and that things would have to go on. Oh, dear me, but it's a regular Providence, so it is. You'd have been up in lavender to-morrow, as sure as eggs is eggs. I'm gladder than a crown piece, upon my soul, I am." "Don't talk of business here; cannot we have some place to ourselves for five minutes, out of this stifling pig-sty. I can't bear the place; besides, we shall be overheard," urged Ashwoode. "Well, and that's very true," assented Chancey, gently, "very true, so it is; we'll get a small room above. You'll have to pay an extra sixpenny bit for it though, but what signifies the matter of that? M'Quirk, ask old Pottles if 'Noah's Ark' is empty--either that or the 'Royal Ram'--run, Bobby." "I have something else to do, Mr. Chancey," replied Mr. M'Quirk, with _hauteur_. "Run, Bobby, run, man," repeated Chancey, tranquilly. "Run yourself," retorted M'Quirk, rebelliously. Chancey looked at him for a moment to ascertain by his visible aspect whether he had actually uttered the audacious suggestion, and reading in the red face of the little gentleman nothing but the most refractory dispositions, he said with a low, dogged emphasis which experience had long taught Mr. M'Quirk to respect,-- "Are you at your tricks again? D---- you, you blackguard, if you stand prating there another minute, I'll open your head with this pot--be off, you scoundrel." The learned counsel enforced his eloquence by knocking the pewter pot with an emphatic clang upon the table. All the aristocratic blood of the M'Quirks mounted to the face of the gentleman thus addressed; he suffered the noble inundation, however, to subside, and after some hesitation, and one long look of unutterable contempt, which Chancey bore with wonderful stoicism, he yielded to prudential considerations, as he had often done before, and proceeded to execute his orders. The effect was instantaneous--Pottles himself appeared. A short, stout, asthmatic man was Pottles, bearing in his thoughtful countenance an ennobling consciousness that human society would feel it hard to go on without him, and carrying in his hand a soiled napkin, or rather clout, with which he wiped everything that came in his way, his own forehead and nose included. With pompous step and wheezy respiration did Pottles conduct his honoured guests up the creaking stairs and into the "Royal Ram." He raked the embers in the fire-place, threw on a piece of turf, and planting the candle which he carried upon a table covered with slop and pipe ashes, he wiped the candlestick, and then his own mouth carefully with his dingy napkin, and asked the gentlemen whether they desired anything for supper. "No, no, we want nothing but to be left to ourselves for ten or fifteen minutes," said Ashwoode, placing a piece of money upon the table. "Take this for the use of the room, and leave us." The landlord bowed and pocketed the coin, wheezed and bowed again, and then waddled magnificently out of the room. Ashwoode got up and closed the door after him, and then returning, drew his chair opposite to Chancey's, and in a low tone asked,-- "Well, what is all this about?" "All about them notes, nothing else," replied Chancey, calmly. "Go on--what of them?" urged Ashwoode. "Can you pay them all to-morrow morning?" inquired Chancey, tranquilly. "To-morrow!" exclaimed Ashwoode. "Why, hell and death, man, you promised to hold them over for three months. To-morrow! By ----, you must be joking," and as he spoke his face turned pale as ashes. "I told you all along, Mr. Ashwoode," said Chancey drowsily, "that the money was not my own; I'm nothing more than an agent in the matter, and the notes are in the desk of that old bed-ridden cripple that lent it. D----n him, he's as full of fumes and fancies as old cheese is of maggots. He has taken it into his head that your paper is not safe, and the devil himself won't beat it out of him; and the long and the short of it is, Mr. Ashwoode, he's going to arrest you to-morrow." In vain Ashwoode strove to hide his agitation--he shook like a man in an ague. "Good heavens! and is there no way of preventing this? Make him wait for a week--for a day," said Ashwoode. "Was not I speaking to him ten times to-day--ay, twenty times," replied Chancey, "trying to make him wait even for one day? Why, I'm hoarse talking to him, and I might just as well be speaking to Patrick's tower; so make your mind up to this. As sure as light, you'll be in gaol before to-morrow's past, unless you either settle it early some way or other, or take leg bail for it." "See, Chancey, I may as well tell you this," said Ashwoode, "before a fortnight, perhaps before a week, I shall have the means of satisfying these damned notes beyond the possibility of failure. Won't he hold them over for so long?" "I might as well be asking him to cut out his tongue and give it to me as to allow us even a day; he has heard of different accidents that has happened to some of your paper lately--and the long and the short of it is--he won't hear of it, nor hold them over one hour more than he can help. I declare to ----, Mr. Ashwoode, I am very sorry for your distress, so I am--but you say you'll have the money in a week?" "Ay, ay, ay, so I shall, _if_ he don't arrest me," replied Ashwoode; "but if he does, my perdition's sealed; I shall lie in gaol till I rot; but, curse it, can't the idiot see this?--if he waits a week or so he'll get his money--every penny back again--but if he won't have patience, he loses every sixpence to all eternity." "You might as well be arguing with an iron box as think to change that old chap by talk, when he once gets a thing into his head," rejoined Chancey. Ashwoode walked wildly up and down the dingy, squalid apartment, exhibiting in his aristocratic form and face, and in the rich and elegant suit, flashing even in the dim light of that solitary, unsnuffed candle, with gold lace and jewelled buttons, and with cravat and ruffles fluttering with rich point lace, a strange and startling contrast to the slovenly and deserted scene of low debauchery which surrounded him. "Chancey," said he, suddenly stopping and grasping the shoulder of the sleepy barrister with a fierceness and energy which made him start--"Chancey, rouse yourself, d---- you. Do you hear? Is there _no_ way of averting this awful ruin--_is_ there none?" As he spoke, Ashwoode held the shoulder of the fellow with a gripe like that of a vice, and stooping over him, glared in his face with the aspect of a maniac. The lawyer, though by no means of a very excitable temperament, was startled at the horrible expression which encountered his gaze, and sate silently looking into his victim's face with a kind of fascination. "Well," said Chancey, turning away his head with an effort--"there's but one way I can think of." "What is it? Do you know anyone that _will_ take my note at a short date? For God's sake, man, speak out at once, or my brain will turn. What is it?" said Ashwoode. "Why, Mr. Ashwoode, to be plain with you," rejoined Chancey, "I do not know a soul in Dublin that would discount for you to one-fourth of the amount you require--but there is another way." "In the fiend's name, out with it, then," said Ashwoode, shaking him fiercely by the shoulder. "Well, then, get Mr. Craven to join you in a bond for the amount," said Chancey, "with a warrant of attorney to confess judgment." "Craven! Why, he knows as well as you do how I am dipped. He'd just as readily thrust his hand into the fire," replied Ashwoode. "Is that your hopeful scheme?" "Why, Mr. Craven might not do so well, after all," said Chancey, meditatively, and without appearing to hear what the young baronet said. "Oh! dear, dear, no, he would not do. Old Money-bags knows him--no, no, that would not do." "Can your d----d scheming brain plot no invention to help me? In the devil's name, where are your wits? Chancey, if you get me out of this accursed fix, I'll make a man of you." "I got a whole lot of bills done for you once by the very same old gentleman," continued Chancey, "and d----n heavy bills they were too, but they had Mr. Nicholas Blarden's name across them; would not he lend it again, if you told him how you stand? If you can come by the money in a month or so, you may be sure he'll do it." "Better and better! Why, Blarden would ask no better fun than to see me ruined, dead, and damned," rejoined Ashwoode, bitterly. "Cudgel your brains for another bright thought." "Oh! dear me, dear me," said the barrister mildly, "I thought you were the best of friends. Well, well, it's hard to know. But are you sure he don't like you?" "It's odd if he does," said Ashwoode, "seeing it's scarce a month since I trounced him almost to death in the theatre. Blarden, indeed!" "Well, Mr. Ashwoode, sit down here for a minute, and I'll say all I have to say; and if you like it, well and good; and if not, there's no harm done, and things must only take their course. Are you quite sure of having the means within a month of taking up the notes?" "As sure as I am that I see you before me," replied he. "Well, then, get Mr. Blarden's name along with your own to your joint and several bond--the old chap won't have anything more to do with bills--so, do you mind, your joint and several bond, with warrant of attorney to confess judgment--and I'll stake my life, he'll take it as ready as so much cash, the instant I show it to him," said the lawyer quietly. "Are you dreaming or drunk? Have not I told you twenty times over that Blarden would cut his throat first?" retorted Ashwoode, passionately. "Why," said Chancey, fixing his cunning eyes, with a peculiar meaning, upon the young man, and speaking with a lowered voice and marked deliberateness, "perhaps if Mr. Blarden knew that his name was wanted only to satisfy the whim of a fanciful old hunks--if he knew that judgment should never be entered--if he knew that the bond should never go outside a strong iron box, under an old bedridden cripple's bed--if he knew that no questions should be asked as to how he came to write his name at the foot of it--and if he knew that no mortal should ever see it until you paid it long before the day it was due--and if he was quite aware that the whole transaction should be considered so strictly confidential, that even to _himself_--do you mind--no allusion should be made to it;--don't you think, in such a case, you could, by some means or other, manage to get his--_name_?" They continued to gaze fixedly at one another in silence, until, at length, Ashwoode's countenance lighted into a strange, unearthly smile. "I see what you mean, Chancey--is it so?" said he, in a voice so low, as scarcely to be audible. "Well, maybe you do," said the barrister, in a tone nearly as low, and returning the young man's smile with one to the full as sinister. Thus they remained without speaking for many minutes. "There's no danger in it," said Chancey, after a long pause; "I would not take a part in it if there was. You can pay it eleven months before it's due. It's a thing I have _known_ done a hundred times over, without risk; here there _can_ be none. I do _all_ his business myself. I tell you, that for anything that any living mortal but you and me and the old badger himself will ever hear, or see, or know of the matter, the bond might as well be burnt to dust in the back of the fire. I declare to ---- it's the plain truth I'm telling you--Sir Henry--so it is." There followed another silence of some minutes. At length Ashwoode said, "I'd rather use any name but Blarden's, if it _must_ be done." "What does it matter whose name is on it, if there is no one but ourselves to read it?" replied Chancey. "I say Blarden's is the best, because he accepted bills for you before, which were discounted by the same old codger; and again, because the old fellow knows that the money was wanted to satisfy gambling debts, and Blarden would seem a very natural party in a gaming transaction. Blarden's _is_ the name for us. And, for myself, all I ask is fifty pounds for my share in the trouble." "When must you have the bond?" asked Ashwoode. "Set about it _now_," said Chancey; "or stay, your hand shakes too much, and for both our sakes it must be done neatly; so say to-morrow morning, early. I'll see the old gentleman to-night, and have the overdue notes to hand you in the morning. I think that's doing business." "I would not do it--I'd rather blow my brains out--if there was a single chance of his entering judgment on the bond, or talking of it," said Ashwoode, in great agitation. "A _chance_!" said the barrister. "I tell you there's not a _possibility_. I manage all his money matters, and I'd burn that bond, before it should see the outside of his strong box. Why, d----n! do you think I'd let myself be ruined for fifty pounds? You don't know Gordon Chancey, indeed you don't, Mr. Ashwoode." "Well, Chancey, I'll see you early to-morrow morning," said Ashwoode; "but are you very--_very_ sure--is there no chance--no _possibility_ of--of mischief?" "I tell you, Mr. Ashwoode," replied Chancey, "unless I chose to betray _myself_, you can't come by harm. As I told you before, I'm not such a fool as to ruin myself. Rely on me, Mr. Ashwoode--rely on me. Do you believe what I say?" Ashwoode walked slowly up to him, and fixing his eyes upon the barrister, with a glance which made Chancey's heart turn chill within him,-- "Yes, Mr. Chancey," he said, "you may be sure I believe you; for if I did _not_--so help me, God!--you should not quit this room--alive." He eyed the caitiff for some minutes in silence, and then returning the sword, which he had partially drawn, to its scabbard, he abruptly wished him good-night, and left the room. CHAPTER XXXV. OF THE COUSIN AND THE BLACK CABINET--AND OF HENRY ASHWOODE'S DECISIVE INTERVIEW WITH LADY STUKELY. "Well, then," said Ashwoode, a few days after the occurrences which have just been faithfully recorded, "it behoves me without loss of time to make provision for this infernal bond; until I see it burned to dust, I feel as if I stood in the dock. This sha'n't last long--my stars be thanked, one door of escape lies open to me, and through it I will pass; the sun shall not go down upon my uncertainty. To be sure, I shall be--but curse it, it can't be helped now; and let them laugh, and quiz, and sneer as they please, two-thirds of them would be but too glad to marry Lady Stukely with half her fortune, were she twice as old and twice as ugly--if, indeed, either were possible. Pshaw! the laugh will subside in a week, and in the style in which I shall open, curse me, if half the world won't lie at my feet. Give me but money--money--plenty of money, and though I be a paragon of absurdity and vice, the whole town will vote me a Solomon and a saint; so let's have no more shivering by the brink, but plunge boldly in at once and have it over." Fortified with these reflections, Sir Henry Ashwoode vaulted lightly into his saddle, and putting his horse into an easy canter, he found himself speedily at Lady Stukely's house in Stephen's Green. His servant held the rein and he dismounted, and, having obtained admission, summoned all his resolution, lightly mounted the stairs, and entered the handsome drawing-room. Lady Stukely was not there, but his cousin, Emily Copland, received him. "Lady Betty is not visible, then?" inquired he, after a little chat upon indifferent subjects. "I believe she is out shopping--indeed, you may be very certain she is not at home," replied Emily, with a malicious smile; "her ladyship is always visible to you. Now confess, have you ever had much cruelty or coldness to complain of at dear Lady Stukely's hands?" Ashwoode laughed, and perhaps for a moment appeared a little disconcerted. "I _do_ admit, then, as you insist on placing me in the confessional, that I have always found Lady Betty as kind and polite as I could have expected or hoped," rejoined Ashwoode, assuming a grave and particularly proper air; "I were particularly ungrateful if I said otherwise." "Oh, ho! so her ladyship has actually succeeded in inspiring my platonic cousin with gratitude," continued Emily, in the same tone, "and gratitude we all know is Cupid's best disguise. Alas, and alack-a-day, to what vile uses may we come at last--alas, my poor coz." "Nay, nay, Emily," replied he, a little piqued, "you need not write my epitaph yet; I don't see exactly why you should pity me so enormously." "Haven't you confessed that you glow with gratitude to Lady Stukely?" rejoined she. "Nonsense! I said nothing about _glowing_; but what if I had?" answered he. "Then you acknowledge that you _do_ glow! Heaven help him, the man actually _glows_," ejaculated Emily. "Pshaw! stuff, nonsense. Emily, don't be a blockhead," said he, impatiently. "Oh! Harry, Harry, Harry, don't deny it," continued she, shaking her head with intense solemnity, and holding up her fingers in a monitory manner--"you are then actually in love. Oh, Benedick, poor Benedick! would thou hadst chosen some Beatrice not quite so well stricken in years; but what of that?--the beauties of age, if less attractive to the eye of thoughtless folly than those of youth, are unquestionably more durable; time may rob the cheek of its bloom, but I defy him to rob it of its rouge; years--I might say centuries--have no power to blanche a wig or thin its flowing locks; and though the nymph be blind with age, what matters it if the swain be blind with love? I make no doubt you'll be fully as happy together as if she had twice as long to live." Ashwoode poked the fire and blew his nose violently, but nevertheless answered nothing. "The brilliant blush of her cheek and the raven blackness of her wig," continued the incorrigible Emily, "in close and striking contrast, will remind you, and I trust usefully, of that _rouge et noir_ which has been your ruin all your days." Still Ashwoode spoke not. "The exquisite roundness of her ladyship's figure will remind you that flesh, if not exactly grass, is at least very little better than bran and buckram; and her smile will invariably suggest the great truth, that whenever you do not intend to bite it is better not to show your teeth, especially when they happen to be like her ladyship's; in short, you cannot look at her without feeling that in every particular, if rightly read, she supplied a moral lesson, so that in her presence every unruly passion of man's nature must entirely subside and sink to rest. Yes, she will make you happy--eminently happy; every little attention, every caress, every fond glance she throws at you, will delightfully assure your affectionate spirit, as it wanders in memory back to the days of earliest childhood, that she will be to you all that your beloved grandmother could have been, had she been spared. Oh! Harry, Harry, this will indeed be too much happiness." Another pause ensued, and Emily approached Sir Henry as he stood sulkily by the mantelpiece, and laying her hand upon his arm, looked archly up into his face, while shaking her head she slowly said,-- "Oh! love, love--oh! Cupid, Cupid, mischievous little boy, what hast thou done with my poor cousin's heart? "''Twas on a widow's jointure land The archer, Cupid, took his stand.'" As she said this, she looked so unutterably mischievous and comical, that in spite of his vexation and all his efforts to the contrary, he burst into a long and hearty fit of laughter. "Emily," said he, at length, "you are absolutely incorrigible--gravity in your company is entirely out of the question; but listen to me seriously for one moment, if you can. I will tell you plainly how I am circumstanced, and you must promise me in return that you will not quiz me any more about the matter. But first," he added, cautiously, "let us guard against eavesdroppers." He accordingly walked into the next room, which opened upon that in which they were, and proceeded to close the far door. Before he had reached it, however, that in the other room opened, and Lady Stukely herself entered. The instant she appeared, Emily Copland by a gesture enjoined silence, nodded towards the door of the next room, from which Ashwoode's voice, as he carelessly hummed an air, was audible; she then frowned, nodded, and pointed with vehement repetition toward a dark recess in the wall, made darker and more secure by the flanking projection of a huge, black, varnished cabinet. Lady Stukely looked puzzled, took a step in the direction of the post of concealment indicated by the girl, then looked puzzled, and hesitated again. More impatiently Emily repeated her signal, and her ladyship, without any distinct reason, but with her curiosity all alive, glided behind the protecting cabinet, with all its army of china ornaments, into the recess, and there remained entirely concealed. She had hardly effected this movement, which the deep-piled carpet enabled her to do without noise, when Ashwoode returned, closed the door of communication between the two rooms, and then shut that through which Lady Stukely had just entered, almost brushing against her as he did so, so close was their proximity. These precautions taken, he returned. "Now," said he, in a low and deliberate tone, "the plain facts of the case are just these. I am dipped over head and ears in debt--debts, too, of the most urgent kind--debts which threaten me with ruin. Now, these _must_ be paid--one way or another they _must_ be met. And to effect this I have but one course--one expedient, and you have guessed it. No man knows better than I what Lady Stukely is. I can see all that is ridiculous and repulsive about her just as clearly as anybody else. She is old enough to be my grandmother, and ugly enough to be the devil's--and, moreover, painted and varnished over like a signboard. She may be a fool--she may be a termagant--she may be what you please--but--_but_ she has money. She has been throwing herself into my arms this twelvemonth or more--and--but what the deuce is that?" This interrogatory was caused by certain choking sounds which proceeded with fearful suddenness from the place of Lady Stukely's concealment, and which were instantaneously followed by the appearance of her ladyship in bodily presence. She opened her mouth, but gave utterance to nothing but a gasp--drew herself up with such portentous and swelling magnificence, that Ashwoode almost expected to see her expand like the spectre of a magic-lantern until her head touched the ceiling. Forward she came, in her progress sweeping a score of china ornaments from the cabinet, and strewing the whole floor with the crashing fragments of monkeys, monsters, and mandarins, breathless, choking, and almost black with rage, Lady Stukely advanced to Ashwoode, who stood, for the first time in his life, bereft of every vestige of self-possession. "Painted! varnished!" she screamed hysterically, "ridiculous! repulsive! Oh, heaven and earth! you--you preternatural monster!" With these words she uttered two piercing shrieks, and threw herself in strong hysterics into a chair, holding on her wig distractedly with one hand, for fear of accidents. [Illustration: "'Painted! Varnished!' she screamed, hysterically." _To face page 188._] "Don't--don't ring the bell," said she, with an abrupt accession of fortitude, observing Emily Copland approach the bell. "Don't, I shall be better presently." And then, with another shriek, she opened afresh. As the hysterics subsided, Ashwoode began a little to recover his scattered wits, and observing that Lady Stukely had sunk back in extreme languor and exhaustion, with closed eyes, he ventured to approach the shrine of his outraged divinity. "I feel--indeed I own, Lady Stukely," he said, hesitatingly, "I have much to explain. I ought to explain--yes, I ought. I will, Lady Stukely--and--and I can entirely satisfy--completely dispel----" He was interrupted here; for Lady Stukely, starting bolt upright in the chair, exclaimed,-- "You wretch! you villain! you perjured, scheming, designing, lying, paltry, stupid, insignificant, outrageous----" Whether it was that her ladyship wanted words to supply a climax, or that hysterics are usually attended with such results, we cannot pretend to say, but certain it is that at this precise point the languishing, fashionable, die-away Lady Stukely actually spat in the young baronet's face. Ashwoode changed colour, as he promptly discharged the ridiculous but very necessary task of wiping his face. With difficulty he restrained himself under this provocation, but he did command himself so far as to say nothing. He turned on his heel and walked downstairs, muttering as he went,-- "An old painted devil!" The cool air, as he passed out, speedily dissipated the confusion and excitement of the scene that had just passed, and all the consequences of his rupture with Lady Stukely rushed upon his mind with overwhelming and maddening force. "You were right, perfectly right--he _is_ a cheat--a trickster--a villain!" exclaimed Lady Stukely. "Only to think of him! Oh, heaven and earth!" And again she was seized with violent hysterics, in which state she was conducted up to her bedroom by Emily Copland, who had enjoyed the catastrophe with an intensity of relish which none but a female, and a mischievous one to boot, can know. Loud and repeated were Lady Stukely's thanksgivings for having escaped the snares of the designing young baronet, and warm and multiplied and grateful her acknowledgments to Emily Copland--to whom, however, from that time forth she cherished an intense dislike. CHAPTER XXXVI. OF JEWELS, PLATE, HORSES, DOGS, AND FAMILY PICTURES--AND CONCERNING THE APPOINTED HOUR. In a state little, if at all, short of distraction, Sir Henry Ashwoode threw himself from his horse at Morley Court. That resource which he had calculated upon with absolute certainty had totally failed him; his last stake had been played and lost, and ruin in its most hideous aspect stared him in the face. Spattered from heel to head with mud--for he had ridden at a reckless speed--with a face pale as that of a corpse, and his dress all disordered, he entered the great old parlour, and scarcely knowing what he did, dashed the door to with violence and bolted it. His brain swam so that the floor seemed to heave and rock like a sea; he cast his laced hat and his splendid peruke (the envy and admiration of half the _petit maîtres_ in Dublin) upon the ground, and stood in the centre of the room, with his hands clutched upon the temples of his bare, shorn head, and his teeth set, the breathing image of despair. From this state he was roused by some one endeavouring to open the door. "Who's there?" he shouted, springing backward and drawing his sword, as if he expected a troop of constables to burst in. Whoever the party may have been, the attempt was not repeated. "What's the matter with me--am I mad?" said Ashwoode, after a terrible pause, and hurling his sword to the far end of the room. "Lie there. I've let the moment pass--I might have done it--cut the Gordian knot, and there an end of all. What brought me here?" He stared about the room, for the first time conscious where he stood. "Damn these pictures," he muttered; "they're all alive--everything moves towards me." He flung himself into a chair and clasped his fingers over his eyes. "I can't breathe--the place is suffocating. Oh, God! I shall go mad!" He threw open one of the windows and stood gasping at it as if he stood at the mouth of a furnace. "Everything is hot and strange and maddening--I can't endure this--brain and heart are bursting--it is HELL." In a state of excitement which nearly amounted to downright insanity, he stood at the open window. It was long before this extravagant agitation subsided so as to allow room for thought or remembrance. At length he closed the window, and began to pace the room from end to end with long and heavy steps. He stopped by a pier-table, on which stood a china bowl full of flowers, and plunging his hands into it, dashed the water over his head and face. "Let me think--let me think," said he. "I was not wont to be thus overcome by reverse. Surely I can master as much as will pay that thrice-accursed bond, if I could but collect my thoughts--there must yet be the means of meeting it. Let _that_ be but paid, and then, welcome ruin in any other shape. Let me see. Ay, the furniture; then the pictures--some of them valuable--_very_ valuable; then the horses and the dogs; and then--ay, the plate. Why, to be sure--what have I been dreaming of?--the plate will go half-way to satisfy it; and then--what else? Let me see. The whole thing is six thousand four hundred and fifty pounds--what more? Is there _nothing_ more to meet it? The plate--the furniture--the pictures--ay, idiot that I am, why did I not think of them an hour since?--my sister's jewels--why, it's all settled--how the devil came it that I never thought of them before? It's very well, however, as it is--for if I had, they would have gone long ago. Come, come, I breathe again--I have gotten my neck out of the hemp, at all events. I'll send in for Craven this moment. He likes a bargain, and he shall have one--before to-morrow's sun goes down, that d----d bond shall be ashes. Mary's jewels are valued at two thousand pounds. Well, let him take them at one thousand five hundred; and the pictures, plate, furniture, dogs, and horses for the rest--and he has a bargain. These jewels have saved me--bribed the hangman. What care I how or when I die, if I but avert that. Ten to one I blow my brains out before another month. A short life and a merry one was ever the motto of the Ashwoodes; and as the mirth is pretty well over with me, I begin to think it time to retire. _Satis edisti, satis bipisti, satis lusisti, tempus est tibi abire_--what am I raving about? There's business to be done now--to it, then--to it like a man--while we _are_ alive let us _be_ alive." Craven liked his bargain, and engaged that the money should be duly handed at noon next day to Sir Henry Ashwoode, who forthwith bade the worthy attorney good-night, and wrote the following brief note to Gordon Chancey, Esq.:-- "SIR, "I shall call upon you to-morrow at one of the clock, if the hour suit you, upon particular business, and shall be much obliged by your having a _certain security_ by you, which I shall then be prepared to redeem. "I remain, sir, your very obedient servant, "HENRY ASHWOODE." "So," said Sir Henry, with a half shudder, as he folded and sealed this missive, "I shall, at all events, escape the halter. To-morrow night, spite of wreck and ruin, I shall sleep soundly. God knows, I want rest. Since I wrote that name, and gave that accursed bond out of my hands, my whole existence, waking and sleeping, has been but one abhorred and ghastly nightmare. I would gladly give a limb to have that d----d scrap of parchment in my hand this moment; but patience, patience--one night more--one night only--of fevered agony and hideous dreams--one last night--and then--once more I am my own master--my character and safety are again in my own hands--and may I die the death, if ever I risk them again as I have done--one night more--would--_would_ to God it were morning!" CHAPTER XXXVII. THE RECKONING--CHANCEY'S LARGE CAT--AND THE COACH. The morning arrived, and at the appointed hour Sir Henry Ashwoode dismounted in Whitefriar Street, and gave the bridle of his horse to the groom who accompanied him. "Well," thought he, as he entered the dingy, dilapidated square in which Chancey's lodgings were situated, "this matter, at all events, is arranged--I sha'n't hang, though I'm half inclined to allow I deserve to do so for my infernal folly in trying the thing at all; but no matter, it has given me a lesson I sha'n't soon forget. As to the rest, what care I now? Let ruin pounce upon me in any shape but that--luckily I have still enough to keep body and soul together left." He paused to indulge in ruminations of no very pleasant kind, and then half muttered,-- "I have been a fool--I have walked in a dream. Only to think of a man like me, who has seen something of the world, allowing that d----d hag to play him such a trick. Well, I believe it _is_ true, after all, that we cannot have wisdom without paying for it. If my acquisitions bear any proportion to my outlay, I ought to be a Solomon by this time." The door was opened to his summons by Gordon Chancey himself. When Ashwoode entered, Chancey carefully locked the door on the inside and placed the key in his pocket. "It's as well, Sir Henry, to be on the safe side," observed Chancey, shuffling towards the table. "Dear me, dear me, there's no such thing as being too careful--is there, Sir Henry?" "Well, well, well, let's to business," said young Ashwoode, hurriedly, seating himself at the end of a heavy deal table, at which was a chair, and taking from his pocket a large leathern pocket-book. "You have the--the security here?" "Of course--oh, dear, of course," replied the barrister; "the bond and warrant of attorney--that d----d forgery--it is in the next room, very safe--oh, dear me, yes indeed." It struck Ashwoode that there was something, he could not exactly say what, unusual and sinister in the manner of Mr. Chancey, as well as in his emphasis and language, and he fixed his eye upon him for a moment with a searching glance. The barrister, however, busied himself with tumbling over some papers in a drawer. "Well, why don't you get it?" asked Ashwoode, impatiently. "Never mind, never mind," replied Chancey; "do _you_ reckon your money over, and be very sure the bond will come time enough. I don't wonder, though, you're eager to have it fast in your own hands again--but it will come--it will come." Ashwoode proceeded to open the pocket-book and to turn over the notes. "They're all right," said he, "they're all right. But, hush!" he added, slightly changing colour--"I hear something stirring in the next room." "Oh, dear, dear, it's nothing but the cat," rejoined Chancey, with an ugly laugh. "Your cat treads very heavily," said Ashwoode, suspiciously. "So it does," rejoined Chancey, "it does tread heavy; it's a very large cat, so it is; it has wonderful great claws; it can see in the dark; it's a great cat; it never missed a rat yet; and I've seen it lure the bird off a branch with the mere power of its eye; it's a great cat--but reckon your money, and I'll go in for the bond." This strange speech was uttered in a manner at least as strange, and Chancey, without waiting for commentary or interruption, passed into the next room. The step crossed the adjoining chamber, and Ashwoode heard the rustling of papers; it then returned, the door opened, and _not_ Gordon Chancey, but Nicholas Blarden entered the room and confronted Sir Henry Ashwoode. Personal fear in bodily conflict was a thing unknown to the young baronet, but now all courage, all strength forsook him, and he stood gazing in vacant horror upon that, to him, most tremendous apparition, with a face white as ashes, and covered with the starting dews of terror. With that hideous combination, a smile and a scowl, stamped upon his coarse features, the wretch stood with folded arms, in an attitude of indescribable exultation, gazing with savage, gloating eyes full upon his appalled and terror-stricken victim. Fixed as statues they both remained for several minutes. "Ho, ho, ho! you look frightened, young man," exclaimed Blarden, with a horse laugh; "you look as if you were going to be hanged--you look as if the hemp were round your neck--you look as if the hangman had you by the collar, you do--ho, ho, ho!" Ashwoode's bloodless lips moved, but utterance was gone. "It's hard to get the words out," continued Blarden, with ferocious glee. "I never knew the man yet could do a last dying speech smooth--a sort of choking comes on, eh?--the sight of the minister and the hangman makes a man feel so quare, eh?--and the coffin looks so ugly, and all the crowd; it's confusing somehow, and puts a man out, eh?--ho, ho, ho!" Ashwoode laid his hand upon his forehead, and gazed on in blank horror. "Why, you're not such a great man, by half, as you were in the play-house the other evening," continued Blarden; "you don't look so grand, by any manner of means. Some way or other, you look a little sickish or so. I'm afraid you don't like my company--ho, ho, ho!" Still Sir Henry remained locked in the same stupefied silence. "Ho, ho! you seem to think your hemp is twisted, and your boards sawed," resumed Blarden; "you seem to think you're in a fix at last--and so do I, by ----!" he thundered, "for _I_ have the rope fairly round your weasand, and, by ---- I'll make you dance upon nothing, at Gallows Hill, before you're a month older. Do you hear _that_--do you--you swindler? Eh--you gaol-bird, you common forger, you robber, you crows' meat--who holds the winning cards now?" "Where--where's the bond?" said Ashwoode, scarce audibly. "Where's your precious bond, you forger, you gibbet-carrion?" shouted Blarden, exultingly. "Where's your forged bond--the bond that will crack your neck for you--where is it, eh? Why, here--here in my breeches pocket--_that's_ where it is. I hope you think it safe enough--eh, you gallows-tassle?" Yielding to some confused instinctive prompting to recover the fatal instrument, Ashwoode drew his sword, and would have rushed upon his brutal and triumphant persecutor; but Blarden was not unprepared even for this. With the quickness of light, he snatched a pistol from his coat pocket, recoiling, as he did so, a hurried pace or two, and while he turned, coward as he was, pale and livid as death, he levelled it at the young man's breast, and both stood for an instant motionless, in the attitudes of deadly antagonism. "Put up your sword; I have you there, as well as everywhere else--regularly checkmated, by ----!" shouted Blarden, with the ferocity of half-desperate cowardice. "Put up your sword, I say, and don't be a bloody idiot, along with everything else. Don't you see you're done for?--there's not a chance left you. You're in the cage, and there's no need to knock yourself to pieces against the bars--you're done for, I tell you." With a mute but expressive gesture of despair, Ashwoode grasped his sword by the slender, glittering blade, and broke it across. The fragments dropped from his hands, and he sunk almost lifeless into a chair--a spectacle so ghastly, that Blarden for a moment thought that death was about to rescue his victim. "Chancey, come out here," exclaimed Blarden; "the fellow has taken the staggers--come out, will you?" "Oh! dear me, dear me," said Chancey, in his own quiet way, "but he looks very bad." "Go over and shake him," said Blarden, still holding the pistol in his hand. "What are you afraid of? He can't hurt you--he has broken his bilbo across--the symbol of gentility. By ----! he's a good deal down in the mouth." While they thus debated, Ashwoode rose up, looking more like a corpse endowed with motion than a living man. "Take me away at once," said he, with a sullen wildness--"take me away to gaol, or where you will--anywhere were better than this place. Take me away; I am ruined--blasted. Make the most of it--your infernal scheme has succeeded--take me to prison." "Oh, murder! he wants to go to gaol--do you hear him, Chancey?" cried Blarden--"such an elegant, fine gentleman to think of such a thing: only to think of a baronet in gaol--and for forgery, too--and the condemned cell such an ungentlemanly sort of a hole. Why, you'd have to use perfumes to no end, to make the place fit for the reception of your aristocratic visitors--my Lord this, and my Lady that--for, of course, you'll keep none but the best of company--ho, ho, ho! Perhaps the judge that's to try you may turn out to be an old acquaintance, for your luck is surprising--isn't it, Chancey?--and he'll pay you a fine compliment, and express his regret when he's going to pass sentence, eh?--ho, ho, ho! But, after all, I'd advise you, if the condescension is not too much to expect from such a very fine gentleman as you, to consort as much as possible with the turnkey--he's the most useful friend you can make, under your peculiarly delicate circumstances--ho, ho!--eh? It's just possible he mayn't like to associate with you, for some of them fellows are rather stiff, d'ye see, and won't keep company with certain classes of the coves in quod, such as forgers or pickpockets; but if he'll allow it, you'd better get intimate with him--ho, ho, ho!--eh?" "Take me to the prison, sir," said Ashwoode, sternly--"I suppose you mean to do so. Let your officers remove me at once--you have, no doubt, men for the purpose in the next room. Let them call a coach, and I will go with them--but let it be at once." "Well, you're not far out there, by ----!" replied Blarden. "I _have_ a broad-shouldered acquaintance or two, and a little bit of a warrant--you understand?--in the next apartment. Grimes, Grimes, come in here--you're wanted." A huge, ill-looking fellow, with his coat buttoned up to his chin, and a short pipe protruding from the corner of his mouth, swaggered into the chamber, with that peculiar gait which seems as if contracted by habitually shouldering and jostling through mobs and all manner of riotous assemblies. "_That's_ the bird?" said the fellow, interrogatively, and pointing with his pipe carelessly at Ashwoode. "You're my prisoner," he added, gruffly addressing the unfortunate young man, and at the same time planting his ponderous hand heavily upon his shoulder, he in the other exhibited a crumpled warrant. "Grimes, go call a coach," said Blarden, "and don't be a brace of shakes about it, do you mind." Grimes departed, and Blarden, after a long pause, suddenly addressing himself to Ashwoode, resumed, in a somewhat altered tone, but with intenser sternness still,-- "Now, I tell you what it is, my young cove, I have a sort of half a notion not to send you to gaol at all, do you hear?" "Pshaw, pshaw!" said Ashwoode, turning bitterly away. "I tell you I'm speaking what I mean," rejoined Blarden; "I'll not send you there _now_ at any rate. I want to have a bit of chat with you this evening, and it shall rest with you whether you go there at all or not; I'll give you the choice fairly. We'll meet, then, at Morley Court this evening, at eight o'clock; and for fear of accidents in the meantime, you'll have no objection to our mutual friend, Mr. Chancey, and our common acquaintance, Mr. Grimes, accompanying you home in the coach, and just keeping an eye on you till I come, for fear you might be out walking when I call--you understand me? But here's Grimes. Mr. Grimes, my particular friend Sir Henry Ashwoode has taken an extraordinary remarkable fancy to you, and wishes to know whether you'll do him the favour to take a jaunt with him in a carriage to see his house at Morley Court, and to spend the day with him and Mr. Chancey, for he finds that his health requires him to keep at home, and he has a particular objection to be left alone, even for a minute. Sir Henry, the coach is at the door. You'd better bundle up your bank-notes, they may be useful to you. Chancey, tell Sir Henry's groom, as you pass, that he'll not want his horse any more to-day." The party went out; Sir Henry, pale as death, and scarcely able to support himself on his limbs, walking between Chancey and the herculean constable. Blarden saw them safely shut up in the vehicle, and giving the coachman his orders, gazed after them as they drove away in the direction of Morley Court, with a flushed face and a bounding heart. CHAPTER XXXVIII. STRANGE GUESTS AT THE MANOR. The coach jingled, jolted, and rumbled on, and Ashwoode lay back in the crazy conveyance in a kind of stupefied apathy. The scene which had just closed was, in his mind, a chaos of horrible confusion--a hideous, stunning dream, whose incidents, as they floated through his passive memory, seemed like unreal and terrific exaggerations, into whose reality he wanted energy and power to inquire. Still before him sate a breathing evidence of the truth of all these confused and horrible recollections--the stalwart, ruffianly figure of the constable--with his great red horny hands, and greasy cuffs, and the heavy coat buttoned up to his unshorn chin--and the short, discoloured pipe, protruding from the corner of his mouth--lounging back with half-closed eyes, and the air of a man who had passed the night in wearisome vigils among strife and riot, and who has acquired the compensating power of dividing his faculties at all times pretty nearly between sleep and waking--a kind of sottish, semi-existence--something between that of a swine and a sloth. Over this figure the eyes of the young man vacantly wandered, and thence to the cheerful fields and trees visible from the window, and back again to the burly constable, until every seam and button in his coat grew familiar to his mind as the oldest tenants of his memory. Beside him, too, sate Chancey--his artful, cowardly betrayer. Yet even against him he could not feel anger; all energy of thought and feeling seemed lost to him; and nothing but a dull ambiguous incredulity and a scared stupor were there in their stead. On--on they rolled and rumbled, among pleasant fields and stately hedge-rows, toward the ancestral dwelling of the miserable prisoner, who sate like a lifeless effigy, yielding passively to every jolt and movement of the carriage. "I say, Grimes, were you ever out here before?" inquired Mr. Chancey. "We'll soon be in the manor, driving up to Morley Court. It's a fine place, I'm given to understand. I never was here but once before, long as I know Sir Henry; but better late than never. Do you know this place, Mr. Grimes?" A negative grunt and a short nod relieved Mr. Grimes from the painful necessity of removing his pipe for the purpose of uttering an articulate answer. "Oh, dear me, dear me," resumed Mr. Chancey, "but I'm uncommon hungry and dry. I wish to God we were safe and sound in Sir Henry's house. Grimes, are _you_ dry?" Mr. Grimes removed his pipe, and spat upon the coach floor. "Am I dhry?" said he. "About as dhry as a sprat in a tindher-box, that's all. Is there much more to go?" Chancey stretched his head out of the coach window. "I see the old piers of the avenue," said he; "and God knows but it's I that's glad we're near our journey's end. Now we're passing in--we're in the avenue." Mr. Grimes hereupon uttered a grunt of approbation; and pressing down the ashes of his pipe with his thumb, he deposited that instrument in his waistcoat pocket--whence, at the same time, he drew a small plug of tobacco, which he inserted in his mouth, and rolled it about with his tongue from time to time during the remainder of their progress. "Sir Henry, we're arrived," said Chancey, admonishing the baronet with his elbow--"we're at the hall-door at Morley Court. Sir Henry--dear me, dear me, he's very abstracted, so he is. I say, Sir Henry, we're at Morley Court." Ashwoode looked vacantly in Chancey's face, and then upon the stately door of the old house, and suddenly recollecting himself, he said with strange alacrity,-- "Ay, ay--at Morley Court--so we are. Come, then, gentlemen, let us get down." Accordingly the three companions descended from the conveyance, and entered the ancient dwelling-house together. "Follow me, gentlemen," said Ashwoode, leading the way to a small, oak-wainscoted parlour. "You shall have refreshments immediately." He called the servant to the door, and continued addressing himself to Chancey, and his no less refined companion. "Order what you please, gentlemen--I can't think of these things just now; and, sirrah, do you hear me, bring a large vessel of water--my throat is literally scorched." "Well, Mr. Chancey, what do you say?" said Grimes. "I'm for a couple of bottles of sack, and a good pitcher of ale, to begin with, in the way of liquor." "Well, it wouldn't be that bad," said Chancey. "What meat have you on the spit, my good man?" "I don't exactly know, sir," replied the wondering domestic; "but I'll inquire." "And see, my good man," continued Chancey, "ask them whether there isn't some cold roast beef in the buttery; and if so, bring it up in a jiffy, for, I declare to G--d I'm uncommon hungry; and let the cook send up a hot joint directly;--and do you mind, my honest man, light a bit of a fire here, for it's rather chill, and put plenty of dry sticks----" "Give us the ale and the sack this instant minute, do you see," said Mr. Grimes. "You may do the rest after." "Yes, you may as well," resumed Chancey; "for indeed I'm lost with the drooth myself." "Cut your stick, saucepan," said Mr. Grimes, authoritatively; and the servant departed in unfeigned astonishment to execute his various commissions. Ashwoode threw himself into a seat, and in silence endeavoured to collect his thoughts. Faint, sick, and stunned, he nevertheless began gradually to comprehend every particular of his position more and more fully--until at length all the ghastly truth stood revealed to his mind's eye in vivid and glaring distinctness. While Ashwoode was engaged in his agreeable ruminations, Mr. Chancey and Mr. Grimes were busily employed in discussing the substantial fare which his larder had supplied, and pledging one another in copious libations of generous liquor. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE BARGAIN, AND THE NEW CONFEDERATES. At length the evening came--darkness closed over the old place, and as the appointed hour approached, Ashwoode became more and more excited. "I must," thought he, "keep every faculty intensely on the stretch, to detect, if possible, the nature of their schemes. Blarden and Chancey have unquestionably hatched some other d----d plot, though what worse can befall me? _I_ am netted as completely as their worst malice can desire. It is now seven o'clock. Another hour will determine all my doubts. Hark you, sirrah!" continued he, raising his voice, and addressing a servant who had entered the chamber, "I expect a gentleman upon particular business at eight o'clock. On his arrival conduct him directly to this room." He then relapsed into the same train of gloomy and agitated thought. Chancey and his burly companion both sat snugly before the fire smoking their pipes in silent enjoyment, while their miserable host paced the room from wall to wall in mental torments indescribable. At length the weary interval expired, and within a few minutes of the appointed hour, Nicholas Blarden was admitted by the servant, and ushered into the chamber in which Ashwoode expected his arrival. "Well, Sir Henry," exclaimed Blarden, as he swaggered into the room, "you seem a little flustered still--eh? Hope you found your company pleasant. My friends' society is considered uncommon agreeable." The visitor here threw himself into a chair, and continued-- "By the holy Saint Paul, as I rode up your cursed old dusky avenue, I began to think the chances were ten to one you had brought your throat and a razor acquainted before this. I have known men do it under your circumstances--of course I mean _gentlemen_, with fine friends and delicate habits, and who could not stand exposure and all that kind of thing. I say, Mr. Grimes, my sweet fellow, you may leave the room, but keep within call, do ye mind. Mr. Chancey and I want to have a little confidential conversation with my friend, Sir Henry. Bundle out, and the moment you hear me call your name, bolt in again like a shot." Mr. Grimes, without answering, rose and lounged out of the room. "Chancey, shut that door," continued Blarden. "Shut it tight, as tight as a drum. There, to your seat again. _Now_ then, Sir Henry, we may as well to business; but first of all, sit down. I have no objection to your sitting. Don't be shy." Sir Henry Ashwoode _did_ seat himself, and the three members of this secret council drew their chairs around the table, each with very different feelings. "I take it for granted," said Blarden, planting his elbow upon the table, and supporting his chin upon his hand, while he fixed his baleful eyes upon the young man, "I take it for granted, and as a matter of course, that you have been puzzling your brains all day to come at the reason why I allow you to be sitting in this house, instead of clapping your four bones under lock and key, in another place." He paused here, as if to allow his exordium to impress itself upon the memory of his auditory, and then resumed,-- "And I take it for granted, moreover, that you are not quite fool enough to imagine that I care one blast if you were strung up by the hangman, and carved by the doctors, to-morrow--eh?" He paused again. "Well, then, it's possible you think I have some end of my own to serve, by letting the matter stand over this way. And so I _have_, by ----. You think right, if you never thought right before. I _have_ an object in view, and it lies with you whether it's gained or lost. Do you mind?" "Go on--go on--go on," repeated Ashwoode, gloomily. "What a devil of a hurry you're in," observed Blarden, with a scornful chuckle. "But don't tear yourself; you'll have it all time enough. Now I'm going to do great things for you--do you mind me? I'm going, in the first place, to give you your life and your character--such as it is; and, what's more, I'll not let you go to jail for debt neither. I'll not let you be ruined; for Nickey Blarden was never the man to do things by halves. Do you hear all I'm saying?" "Yes, yes," said Ashwoode, faintly; "but the condition--come to that--the condition." "Well, I _will_ come to that. I will tell you the terms," rejoined Blarden. "I suppose you need not be told that I am worth a good penny, no matter how much. At any rate I'm _rich_--that much you _do_ know. Well, perhaps you'll think it odd that I have not taken up a little to live more quiet and orderly; in short, that I have not sown my wild oats, and settled down, and all that, and become what they call an ornament to society--eh? You, perhaps, wonder how it comes I have not taken a rib--why I have not got married--eh? Well, I think myself it _is_ a wonder, especially for such an admirer of the sex as I am, and I think it's a pity besides, and so I've made up my mind to mend the matter, do you see, and to take a wife without loss of time. She must have family, for I want that, and she must have beauty, for I would not marry the queen without it--family and beauty. I don't ask money; I have more of my own than I well know what to do with. Family and beauty is what I require. And I have settled the thing in my own mind, that the very article I want, just the thing to a nicety, is your sister--little, bright-eyed Mary--sporting Molly. I wish to marry her, and her I'll _have_--and that's the long and the short of the whole business." "You--_you_ marry my sister," exclaimed Ashwoode, returning the fellow's insolent gaze with a look of indescribable scorn and astonishment. "Yes--I--I myself--I, Nicholas Blarden, with more gold than a man could count in three lives," shouted Blarden, returning his gaze with a scowl of defiance--"_I_ condescend to marry the sister of a ruined, beggared profligate--a common _forger_, who has one foot in the dock at this minute. Down upon your marrow-bones, and thank me for my condescension--down, I say." Overwhelmed with indignation and disgust, Ashwoode could not answer. All his self-command was required to resist his vehement internal impulse to strike the fellow to the ground and trample upon him. This strong emotion, however, had its spring in no generous source. No thought or care for Mary's feelings or fate crossed his mind; but only the sense of insulted pride, for even in the midst of all his misery and abasement, his hereditary pride of birth survived: that this low, this entirely blasted, this branded ruffian should dare to propose to ally himself with the Ashwoodes of Morley Court--a family whose blood was as pure as centuries of aristocratic transmission, and repeated commixture with that of nobility, could make it--a family who stood, in consideration and respect, one of the very highest of the country! Could flesh and blood endure it? "Make your mind up at once--I have no time to spare; and just remember that the locality of your night's lodging depends upon your decision," said Blarden, coolly, looking at his watch. "If, unfortunately for yourself, you should resolve against the connection, then you must have the goodness to accompany us into town to-night, and the law takes its course quietly with you, and your neck-bone must only reconcile itself to an ugly bit of a twist. If otherwise, you're a made man. Run the matter fairly over in your mind, and see which of us two should desire the thing most. As for me, I tell you plainly, it's a bit of a fancy--no more--and may pass off in a day or two, for I don't pretend to be extraordinarily steady in love affairs, and always had rather a roving eye; and if I _should_ happen to cool, by ----, you'll be in a nice hobble. So I think you had best take the ball at the hop--do you mind--and make no mouths at your good fortune." Blarden paused, and looked at his huge chased-gold watch again, and laid it on the table, as if to measure Ashwoode's deliberation by the minute. Meanwhile the young baronet had ample time to recollect the desperate pressure of his circumstances, which outraged pride had for a moment half obliterated from his mind, and the process of remembrance was in no small degree assisted by the heavy tread of the constable, distinctly audible from the hall. "Blarden," said Ashwoode, in a voice low and husky with agitation, "she'll never consent--you can't expect it: she'll never marry you." "I'm not talking of the girl's consent just now," replied Blarden: "I'm asking only for _yours_ in the first place. Am I to understand that you're agreed?" "Yes," replied Ashwoode, sullenly; "what is there left to me, but to agree?" "Then leave me alone to gain _her_ consent," retorted Blarden, with a brutal smile. "I have a bit of a winning way with me--a knack of my own--for coming round a girl; and if she don't yield to that, why we must only try another course. When love is wanting, _obedience_ is the next best thing: although we can't charm her, she's no girl if we can't frighten her--eh?" Ashwoode was silent. "Now mind, I require your active co-operation," continued Blarden; "there's to be no shamming. I'm no greenhorn, and know a loaded die from a fair one. It's not safe to try hocus pocus with me, and if I don't get the girl, of course you're no brother of mine, and must not expect me to forget the old score that's between us. Do you understand me? Unless you bring this marriage about, you must only take the consequences, and I promise you they'll be of the very ugliest possible description." "Agreed, agreed; talk no more of it just now," said Ashwoode, vehemently--"we understand one another. Tomorrow we may talk of it again; meanwhile torment me no more!" "Well, I have said my say," rejoined Blarden, "and have nothing more to do but to inform you, that I intend passing the night here, and, in short, to make a visit of a week or so, for it's right the young lady should have an opportunity of knowing my geography before she marries me; and besides, I have heard a great account of old Sir Richard's cellar. Chancey, do you tell my servant to bring my things up to the room that Sir Henry will point out. Sir Henry, you'll see about my room--have a bit of fire in it--see to it yourself, mind; for do you mind, between ourselves, I think it's on the whole your better course to be uncommonly civil to me. Stir yourselves, gentlemen. And, Chancey, hand Grimes his fee, and let him be off. We'll try a jug of your claret, Sir Henry, and a spatchcock, or some little thing of the kind, and then to our virtuous beds--eh?" After a carousal protracted to nearly three hours, during which Nickey Blarden treated his two companions to sundry ballads, and other vocal efforts somewhat more boisterous than elegant, and supplying frequent allusion, and not of the most delicate kind, to his contemplated change of condition, that interesting person proceeded somewhat unsteadily upstairs to his bed-chamber. With a suspicion, which even his tipsiness could not overcome, he jealously bolted the door upon the inside, and laid his sword and pistols upon the table by his bed, remembering that it was just possible that his entertainer might conceive an expeditious project for relieving himself of all his troubles, or at least the greater part of them. These pleasant precautions taken, Mr. Blarden undressed himself with all celerity and threw himself into bed. This gentleman's opinion of mankind was by no means exalted, nor at all complimentary to human nature. Utter, hardened selfishness he believed to be the master-passion of the human race, and any appeal which addressed itself to that, he looked upon as irresistible. In applying this rule to Sir Henry Ashwoode he happened, indeed, to be critically correct, for the young baronet was in very nearly all points fashioned precisely according to honest Nickey's standard of humanity. That gentleman experienced, therefore, no misgivings as to his young friend's preferring at all hazards to remain at Morley Court, rather than quit the country, and enter upon a life of vagabond beggary. "No, no," thought Blarden, "he'll not take leg bail, just because he can gain nothing earthly by it now; the only thing I can see that could serve him at all--that is, supposing him to be against the match--is to cut my throat; however, I don't think he's wild enough to run that risk, and if he does try it, by ----, he'll have the worst of the game." Thus, after a day of unclouded triumph, did Mr. Blarden compose himself to light and happy slumbers. CHAPTER XL. DREAMS--FIRST IMPRESSIONS--THE MAN IN THE PLUM-COLOURED SUIT. The sun shone cheerily through the casement of the quaint and pretty little chamber which called Mary Ashwoode its mistress. It was a fresh and sunny autumn morning; the last leaves rustled on the boughs, and the thrush and blackbird sang their merry morning lays. Mary sat by the window, looking sadly forth upon the slopes and woods which caught the slanting beams of the ruddy sun. "I have passed, indeed, a very troubled night--I have been haunted with strange and fearful dreams. I feel very sorrowful and uneasy--indeed, indeed I do, Carey." "It's only the vapours, my lady," replied the maid; "a glass of orange-flower water and camphor is the sovereignest thing in the world for them." "Indeed, Carey," continued the young lady, still gazing sadly from the casement, "I know not why it is so--a foolish dream, wild and most extravagant, yet still it will not leave me. I cannot shake off this fear and depression. I will run down stairs and talk with my dear brother--that may cheer me." She arose, ran lightly down the stairs, and entered the parlour. The first object that met her gaze, standing full before her, was a large and singularly ill-looking man, arrayed in a suit of plum-coloured cloth, richly laced. It was Nicholas Blarden. With a vulgar swagger, half abashed and half impudent, the fellow acknowledged her entrance by retreating a little and making an awkward bow, while a smile and a leer, more calculated to frighten than to attract, lighted his coarse and swollen features. The girl looked at this object with a startled air, she felt that she had seen that sinister face before, but where or when--whether waking or in a dream, she strove in vain to remember. "I say, Ashwoode, where's your manners?" said Blarden, turning angrily towards the young baronet, who was scarcely less confounded at her sudden entrance than was the girl herself. "What do you stand gaping there for? Don't you see the young lady wants to know who I am?" Blarden followed this vehement exhortation with a look which at once recalled Ashwoode to his senses. "Mary," said he, approaching, "this is my particular friend, Mr. Nicholas Blarden. Mr. Blarden, my sister, Miss Mary Ashwoode." "Your most obedient humble servant, Mistress Mary," said Blarden, with a gallant air. "Wonderful beautiful weather; d---- me, but it's like the middle of summer. I'm just going out to take a bit of a tramp among the bushes and lead goddesses," he added, not feeling, spite of all his effrontery, quite at his ease in the presence of the elegant and high-born girl; and, more confounded and abashed by the simple dignity of her artless nature than he ever remembered to have been before, under any circumstances whatever, he made his exit from the chamber. "Who is that man?" said the girl, drawing close to her brother's side, and clinging timidly to his arm. "His face is familiar to me--I have seen or dreamed of it before; it has been before me either in some troubled scene or dream. I feel frightened and oppressed when he is near me. Who is he, brother?" "Pshaw! nonsense, girl," said her brother, in vain attempting to appear unconstrained and at his ease; "he is a very good, honest fellow, not, as you see, the most polished in the world, but in essentials an excellent fellow; you'll easily get over your antipathy--his oddity of manner and appearance is soon forgotten, and in all other points he is an admirable fellow. Pshaw! you have too much sense to hate a man for his face and manner." "I do not hate him, brother," said Mary, "how could I? The man has never wronged me; but there is something in his eye, in his air and expression, in his whole appearance, sinister and terrible--something which oppresses and terrifies me. I can scarcely move or breathe in his presence. I only hope that I may never meet him so near again." "Your hope is not likely to be realized, then," replied Ashwoode, abruptly, "he makes a stay here of a week, or perhaps more." A silence followed, during which he revolved the expediency of hinting at once at the designs of Blarden. As he thus paused, moodily plotting how best to open the subject, the unconscious girl stood beside him, and, looking fondly in his face, she said,-- "Dear brother, you must not be so sad. When all's done, what have we lost but some of the wealth which we can spare? We have still enough, quite enough. You shall live with your poor little sister, and I will take care of you, and read to you, and sing to you whenever you are sad; and we will walk together in the old green woods, and be far happier and merrier than ever we could have been in the midst of cold and heartless luxury and dissipation. Brother, dear brother, when shall we go to Incharden?" "I can't say; I--I don't know that we shall go there at all," replied he, shortly. Deep disappointment clouded the poor girl's face for a moment, but as instantly the sweet smile returned, and she laid her hand affectionately upon her brother's shoulder, and looked in his face. "Well, dear brother, wherever you go, there is _my_ home, and there I will be happy--as happy as being with the only creature that cares for me now can make me." "Perhaps there are others who care for you--ay--even more than I do," said the young man deliberately, and fixing his eyes upon her searchingly, as he spoke. "How, brother; what do you mean?" said the poor girl, faintly, and turning pale as death. "Have you seen--have you heard from----" She paused, trembling violently, and Ashwoode resumed,-- "No, no, child; I have neither seen nor heard from anyone whom you know anything of. Why are you so agitated? Pshaw! nonsense." "I know not how it is, brother; I am depressed, and easily agitated to-day," rejoined she; "perhaps it is that I cannot forget a fearful dream which troubled me last night." "Tut, tut, child," replied he; "I thought you had other matters to think of." "And so I have, God knows, dear brother," resumed she--"so I have; but this dream haunted me long, and haunts me still; it was about you. I dreamed that we were walking, lovingly, hand in hand, among the shady walks in this old place; when, on a sudden, a great savage dog--just like the old blood-hound you had shot last summer--came, with open jaws and all its fangs exposed, springing towards us. I threw myself, terrified, into your arms, but you grasped me, with iron strength, and held me forth toward the frightful animal. I saw your face; it was changed and horrible. I struggled--I screamed--and awakened, gasping with afright." "A silly, unmeaning dream," said Ashwoode, slightly changing colour, and turning from her. "You're not such a child, surely, as to let _that_ trouble you." "No, indeed, brother," replied she, "I do not suffer it to trouble my mind; but it has fastened somehow upon my imagination, and spite of all I can do, the impression remains---- There--there--see that horrible man staring in at us, from behind the evergreens," she added, glancing at a large, tufted laurel, which partially screened the unprepossessing form of Nicholas Blarden, who was intently watching the youthful pair as they conversed. Perhaps conscious that he had been observed, he quitted his lurking-place, and plunged deeper into the thick screen of foliage. "Dear Henry," said she, turning imploringly toward her brother, "there is something about that man which frightens me; my heart sickens whenever I see him. I feel like some poor bird under the eye of a hawk. I do not feel safe when he is looking at me; there is some evil influence in his gaze--something bad, satanic, in his look and presence; I dread him instinctively. For God's sake, dear, dear brother, do not keep company with him--he will harm you--it cannot lead to good." "This is mere folly--downright raving," said Ashwoode, vehemently, but with an uneasiness which he could not conceal. "He is my guest, and will remain so for some weeks. I must be civil to him--_both_ of us must." "Surely, dear brother--after all I have said--you will not ask me to associate with him during his stay, since stay he must," urged Mary. "We ought not to consult our whims at the expense of civility," retorted the baronet, drily. "But surely my presence is not required," urged she. "You cannot tell how that may be," replied Ashwoode, abruptly, and then added, abstractedly, as he walked slowly towards the door: "We often speak, we know not what; we often stand, we know not where--necessity, fate, destiny--whatever is, _must_ be. Let this be our philosophy, Mary." Wholly at a loss to comprehend this incoherent speech, his sister remained silent for some minutes. "Well, child, how say you?" exclaimed Ashwoode, turning suddenly round. "Dear brother," said she, "I would fain not meet that man any more while he remains here. You will not ask me to come down." "A truce to this folly," exclaimed Ashwoode, with loud and sudden emphasis. "You must--you _must_, I say, appear at breakfast, at dinner, and at supper. You must see Blarden, and talk with him--he's _my_ friend--you _must_ know him." Then checking himself, he added, in a less vehement tone--"Mary, don't _act_ like a fool--you _are_ none: these silly fancies must not be indulged--remember, he's _my_ friend. There, there, be a good girl--no more folly." He came over, patted her cheek, and then turned abruptly from her, and left the room. His parting caress, however, was not sufficient to obliterate the painful impression which his momentary violence had left, for in that brief space of angry excitement his countenance had worn the self-same sinister expression which had appalled her in her last night's dream. CHAPTER XLI. OF O'CONNOR AND A CERTAIN TRAVELLING ECCLESIASTIC--AND HOW THE DARKNESS OVERTOOK THEM. It has become necessary, in order to a clear and chronologically arranged exposition of events to return for a little while to our melancholy young friend, Edmond O'Connor, who, with his faithful squire, Larry Toole, following in close attendance upon his progress, was now returning from a last visit to the poor fragment of his patrimony, the wreck of his father's fortunes, and which consisted of a few hundred acres of wild woodland, surrounding a small square tower half gone to decay, and bidding fair to become in a few years a mere roofless ruin. He had seen the few retainers of his family who still remained, and bidden them a last farewell, and was now far in his second day's leisurely journey toward the city of Dublin. The sun was fast declining among the rich and glowing clouds of an autumnal evening, and pouring its melancholy lustre upon the woods and the old towers of Leixlip, as the young man rode into that ancient town. How different were his present feelings from those with which he had last traversed the quiet little village--then his bright hopes and cheery fancies had tinged every object he looked on with their own warm and happy colouring; but now, alas! how mournful the reverse. With the sweet illusions he had so fondly cherished had vanished all the charm of all he saw; the scene was disenchanted now, and all seemed coloured in the sombre and chastened hues of his own deep melancholy; the river, with all its brawling falls and windings, filled his ear with plaintive harmonies, and all its dancing foam-bells, that chased one another down its broad eddies, glancing in the dim, discoloured light of the evening sun, seemed but so many images of the wayward courses and light illusions of human hope; even the old ivy-mantled towers, as he looked upon their time-worn front, seemed to have suffered a century's decay since last he beheld them; every scene that met his eye, and every sound that floated to his ear on the still air of evening, was alike charged with sadness. At a slow pace, and with a heart oppressed, he passed the little town, and soon its trees, and humble roofs, and blue curling smoke were left far behind him. He had proceeded more than a mile when the sun descended, and the dusky twilight began to deepen. He spurred his horse, and at a rate more suited to the limited duration of the little light which remained, he rode at a sharp trot along the uneven way toward Dublin. He had not proceeded far at this rate when he overtook a gentleman on horseback, who was listlessly walking his steed in the same direction, and who, on seeing a cavalier thus wending his way on the same route, either with a view to secure good company upon the road, or for some other less obvious purpose, spurred on also, and took his place by the side of our young friend. O'Connor looked upon his uninvited companion with a jealous eye, for his night adventure of a few months since was forcibly recalled to his memory by the circumstances of his present situation. The person who rode by his side was, as well as he could descry, a tall, lank man, with a hooked nose, heavy brows, and sallow complexion, having something grim and ascetic in the character of his face. After turning slightly twice or thrice towards O'Connor, as if doubtful whether to address him, the stranger at length accosted the young man. "A fair evening this, sir," said he, "and just cool enough to make a brisk ride pleasant." O'Connor assented drily, and without waiting for a renewal of the conversation, spurred his horse into a canter, with the intention of leaving his new companion behind. That personage was not, however, so easily to be shaken off; he, in turn, put his horse to precisely the same pace, and remarked composedly,-- "I see, sir, you wish to make the most of the light we've left us; dark riding, they say, is dangerous riding hereabout. I suppose you ride for the city?" O'Connor made no answer. "I presume you make Dublin your halting-place?" repeated the man. "You are at liberty, sir," replied O'Connor, somewhat sharply, "to presume what you please; I have good reasons, however, for not caring to bandy words with strangers. Where I rest for the night cannot concern anybody but myself." "No offence, sir--no offence meant," replied the man, in the same even tone, "and I hope none taken." A silence of some minutes ensued, during which O'Connor suddenly slackened his horse's pace to a walk. The stranger made a corresponding alteration in that of his. "Your pace, sir, is mine," observed the stranger. "We may as well breathe our beasts a little." Another pause followed, which was at length broken by the stranger's observing,-- "A lucky chance, in truth. A comrade is an important acquisition in such a ride as ours promises to be." "I already have one of my own choosing," replied O'Connor drily; "I ride attended." "And so do I," continued the other, "and doubtless our trusty squires are just as happy in the rencounter as are their masters." A considerable silence ensued, which at length was broken by the stranger. "Your reserve, sir," said he, "as well as the hour at which you travel, leads me to conjecture that we are both bound on the same errand. Am I understood?" "You must speak more plainly if you would be so," replied O'Connor. "Well, then," resumed he, "I half believe that we shall meet to-night--where it is no sin to speak loyalty." "Still, sir, you leave me in the dark as to your meaning," replied O'Connor. "At a certain well of sweet water," said the man with deliberate significance--"is it not so--eh--am I right?" "No, sir," replied O'Connor, "your sagacity is at fault; or else, it may be, your wit is too subtle, or mine too dull; for, if your conjectures be correct, I cannot comprehend your meaning--nor indeed is it very important that I should." "Well, sir," replied he, "I am seldom wrong when I hazard a guess of this kind; but no matter--if we meet we shall be better friends, I promise you." They had now reached the little town of Chapelizod, and darkness had closed in. At the door of a hovel, from which streamed a strong red light, the stranger drew his bridle, and called for a cup of water. A ragged urchin brought it forth. "_Pax Domini vobiscum_," said the stranger, restoring the vessel, and looking upward steadfastly for a minute, as if in mental prayer, he raised his hat, and in doing so exhibited the monkish tonsure upon his head; and as he sate there motionless upon his horse, with his sable cloak wrapped in ample folds about him, and the strong red light from the hovel door falling upon his thin and well-marked features, bringing into strong relief the prominences of his form and attire, and shining full upon the drooping head of the tired steed which he bestrode--this equestrian figure might have furnished no unworthy study for the pencil of Schalken. In a few minutes they were again riding side by side along the street of the straggling little town. "I perceive, sir," said O'Connor, "that you are a clergyman. Unless this dim light deceives me, I saw the tonsure when you raised your hat just now." "Your eyes deceived you not--I am one of a religious order," replied the man, "and perchance not on that account a more acceptable companion to you." "Indeed you wrong me, reverend sir," said O'Connor. "I owe you an apology for receiving your advances as I have done; but experience has taught me caution; and until I know something of those whom I encounter on the highway, I hold with them as little communication as I can well avoid. So far from being the less acceptable a companion to me by reason of your sacred office, believe me, you need no better recommendation. I am myself an humble child of the true Church; and her ministers have never claimed respect from me in vain." The priest looked searchingly at the young man; but the light afforded but an imperfect scrutiny. "You say, sir," rejoined he after a pause, "that you acknowledge our father of Rome--that you are one of those who eschew heresy, and cling constantly to the old true faith--that you are free from the mortal taint of Protestant infidelity." "That do I with my whole heart," rejoined O'Connor. "Are you, moreover, one of those who still look with a holy confidence to the return of better days? When the present order of things, this usurped government and abused authority, shall pass away like a dark dream, and fly before the glory of returning truth. Do you look for the restoration of the royal heritage to its rightful owner, and of these afflicted countries to the bosom of mother Church?" "Happy were I to see these things accomplished," rejoined O'Connor; "but I hold their achievement, except by the intervention of Almighty Providence, impossible. Methinks we have in Ireland neither the spirit nor the power to do it. The people are heartbroken; and so far from coming to the field in this quarrel, they dare not even speak of it above their breath." "Young man, you speak as one without understanding. You know not this people of Ireland of whom you speak. Believe me, sir, the spirit to right these things is deep and strong in the bosoms of the people. What though they do not cry aloud in agony for vengeance, are they therefore content, and at their heart's ease? "'Quamvis tacet Hermogenes, cantor tamen atque, Optimus est modulator.' "Their silence is not dumbness--you shall hear them speak plainly yet." "Well, it may be so," rejoined O'Connor; "but be the people ever so willing, another difficulty arises--where are the men to lead them on?--who are they?" The priest again looked quickly and suspiciously at the speaker; but the gloom prevented his discerning the features of his companion. He became silent--perhaps half-repenting his momentary candour, and rode slowly forward by O'Connor's side, until they had reached the extremity of the town. The priest then abruptly said,-- "I find, sir, I have been wrong in my conjecture. Our paths at this point diverge, I believe. You pursue your way by the river's side, and I take mine to the left. Do not follow me. If you be what you represent yourself, my command will be sufficient to prevent your doing so; if otherwise, I ride armed, and can enforce what I conceive necessary to my safety. Farewell." And so saying, the priest turned his horse's head in the direction which he had intimated, rode up the steep ascent which loomed over the narrow level by the river's side; and his dark form quickly disappeared beyond the brow of the dusky hill. O'Connor's eyes instinctively followed the retreating figure of his companion, until it was lost in the profound darkness; and then looking back for any dim intimation of the presence of his trusty follower, he beheld nothing but the dark void. He listened; but no sound of horse's hoofs betokened pursuit. He shouted--he called upon his squire by name; but all in vain; and at length, after straining his voice to its utmost pitch for six or ten minutes without eliciting any other reply than the prolonged barking of half the village curs in Chapelizod, he turned away, and pursued his course alone, consoling himself with the reflection that his attendant was at least as well acquainted with the way as was he himself, and that he could not fail to reach the "Cock and Anchor" whenever he pleased to exert himself for the purpose. CHAPTER XLII. THE SQUIRES. O'Connor had scarcely been joined by the priest, when Larry Toole, who jogged quietly on, pipe in mouth, behind his master, was accosted by his reverence's servant, a stout, clean-limbed fellow, arrayed in blue frieze, who rode a large, ill-made horse, and bumped listlessly along at that easy swinging jog at which our southern farmers are wont to ride. The fellow had a shrewd eye, and a pleasant countenance withal to look upon, and might be in years some five or six and thirty. "God save you, neighbour," said he. "God save you kindly," rejoined Mr. Toole graciously. "A plisint evenin' for a quiet bit iv a smoke," rejoined the stranger. "None better," rejoined Larry, scanning the stranger's proportions, to see whether, in his own phrase, "he liked his cut." The scrutiny evidently resulted favourably, for Larry removed his pipe, and handing it to his new acquaintance, observed courteously, "Maybe you'd take a draw, neighbour." "I thank you kindly," said the stranger, as he transferred the utensil from Larry's mouth to his own. "It's turning cowld, I think. I wish to the Lord we had a dhrop iv something to warm us," observed he, speaking out of the unoccupied corner of his mouth. "We'll be in Chapelizod, plase God," said Larry Toole, "in half an hour, an' if ould Tim Delany isn't gone undher the daisies, maybe we won't have a taste iv his best." "Are _you_ follyin' that gintleman?" inquired the stranger, with his pipe indicating O'Connor, "that gintleman that the masther is talking to?" "I am _so_," rejoined Larry promptly, "an' a good gintleman he is; an' that's your masther there. What sort is he?" "Oh, good enough, as masthers goes--no way surprisin' one way or th' other." "Where are you goin' to?" pursued Larry. "I never axed, bedad," rejoined the man, "only to folly on, wherever he goes--an' divil a hair I care where that is. What way are you two goin'?" "To Dublin, to be sure," rejoined Larry. "I wisht we wor there now. What the divil makes him ride so unaiqual--sometimes cantherin', and other times mostly walkin'--it's mighty nansinsical, so it is." "By gorra, I don't know, anless fancy alone," rejoined the stranger. "Here's your pipe," continued he, after some pause, "an' I thank you kindly, misther--misther--how's this they call you?" "Misther Larry Toole is the name I was christened by," rejoined the gentleman so interrogated. "An' a rale illegant name it is," replied the stranger. "The Tooles is a royal family, an' may the Lord restore them to their rights." "Amen, bedad," rejoined Larry devoutly. "My name's Ned Mollowney," continued he, anticipating Larry's interrogatory, "from the town of Ballydun, the plisintest spot in the beautiful county iv Tipperary. There isn't it's aquil out for fine men and purty girls." Larry sighed. The conversation then took that romantic turn which best suited the melancholy chivalry of Larry's mind, after which the current of their mutual discoursing, by the attraction of irresistible association, led them, as they approached the little village, once more into suggestive commentaries upon the bitter cold, and sundry pleasant speculations respecting the creature comforts which awaited them under Tim Delany's genial roof-tree. "The holy saints be praised," said Ned Mollowney, "we're in the village at last. The tellin' iv stories is the dhryest work that ever a boy tuck in hand. My mouth is like a cindher all as one." "Tim Delany's is the second house beyant that wind in the street," said Larry, pointing down the road as they advanced. "We'll jist get down for a minute or two, an' have somethin' warrum by the fire; we'll overtake the gintlemen asy enough." "I'm agreeable, Mr. Toole," said the accommodating Ned Mollowney. "Let the gintlemen take care iv themselves. They're come to an age when they ought to know what they're about." "This is it," said Larry, checking his horse before a low thatched house, from whose doorway the cheerful light was gleaming upon the bushes opposite. The two worthies dismounted, and entered the humble place of entertainment. Tim Delany's company was singularly fascinating, and his liquor was, if possible, more so--besides, the evening was chill, and his hearth blazed with a fire, the very sight of which made the blood circulate freely, and the finger-tops grow warm. Larry Toole was prepossessed in favour of Ned Mollowney, and Ned Mollowney had fallen in love with Larry Toole, so that it is hardly to be wondered at that the two gentlemen yielded to the combined seduction of their situation, and seated themselves snugly by the fire, each with his due allowance of stimulating liquor, and with a very vague and uncertain kind of belief in the likelihood of their following their masters respectively until they had made themselves particularly comfortable. It was not until after nearly two hours of blissful communion with his delectable companion, that Larry Toole suddenly bethought him of the fact that he had allowed his master, at the lowest calculation, time enough to have ridden to and from the "Cock and Anchor" at least half a dozen times. He, therefore, hurriedly bade good-night, with many a fond vow of eternal friendship for the two companions of his princely revelry, mounted his horse with some little difficulty, and becoming every moment more and more confused, and less and less perpendicular, found himself at length--with an indistinct remembrance of having had several hundred falls upon every possible part of his body, and upon every possible geological substance, from soft alluvial mud up to plain lime-stone, during the course of his progress--within the brick precincts of the city. The horse, with an instinctive contempt for Mr. Toole's judgment, wholly disregarded that gentleman's vehement appeals to the bridle, and quietly pursued his well-known way to the hostelry of the "Cock and Anchor." Our honest friend had hardly dismounted, which he did with one eye closed, and a hiccough, and a happy smile which mournfully contrasted with his filthy and battered condition, when he at once became absolutely insensible, from which condition he did not recover till next morning, when he found himself partially in bed, quite undressed, with the exception of his breeches, boots, and spurs, which he had forgotten to remove, and which latter, along with his feet, he had deposited upon the pillow, allowing his head to slope gently downward towards the foot of the bed. As soon as Mr. Toole had ascertained where he was, and begun to recollect how he came there, he removed his legs from the pillow, and softly slid upon the floor. His first solicitude was for his clothes, the spattered and villainous condition of which appalled him; his next was to endeavour to remember whether or not his master had witnessed his weakness. Absorbed in this severe effort of memory, he sat upon the bedside, gazing upon the floor, and scratching his head, when the door opened, and his friend the groom entered the chamber. "I say, old gentleman, you've been having a little bit of a spree," observed he, gazing pleasantly upon the disconsolate figure of the little man, who sat in his shirt and jack-boots, staring at him with a woe-begone and bewildered air. "Why, you had a bushel of mud about your body when you came in, and no hat at all. Well, you _had_ a pleasant night of it--there's no denying that." "No hat;" said Larry desolately. "It isn't possible I dropped my hat off my head unknownest. Bloody wars, my hat! is it gone in airnest?" "Yes, young gentleman, you came here bareheaded. The hat _is_ gone, and that's a fact," replied the groom. "I thought my coat was bad enough; but--oh! blur-anagers, my hat!" ejaculated Larry with abandonment. "Bad luck go with the liquor--tare-an-ouns, my hat!" "There's a shoe off the horse," observed the groom; "and the seat is gone out of your breeches as clean as if it never was in it. Well, but you _had_ a pleasant evening of it--you had." "An' my breeches desthroyed--ruined beyant cure! See, Tom Berry, take a blundherbuz, will you, and put me out of pain at wonst. My breeches! Oh, divil go with the liquor! Holy Moses, is it possible?--my breeches!" In an agony of contrition and desperate remorse, Larry Toole clasped his hands over his eyes and remained for some minutes silent; at length he said-- "An' what did the masther say? Don't be keeping me in pain--out with it at wonst." "What master?" inquired the groom. "What masther?" echoed Mr. Toole--"why Mr. O'Connor, to be sure." "I'm sure I can't say," replied the man; "I have not seen him this month." "Wasn't he here before me last night?" inquired the little man. "No, nor after neither," replied his visitor. "Do you mane to tell me that he's not in the house at all?" interrogated Mr. Toole. "Yes," replied he, "Mr. O'Connor is _not_ in the house; the horse did not cross the yard this month. Will that do you?" "Be the hoky," said Larry, "that's exthramely quare. But are you raly sure and quite sartin?" "Yes, I tell you yes," replied he. "Well, well," said Mr. Toole, "but that puts me to the divil's rounds to undherstand it--not come at all. What in the world's gone with him--not come--where else could he go to? Begorra, the whole iv the occurrences iv last night is a blaggard mysthery. What the divil's gone with him--where is he at all?--why couldn't he wait a bit for me an' I'd iv tuck the best care iv him? but gintlemen is always anruly. What the divil's keepin' him? I wouldn't be surprised if he made a baste iv himself in some public-house last night. A man ought never to take a dhrop more than jist what makes him plisant--bad luck to it. Lend me a breeches, an' I'll pray for you all the rest of my days. I must go out at wonst an' look for him; maybe he's at Mr. Audley's lodgings--ay, sure enough, it's there he is. Bad luck to the liquor. Why the divil did I let him go alone? Oh! sweet bad luck to it," he continued in fierce anguish, as he held up the muddy wreck of his favourite coat before his aching eyes--"my elegant coat--bad luck to it again--an' my beautiful hat--once more bad luck to it; an' my breeches--oh! it's fairly past bearin'--my elegant breeches! Bad luck to it for a threacherous drop--an' the masther lost, and no one knows what's done with him. Up with that poker, I tell you, and blow my brains out at once; there's nothing before me in this life but the divil's own delight--finish me, I tell you, and let me rest in the shade. I'll never hould up my head again, there's no use in purtendin'. Oh! bad luck to the dhrink!" In this distracted frame of mind did Larry continue for nearly an hour, after which, with the aid of some contributions from the wardrobe of honest Tom Berry, he clothed himself, and went forth in quest of his master. CHAPTER XLIII. THE WILD WOOD--THE OLD MANSION-HOUSE OF FINISKEA--SECRETS, AND A SURPRISE. O'Connor pursued his way towards the city, following the broken horse-track, which then traversed the low grounds which lie upon the left bank of the Liffey. The Phoenix Park, or, as it was then called, the Royal Park, was at the time of which we write a much wilder place than it now is. There were no trim plantations nor stately clumps of tufted trees, no signs of care or culture. Broad patches of shaggy thorn spread with little interruption over the grounds, and regular roads were then unknown. The darkness became momentarily deeper and more deep as O'Connor pursued his solitary way; and the difficulty of proceeding grew every instant greater, for the heavy rains had interrupted his path with deep sloughs and pools, which became at length so frequent, and so difficult of passage, that he was fain to turn from the ordinary track, and seek an easier path along the high grounds which overhang the river. The close screen of the wild gnarled thorns which covered the upper level on which he now moved, still further deepened the darkness; and he became at length so entirely involved in the pitchy gloom, that he dismounted, and taking his horse by the head, led him forward through the tangled brake, and under the knotted branches of the old hoary thorns, stumbling among the briers and the crooked roots, and every moment encountering the sudden obstruction, either of some stooping branch, or the trunk of one of the old trees; so that altogether his progress was as tedious and unpleasant as it well could be. His annoyance became the greater as he proceeded; for he was so often compelled to turn aside, and change his course, to avoid these interruptions, that in the utter darkness he began to grow entirely uncertain whether or not he was moving in the right direction. The more he paused, and the oftener he reflected, the more entirely puzzled and bewildered did he become. Glad indeed would he have been that he had followed the track upon which he had at first entered, and run the hazard of all the sloughs and pools which crossed it; but he was now embarked in another route; and even had he desired it, so perplexed was he, that he could not have effected his retreat. Fully alive to the ridiculousness, as well as the annoyance of his situation, he slowly and painfully stumbled forward, conscious that if only he could move for half an hour or thereabout consistently in the same direction, he must disengage himself in some quarter or another from the entanglement in which he was involved. In vain he looked round him; nothing but entire darkness encountered him. In vain he listened for any sound which might intimate the neighbourhood of any living thing. Nothing but the hushed soughing of the evening breeze through the old boughs was audible; and he was forced to continue his route in the same troublesome uncertainty. At length he saw, or thought he saw, a red light gleaming through the trees. It disappeared--it came again. He stopped, uncertain whether it was one of those fitful marsh-fires which but mock the perplexity of benighted travellers; but no--this light shone clearly, and with a steady beam, through the branches; and towards it he directed his steps, losing it now, and again recovering it, till at length, after a longer probation than he had at first expected, he gained a clear space of ground, intersected only by a few broken hedges and ditches, but free from the close wood which had so entirely darkened his advance. In this position he was enabled to discern that the light which had guided him streamed from the window of an old shattered house, partially surrounded by a dilapidated wall, having a few ruinous outhouses attached to it. In this building he beheld the old mansion-house of Finiskea, which then occupied the ground on which at present stands the powder-magazine, and which, by a slight alteration in sound, though without any analogy in meaning, has given its name to the Phoenix Park. The light streamed through the diamond panes of a narrow casement; and still leading his horse, O'Connor made his way over the broken fences towards the old house. As he approached, he perceived several figures moving to and fro in the chamber from which the light issued, and detected, or thought he did so, among them the remarkable form of the priest who had lately been his companion upon the road. As he advanced, someone inside drew a curtain across the window, though, as O'Connor conjectured, wholly unaware of his approach, and thus precluded any further reconnoitering on his part. "At all events," thought he, "they can spare me some one to put me upon my way. They can hardly complain if I intrude upon such an errand." With this reflection, he led his horse round the corner of the building to the door, which was sheltered by a small porch roofed with tiles. By the faint light, which in the open space made objects partially discernible, he perceived two men, as it appeared to him, fast asleep--half sitting and half lying on the low step of the door. He had just come near enough to accost them, when, somewhat to his surprise, he was seized from behind in a powerful grip, and his arms pinioned to his sides. A single antagonist he would easily have shaken off; but a reinforcement was at hand. "Up, boys--be stirring--open the door," cried the hoarse voice of the person who held O'Connor. The two figures started to their feet; their strength, combined with the efforts of his first assailant, effectually mastered O'Connor, and one of them shoved the door open. "Pretty watch you keep," said he, as the party hurried their prisoner, wholly without the power of resistance, into the house. Three or four powerful, large-limbed fellows, well armed, were seated in the hall, and arose on his entrance. O'Connor saw that resistance against such odds were idle, and resolved patiently to submit to the issue, whatever it might be. "Gentlemen that's caught peeping is sometimes made to see more than they have a mind to," observed one of O'Connor's conductors. Another removed his sword, and having satisfied himself that he had not any other weapon upon his person, observed,-- "You may let his elbows loose; but jist keep him tight by the collar." "Let the gentlemen know there's a bird limed," observed the first speaker; and one of the others passed from the narrow hall to execute the mission. After some little delay, O'Connor, who awaited the result with more of curiosity and impatience than of alarm, was conducted by two of the armed men who had secured him through a large passage terminating in a chamber, which they also traversed, and by a second door at its far extremity found entrance into a rude but spacious apartment, floored with tiles, and with a low ceiling of dark plank, supported by ponderous beams. A large wood fire burned in the hearth, beside which some half dozen men were congregated; several others were seated by a massive table, on which were writing materials, with which two or three of them were busily employed; a number of open letters were also strewn upon it, and here and there a brace of horse-pistols or a carbine showed that the party felt neither very secure, nor very much disposed to surrender without a struggle, should their worst anticipations be realized, in any attempt to surprise them. Most of those who were present bore, in their disordered dress and mud-soiled boots, the evidence of recent travel. They were lighted chiefly by the broad, uncertain gleam of the blazing wood fire, in which the misty flame of two or three wretched candles which burned upon the table shone pale and dim as the last stars of night in the red dawn of an autumnal sun. In this strong and ruddy light the groups of figures, variously attired, some seated by the table, and others standing with their ample cloaks still folded around them, acquired by the contrast of broad light and shade a character of picturesqueness which had in it something wild and imposing. This singular tableau occupied the further end of the room, which was one of considerable length, and as the prisoner was led forward to the bar of the tribunal, those who composed it eyed him sternly and fixedly. "Bind his hands fast," said a lean and dark-featured man, with a singularly forbidding aspect and a deep, stern voice, who sat at the head of the table with a pile of papers beside him. Spite of O'Connor's struggles, the order was speedily executed, and with such good-will that the blood almost started from his nails. "Now, sir," continued the same speaker, "who are you, and what may your errand be?" "Before I answer your questions you must satisfy me that you have authority to ask them," replied O'Connor. "Who, I pray, are you, who dare to seize the person, and to bind the limbs of a free man? I shall know this ere one of your questions shall have a reply." "I have seen you, young sir, before--scarce an hour since," observed one of those who stood by the hearth. "Look at me, and say do you remember my features?" "I do," replied O'Connor, who had no difficulty in recognizing those of the priest who had parted from him so abruptly on that evening--"of course I recollect your face; we rode side by side from Leixlip to-day." "You recollect my caution too--you cannot have forgotten that," continued the priest, menacingly. "You know how peremptorily I warned you against following me, yet you have dogged me here; on your own head be the consequences--the fool shall perish in his folly." "I have _not_ dogged you here, sir," replied O'Connor; "I seek my way to Dublin. The river banks are so soft that a horse had better swim than seek to keep them; I therefore took the upper ground, and after losing myself among the woods, at length saw a light, reached it, and here I am." The priest heard the statement with a sinister smile. "A truce to these inventions, sir," said he. "It is indeed _possible_ that you speak the truth, but it is in the highest degree _probable_ that you lie; it is, in a word, plain--satisfactorily plain, that you followed me hither, as I suspected you might have done; you have dogged me, sir, and you have seen all that you sought to behold; you have seen my place of destination and my company. I care not with what motive you have acted--that is between yourself and your Maker. If you are a spy, which I shrewdly suspect, Providence has defeated your treason, and punished the traitor; if mere curiosity impelled you, you will remember that ill-directed curiosity was the sin which brought death upon mankind, and cease to wonder that its fruits may be bitter to yourself. What say you, young man?" "I have told you plainly how I happened to reach this place," replied O'Connor; "I have told you once--I will repeat the statement no more; and once again I ask, on what authority you question me, and dare thus to bind my hands and keep me here against my will?" "Authority sufficient to satisfy our own consciences," rejoined the priest. "The responsibility rests not upon you; enough it is for you to know that we have the power to detain you, and that we exercise that power, as we most probably shall _another_, still less conducive to your comfort." "You have the power to make me captive, I admit," rejoined O'Connor--"you have the power to murder me, as you threaten, but though power to keep or kill is all the justification a robber or a bravo needs, methinks such an argument should hardly satisfy a consecrated minister of Christ." The expression with which the priest regarded the young man grew blacker and more truculent at this rebuke, and after a silence of a few seconds he replied,-- "We are doubly authorized in what we do--ay, trebly warranted, young traitor. God Almighty has given us the instinct of self-defence, which in a righteous cause it is laudable to consult and indulge; the Church, too, tells us in these times to deal strictly with the malignant persecutors of God's truth; and lastly, we have a royal warranty--the authority of the rightful king of these realms, investing us with powers to deal summarily with rebels and traitors. Let this satisfy you." "I honour the king," rejoined O'Connor, "as truly as any man here, seeing that _my_ father lost all in the service of his illustrious sire, but I need some more satisfactory assurance of his delegated authority than the bare assertion of a violent man, of whom I know absolutely nothing, and until you show me some instrument empowering you to act thus, I will not acknowledge your competency to subject me to an examination, and still resolutely protest against your detaining me here." "You refuse, then, to answer our questions?" said the hard-featured little person who sat at the far end of the table. "Until you show authority to put them, I peremptorily _do_ refuse to answer them," replied the young man. The little person looked expressively at the priest, who appeared to hold a high influence among the party. He answered the look by saying,-- "His blood be upon his own head." "Nay, not so fast, holy father; let us debate upon this matter for a few minutes, ere we execute sentence," said a singularly noble-looking man who stood beside the priest. "Remove the prisoner," he added, with a voice of command, "and keep him strictly guarded." "Well, be it so," said he, reluctantly. The little man who sat at the head of the table made a gesture to those who guarded O'Connor, and the order thus given and sanctioned was at once carried into execution. CHAPTER XLIV. THE DOOM. The young man was conveyed from the chamber by his two athletic conductors, the door closed upon the deliberations of the stern tribunal who were just about to debate upon the question of his life or death, and he was led round the corner of a lobby, a few steps from the chamber where his judges sat; a stout door in the wall was pushed open and he himself thrust through it into a cold, empty apartment, in perfect darkness, and the door shut and barred behind him. Here, in solitude and darkness, the horrors of his situation rushed upon him with tremendous and overwhelming reality. His life was in the hands of fierce and relentless men, by whom, he had little doubt, he was already judged and condemned; bound and helpless, he must await, without the power of hastening or of deferring his fate by a single minute, the cold-blooded deliberations of the conclave who sat within. Unable even to hear the progress of the debate on whose result his life was suspended, a faint and dizzy sickness came upon him, and the cold dew burst from every pore; ghastly, shapeless images of horror hurried with sightless speed across his mind, and his brain throbbed with the fearful excitement of madness. With a desperate effort he roused his energies; but what could human ingenuity, even sharpened by the presence of urgent and terrific danger, suggest or devise? His hands were firmly bound behind his back; in vain he tugged with all his strength, in the fruitless hope of disengaging the cords which crushed them together. He groaned in downright agony as, strength and hope exhausted, he gave up the desperate attempt; nothing then could be done; there remained for him no hope--no chance. In this horrible condition he walked with slow steps to and fro in the dark chamber, in vain endeavouring to compose his terrible agitation. "Were my hands but free," thought he, "I should let the villains know that against any odds a resolute man may sell his life dearly. But it is in vain to struggle; they have bound me here but too securely." [Illustration: "He made his way to the aperture." _To face page 223._] Thus saying, he leaned himself against the partition, to await, passively, the event which he knew could not be far distant. The surface against which he leaned was not that of the wall--it yielded slightly to his pressure--it was a door. With his knee and shoulder he easily forced it open, and entered another chamber, at the far-side of which he distinctly saw a stream of light, which, passing through a chink, fell upon the opposite wall, and, at the same time, he clearly heard the muffled sound of voices in debate. He made his way to the aperture through which the light found entrance, and as he did so, the sound of the voices fell more and more distinctly upon his ear. A small square, of about two feet each way, was cut in the wall, affording an orifice through which, probably, the closet in which he stood was imperfectly lighted in the daytime. A plank shutter was closed over this, and barred upon the outside, through the imperfect joints of which the light had found its way, and O'Connor now scanned the contents of the outer chamber. It was that in which the assembly, in whose presence he had, but a few minutes before, been standing, were congregated. A low, broad-shouldered man, whose dress was that of mourning, and who wore his own hair, which descended in meagre ringlets of black upon either side, leaving the bald summit of his head exposed, and who added to the singularity of his appearance not a little by a long, thick beard, which covered his chin and upper lip--this man, who sat nearly opposite to the opening through which O'Connor looked, was speaking and addressing himself to some person who stood, as it appeared, divided by little more than the thickness of the wall from the party whose life he was debating. "And against all this," continued the speaker, "what weighs the life of one man--one life, at best useless to the country, and useless to the king--at _best_, I say? What came we here for? No light matter to take in hand, sirs; to be pursued with no small risk; each comes hither, _cinctus gladio_, in the cause of the king. That cause with our own lives we are bound to maintain; and why not, if need be, at the cost of the lives of others? No good can come of sparing this fellow--at the best, no advantage to the cause: and, on the other hand, should he prove a traitor, a spy, or even an idle babbler, the heaviest damage may befall us. Tush, tush, gentlemen, it is ill straining at gnats in such times. We are here a court-martial, or no court at all. If I find that such dangerous vacillation as this carries it in your councils, I shall, for one, henceforward hang my sword over the mantel-piece, and obey the new laws. What! one life against such a risk--one execution, to save the cause and secure us all. To us, who have served in the king's wars, and hanged rebels by the round dozen--even on suspicion of being so--such indecision seems incredible. There ought not to be two words about the matter. Put him to death." Having thus acquitted himself, this somewhat unattractive personage applied himself, with much industry and absorption, to the task of chopping, shredding, rolling up, and otherwise preparing a piece of tobacco for the bowl of his pipe. "I confess," said someone whom O'Connor could not see, "that in pleading what may be said on behalf of this young man, I have no ground to go upon beyond a mere instinctive belief in the poor fellow's honesty, and in the truth of his story." "Pardon me, sir," replied one in whose voice O'Connor thought he recognized that of the priest, "if I say, that to act upon such fanciful impressions, as if they were grounded upon evidence, were, in nine cases out of every ten, the most transcendent and mischievous folly. I repeat my own conviction, upon something like satisfactory evidence, that he is _not_ honest. I talked with the fellow this evening--perhaps a little too freely--but in that conference, if he lied not, I learned that he belonged to that most dangerous class--the worst with whom we have to contend--the lukewarm, professing, passive Catholics--the very stuff of which the worst kind of spies and informers are made. He, no doubt, guessed, from what I said--for, to be plain with you, I spoke too freely by a great deal, in the belief, I know not how assumed, that he was one of ourselves--he guessed, I say, something of the nature of my mission, and tracked me hither--at all events, by some strange coincidence, hither he came. It is for you to weigh the question of probabilities." "It matters not, in my mind, why or how he came hither," observed the ill-favoured gentleman, who sate at the head of the table; "he _is_ here, and he hath seen our meeting, and could identify many of us. This is too large a confidence to repose in a stranger, and I for one do not like it, and therefore I say let him be killed without any more parley or debate." The old man paused, and a silence followed. With an agonized attention, O'Connor listened for one word or movement of dissent; it came not. "All agreed?" said the bearded hero, preparing to light his tobacco pipe at the candle. "Well, so I expected." The little man who had spoken before him knocked sharply with the butt of a pistol upon the table, and O'Connor heard the door of the room open. The same person beckoned with his hand, and one of the stalwart men who had assisted in securing him, advanced to the foot of the board. "Let a grave be digged in the orchard," said he, "and when it is ready, bring the prisoner out and despatch him, Let it be all done and the grave closed in half an hour." The man made a rude obeisance, and left the room in silence. Bound as he was, O'Connor traced the four walls of the room, in the vague hope that he might discover some other outlet from the chamber than that which he had just entered. But in vain; nothing encountered him but the hard, cold wall; and even had it been otherwise, thus helplessly manacled, what would it have availed him? He passed into the room into which he had been first thrust by the two guards, and in a state little short of frenzy, he cast himself upon the floor. "Oh God!" said he, "it is terrible to see death thus creeping toward me, and not to have the power to help myself. I am doomed--my life already devoted, and before another hour I shall lie under the clay, a corpse. Is there nothing to be done--no hope, no chance? Oh, God! nothing!" As he lay in this strong agony, he heard, or thought he heard, the clank of the spade upon the stony soil without. The work was begun--the grave was opened. Madly he strained at the cords--he tugged with more than human might--but all in vain. Still with horrible monotony he heard the clank of the iron mattock tinkling and clanking in the gravelly soil. Oh! that he could have stopped his ears to exclude the maddening sound. The pulses smote upon his brain like floods of fire. With closed eyes, and teeth set, and hands desperately clenched, he drew himself together, in the awful spasms of uncontrollable horror. Suddenly this fearful paroxysm departed, and a kind of awful calm supervened. It was no dull insensibility to his real situation, but a certain collectedness and calm self-possession, which enabled him to behold the grim adversary of human kind, even arrayed in all the terrors of his nearest approach, with a steady eye. "After all, when all's done, what have I to lose? Life had no more joys for me--happy I could never more have been. Why should the miserable dread death, and cling to life like cowards? What is it? A brief struggle--the agony of a few minutes--the instinctive yearnings of our nature after life; and this over, comes rest--eternal quiet." He then endeavoured, in prayer, earnestly to commend his spirit to its Maker. While thus employed he heard steps upon the hard tiles of the passage. His heart swelled as though it would burst. He rightly guessed their mission. The bolt was slowly drawn; the dusky light of a lantern streamed into the room, and revealed upon the threshold the forms of three tall men. "Lift him up--rise him, boys," said he who carried the lantern. "You must come with us," said one of the two who advanced to O'Connor. Resistance was fruitless, and he offered none. A cold, sick, overwhelming horror unstrung his joints and dimmed his sight. He suffered them to lead him passively from the room. CHAPTER XLV. THE MAN IN THE CLOAK--AND HIS BED-CHAMBER. As O'Connor approached the outer door through which he was to pass to certain and speedy death, it were not easy to describe or analyze his sensations; every object he beheld in the brief glance he cast around him as he passed along the hall appeared invested with a strangely sharp and vivid intensity of distinctness, and had in its aspect something indefinably spectral and ghastly--like things beheld under the terrific spell of a waking nightmare. His tremendous situation seemed to him something unreal, incredible; he walked in an appalling dream; in vain he strove to fix his thoughts myriads and myriads of scenes and incidents, never remembered since childhood's days, now with strange distinctness and wild rapidity whirled through his brain. The hall-door stood half open, and the fellow who led the way had almost reached it, when it was on a sudden thrown wide, and a figure, muffled in a cloak, confronted the funeral procession. The foremost man raised the ponderous weapon which he carried, and held it poised in the air, ready to shiver the head of the intruder should he venture to advance--the two guards who held O'Connor halted at the same time. "How's this, Cormack!" said the stranger. "Do you lift your weapon against the life of a friend?--rub your eyes and waken--how is it you cannot know me?--you've been drinking, sirrah." At the sound of the speaker's voice the man at once lowered his hatchet and withdrew, a little sulkily, like a rebuked mastiff. "What means all this?" continued he in the cloak, looking searchingly at the party in the rear; "whom have we got here?--where made you this prisoner? So, so--this must be looked to. How were you about to deal with him, fellow?" he added, addressing himself to him whom he had first encountered. "According to orders, captain," replied the man, doggedly. "And how may that have been?" interrogated the gentleman in the cloak. "_End_ him," replied he, sulkily. "Has he been before the council in the great parlour?" inquired the stranger. "Yes, captain--long enough, too," replied the fellow. "And _they_ have ordered this execution?" added the newly arrived. "Yes, sir--who else? Come on, boys--bring him out, will you? Time is running short," he added, addressing his comrades, and himself approaching the door. "Re-conduct the prisoner to the council-board," said the stranger, in a tone of command. Without a moment's hesitation they obeyed the order; and O'Connor, followed by the muffled figure of the stranger, for the second time entered the apartment where his relentless judges sate. The new-comer strode up the room to the table at which the self-styled council were seated. "God save you, gentlemen," said he, "and prosper the good work ye have taken in hand;" and thus speaking, he removed and cast upon the table his hat and cloak, thereby revealing the square-built form and harsh features of O'Hanlon. O'Connor no sooner recognized the traits of his mysterious acquaintance, than he felt a hope which thrilled with a strange agony of his heart--a hope--almost a conviction--that he should escape; and unaccountable though it may appear, in this hope he felt more unmanned and agitated than he had done but a few moments before, in the apparent certainty of immediate and inevitable destruction. The salutation of O'Hanlon was warmly, almost enthusiastically, returned, and after this interchange of friendly greeting, and a few brief questions and answers touching comparatively indifferent matters, he glanced toward O'Connor, and said,-- "I've so far presumed upon my favour with you, gentlemen, as to stay your orders in respect of that young gentleman, whom, it would appear, you have judged worthy of death. Death is a matter whose importance I've never very much insisted upon--that you know--at least, several among you, gentlemen, well know it, for you have seen me deal it somewhat unsparingly when the cause required it; but I profess I do not care in cool blood to take life upon insufficient reason. Life is lightly taken; but once gone, who can restore it? Therefore, I think it very meet that patient consideration should be had of all cases, when such deliberation is possible and convenient, before proceeding to the last irrevocable extremity. Pray you inform me upon what charges does this youth stand convicted, that his life should be forfeit?" "It is briefly told," replied the priest. "On my way hither I encountered him; we rode and conversed together; and conjecturing that he travelled on the same errand as myself, I talked to him more freely than in all discretion I ought to have done. I discovered my mistake, and at Chapelizod I turned and left him, telling him with threats _not_ to follow me; yet scarcely had I been here ten minutes, when this gentleman is found lurking near the house--and about to enter it. He is seized, bound, brought in here, and witnesses our assembly and proceedings. Under these suspicious circumstances, and with the knowledge of our meeting and its objects, were it wise to let him go? Surely not so--but the veriest madness." "Young man," said O'Hanlon, turning to O'Connor, "what say you to this?" "No more than what I already told these gentlemen--simply, that taking the upper level to avoid the sloughs by the river side, I became in the darkness entangled in the dense woods which cover these grounds, and at length, after groping my way through the trees as best I might, arrived by the merest chance at this place, and without the slightest knowledge, or even suspicion, either that I was following the course taken by that gentleman, or intruding myself upon any secret councils. I have no more to say--this is the simple truth." "Well, gentlemen," said O'Hanlon, "you hear the prisoner's defence. What think you?" "We have decided already, and he has now produced nothing new in his favour. I see no reason why we should alter our decision," replied the priest. "You would, then, put him to death?" inquired he. "Assuredly," replied the priest, calmly. "But this shall not be, gentlemen; he shall _not_ die. You shall slay _me_ first," replied O'Hanlon. "I know this youth; and every word he has spoken I believe. He is the son of one who risked his life a hundred times, and lost all for the sake of the king and his country--one who, throughout the desperate and fruitless struggles of Irish loyalty, was in the field my constant comrade, and a braver and a better one none ever need desire. The son of such a man shall not perish by our hands; and for the risk of his talking elsewhere of this night's adventure, I will be his surety, with my life, that he mentions it to no one, and nowhere." A silence of some seconds followed this unexpected declaration. "Be it so, then," said the priest; "for my part, I offer no resistance." "So say I," added the person who sat with the papers by him at the extremity of the board. "On you, however, Captain O'Hanlon, rest the whole responsibility of this act." "On me alone. Were there the possibility of treason in that youth, I would myself perish ere I should move a hand to save him," replied O'Hanlon. "I gladly take upon myself the whole accountability, and all the consequences of the act." "Your life and liberty are yours, sir," said the priest, addressing O'Connor; "see that you abuse neither to our prejudice. Unbind and let the prisoner go." "Stay," said O'Hanlon. "Mr. O'Connor, I have one request to make." "It is granted ere it is made. What can I return you in exchange for my life?" replied O'Connor. "I wish to speak with you to-night," continued O'Hanlon, "on matters which concern you nearly. You will remain here--you can have a chamber. Farewell for the present. Conduct Mr. O'Connor to my apartment," he added, addressing the attendants, who were employed in loosening the strained cords which bound his hands; and with this direction, O'Hanlon mingled with the group at the hearth, and began to converse with them in a low voice. O'Connor followed his guide through a narrow, damp-stained corridor, with tiled flooring, and up a broad staircase, with heavy oaken balustrades, and steps whose planks seemed worn by the tread of centuries; and then along another passage, more cheerless still than the first--several of the narrow windows, by which in the daytime it was lighted, had now lost every vestige of glass, and even of the wooden framework in which it had been fixed, and gave free admission to the fitful night-wind, as well as to the straggling boughs of ivy which mantled the old walls and clustered shelteringly about the ruined casements. Screening the candle which he carried behind the flap of his coat, to prevent its being extinguished by the gusts which somewhat rudely swept the narrow passage, the man led O'Connor to a chamber, which they both entered. It was not quite so cheerless as the desolate condition of the approach to it might have warranted one in expecting; a wood-fire, which had been recently replenished, blazed and crackled briskly upon the hearth, and shed an uncertain but cheerful glow through the recesses of the chamber. It was a spacious apartment, hung with stamped leather, in many places stained and rotted by the damp, and here and there hanging in rags from the wall, and exposing the bare, mildewed plaster beneath. The furniture was scanty, and in keeping with the place--old, dark, and crazy; and a wretched bed, with very spare covering, was, as it seemed, temporarily strewn upon the floor, near the hearth. The man placed the candle upon a small table, black with age, and patched and crutched up like a battered pensioner, and flinging some more wood upon the fire, turned and left the room in silence. Alone, his first employment was to review again and again the strange events of that night; his next was to conjecture the nature of O'Hanlon's promised communication. Baffled in these latter speculations, he applied himself to examine the old chamber in which he sat, and to endeavour to trace the half-obliterated pattern of the tattered hangings. These occupations, along with sundry speculations just as idle, touching the original of a grim old portrait, faded and torn, which hung over the fireplace, filled up the tedious hours which preceded his expected interview with his preserver. At length the weary interval elapsed, and the anxiously expected moment arrived. The door opened, and O'Hanlon entered. He approached the young man, who advanced to meet him, and extending his hand, grasped that of O'Connor with a warm and friendly pressure. CHAPTER XLVI. THE DOUBLE CONFERENCE--OLD PAPERS. "When last I saw you," said O'Hanlon, seating himself before the hearth, and motioning O'Connor to take a chair also, "I told you that you ought to tame your rash young blood, and gave you thereupon an old soldier's best advice. It seems, however, that you are wayward and headlong still. Young soldiers look for danger--old ones are content to meet it when it comes, knowing well that it will come often enough, uninvited and unsought; nevertheless, we will pass by this night's adventure, and turn to other matters. First, however, it were meet and necessary that you should have somewhat to refresh you; you must needs be weary and exhausted." "If you can give me some wine, it will be very welcome. I care not for anything more to-night," replied O'Connor. "That can I," replied he, "and will myself do you reason." He arose, and after a few minutes' absence entered with two flasks, whose dust and cobwebs bespoke their antiquity, and filled two large, long-stemmed glasses with the generous liquor. "Young man," said O'Hanlon, "from the moment I saw you in the inner room yonder, I know not how or wherefore my heart clave to you; and now knowing you for the son of my true friend, I feel for you the stronger love. I will tell you now how matters stand with us. I will hide nothing from you. I am old enough to have learned the last lesson of experience--the folly of too much suspicion. I will not distrust the son of Richard O'Connor. I need hardly tell you that those men whom you saw below stairs are no friends of the ruling powers, but devoted entirely to the service and the fortunes of the rightful heir of the throne of England and of Ireland, met here together not without great peril." "I had conjectured as much from what I myself witnessed," rejoined O'Connor. "Well, then, I tell you this--the cause is not a hopeless one; the exiled king has warm, zealous, and powerful friends where their existence is least suspected," continued O'Hanlon. "In the Parliament of England he has a strong and untiring party undetected--some of them, too, must soon wield the enormous powers of government, and have already gotten entire possession of the ear of the Queen; and so soon as events invite, and the time is ripe for action, a mighty and a sudden constitutional movement will be made in favour of the prince--a movement entirely constitutional and in the Parliament. This will, whether successful or not, raise the intolerant party here into fierce resistance--the resistance of the firelock and the sword; all the usurpers, the perjurers, and the plunderers who now possess the wealth and dignities of this spoiled and oppressed country, will arise in terror to defend their booty, and unless met and encountered, and defeated by the party of the young king in this island, will embolden the malignant rebels of the sister country to imitate their example, and so overawe the Parliament, and frustrate their beneficent intentions. To us, therefore, has fallen the humbler but important task of organizing here, in the heart of this country, and in entire secrecy, a power sufficient for the occasion. Fain would I have thee along with us in so great and good a work, but will not urge you now; think upon it, however--it is not so mad a scheme as you may have thought, but such a one as looked on calmly, with the cold eye of reason, seems practicable--ay, sure of success. Ponder the matter, then; give me no answer now--I will take none--but think well upon it, and after a week, and not sooner, when you have decided, tell me whether you will be one of us or not. Meanwhile, I have other matters to tell you of, in which perhaps your young heart will take a nearer interest." He paused, and having replenished their glasses, and thrown a fresh supply of wood upon the fire, he continued,-- "Are you acquainted with a family named Ashwoode?" "Yes," replied O'Connor, quickly, "I have known them long." O'Hanlon looked searchingly at the young man, and then continued,-- "Yes," said he, "I see it is even so--your face betrays it--you loved the young lady, Mary Ashwoode--deny it not--I am your friend, and seek not idly or without purpose thus to question you. What thought you of Henry Ashwoode, now Sir Henry Ashwoode?" "He was latterly much--_entirely_ my friend," replied O'Connor. "He so professed himself?" asked O'Hanlon. "Ay," replied O'Connor, somewhat surprised at the tone in which the question was put, "he did so profess himself, and repeatedly." "He is a villain--he has betrayed you," said the elder man, sternly. "How--what--a villain! Henry Ashwoode deceive me?" said O'Connor, turning pale as death. "Yes--unless I've been strangely practised on--he has villainously deceived alike you and his own sister--pretending friendship, he has sowed distrust between you." "But have you evidence of what you say?" cried O'Connor. "Gracious God--what have I done!" "I have evidence, and you shall hear and judge of it yourself," replied O'Hanlon; "you cannot hear it to-night, however, nor I produce it--you need some rest, and so in truth do I--make use of that poor bed--a tired brain and weary body need no luxurious couch--I shall see you in the morning betimes--till then farewell." The young man would fain have detained O'Hanlon, and spoken with him, but in vain. "We have talked enough for this night," said the elder man--"I have it not in my power now to satisfy you--I shall, however, in the morning--I have taken measures for the purpose--good-night." So saying, O'Hanlon left the chamber, and closed the door upon his young friend, now less than ever disposed to slumber. He threw himself upon the pallet, the victim of a thousand harassing and exciting thoughts--sleep was effectually banished; and at length, tired of the fruitless attitude of repose which he courted in vain, he arose and resumed his seat by the hearth, in anxious and weary expectation of the morning. At length the red light of the dawn broke over the smoky city, and with a dusky glow the foggy sun emerged from the horizon of chimney-tops, and threw his crimson mantle of ruddy light over the hoary thorn-wood and the shattered mansion, beneath whose roof had passed the scenes we have just described. Never did the sick wretch, who in sleepless anguish has tossed and fretted through the tedious watches of the night, welcome the return of day with more cordial greeting than did O'Connor upon this dusky morn. The time which was to satisfy his doubts could not now be far distant, and every sound which smote upon his ear seemed to announce the approach of him who was to dispel them all. Weary, haggard, and nervous after the fatigues and agitation of the previous day--unrefreshed by the slumbers he so much required, his irritation and excitement were perhaps even greater than under other circumstances they would have been. The torments of suspense were at length, however, ended--he did hear steps approach the chamber--the steps evidently of more than one person--the door opened, and O'Hanlon, followed by Signor Parucci, entered the room. "I believe, young gentleman, you have seen this person before?" said O'Hanlon, addressing O'Connor, while he glanced at the Italian. O'Connor assented. "Ah! yees," said the Neapolitan, with a winning smile; "he has see me vary often. Signor O'Connor--he know me vary well. I am so happy to see him again--vary--oh! vary." "Let Mr. O'Connor know briefly and distinctly what you have already told me," said O'Hanlon. "About the letters?" asked the Italian. "Yes, be brief," replied O'Hanlon. "Ah! did he not guess?" rejoined the Neapolitan; "_per crilla!_ the deception succeed, then--vary coning faylow was old Sir Richard--bote not half so coning as his son, Sir Henry. He never suspect--Mr. O'Connor never doubt, bote took all the letters and read them just so as Sir Henry said he would. _Malora!_ what great meesfortune." "Parucci, speak plainly to the point; I cannot endure this. Say at once what has he done--_how_ have I been deceived?" cried O'Connor. "You remember when the old gentleman--Mr. Audley, I think he is call--saw Sir Richard--immediately after that some letters passed between you and Mees Mary Ashwoode." "I do remember it--proceed," replied O'Connor. "Mees Mary's letters to you were cold and unkind, and make you think she did not love you any more," added Parucci. "Well, well--say on--say on--for God's sake, man--say on," cried O'Connor, vehemently. "Those letters you got were not written by her," continued the Italian, coolly; "they were all wat you call _forged_--written by another person, and planned by Sir Henry and Sir Reechard; and the same way on the other side--the letters you wrote to her were all stopped, and read by the same two gentlemen, and other letters written in stead, and she is breaking her heart, because she thinks you 'av betrayed her, and given her up--_rotta di collo!_ they 'av make nice work!" "Prove this to me, prove it," said O'Connor, wildly, while his eye burned with the kindling fire of fury. "I weel prove it," rejoined Parucci, but with an agitated voice and a troubled face; "bote, _corpo di Plato_, you weel keel me if I tell--promise--swear--by your honour--you weel not horte me--you weel not toche me--swear, Signor, and I weel tell." "Miserable caitiff--speak, and quickly--you are safe--I swear it," rejoined he. "Well, then," resumed the Italian, with restored calmness, "I will prove it so that you cannot doubt any more--it was I that wrote the letters for them--I, myself--and beside, here is the bundle with all of them written out for me to copy--most of them by Sir Henry--you know his hand-writing--you weel see the character--_corbezzoli!_ he is a great rogue--and you will find all the _real_ letters from you and Mees Mary that were stopped--I have them here." He here disengaged from the deep pocket of his coat, a red leathern case stamped with golden flowers, and opening it presented it to the young man. With shifting colour and eyes almost blinded with agitation, O'Connor read and re-read these documents. "Where is Ashwoode?" at length he cried; "bring me to him--gracious God, what a monster I must have appeared--will she--_can_ she ever forgive me?" Disregarding in entire contempt the mean agent of Ashwoode's villainy, and thinking only of the high-born principal, O'Connor, pale as death, but with perfect deliberateness, arose and took the sword which the attendant who conducted him to the room had laid by the wall, and replacing it at his side, said sternly,-- "Bring me to Sir Henry Ashwoode--where is he? I must speak with him." "I cannot breeng you to him now," replied Parucci, in internal ecstasies, "for I cannot say where he is; bote I know vary well where he weel be to-day after dinner time, in the evening, and I weel breeng you; bote I hope very moche you are not intending any mischiefs; if I thought so, I would be vary sorry--oh! vary." "Well, be it so, if it may not be sooner," said O'Connor, gloomily, "this evening at all events he shall account with me." "Meanwhile," said O'Hanlon, "you may as well remain here; and when the time arrives which this Italian fellow names, we can start. I will accompany you, for in such cases the arm of a friend can do you no harm and may secure you fair play. Hear me, you Italian scoundrel, remain here until we are ready to depart with you, and that shall be whenever you think it time to seek Sir Henry Ashwoode; you shall have enough to eat and drink meanwhile; depart, and relieve us of your company." Signor Parucci smiled sweetly from ear to ear, shrugged, and bowed, and then glided lightly from the room, exulting in the pleasant conviction that he had commenced operations against his ungrateful patron, by involving him in a scrape which must inevitably result in somewhat unpleasant exposures, and which had beside reduced the question of Sir Henry's life or death to an even chance. CHAPTER XLVII. "THE JOLLY BOWLERS"--THE DOUBLE FRAY AND THE FLIGHT. At the time of which we write, there lay at the southern extremity of the city of Dublin, a bowling-green of fashionable resort, well known as "Cullen's Green." For greater privacy it was enclosed by a brick wall of considerable height, which again was surrounded by stately rows of lofty and ancient elms. A few humble dwellings were clustered about it; and through one of them, a low, tiled public-house, lay the entrance into this place of pastime. Thitherward O'Connor and O'Hanlon, having left their horses at the "Cock and Anchor," were led by the wily Italian. "The players you say, will not stop till dusk," said O'Connor; "we can go in, and I shall wait until the party have broken up, to speak to Ashwoode; in the interval we can mix with the spectators, and so escape remark." They were now approaching the little tavern embowered in tufted trees, and as they advanced, they perceived a number of hack carriages and led horses congregated upon the road about its entrance. "Sir Henry is within; that iron-grey is his horse; _sangue dun dua_, there is no mistake," observed the Neapolitan. The little party entered the humble tavern, but here they were encountered by a new difficulty. "You can't get in to-night, gentlemen--sorry to disappint, gentlemen; but the green's engaged," said mine host, with an air of mysterious importance; "a private party, engaged two days since for fear of a disappint." "Are they so strictly private, that they would not suffer two gentlemen to be spectators of their play?" inquired O'Hanlon. "My orders is not to let anyone in, good, bad, or indifferent, while they are playing the match; that's _my_ orders," replied the man; "sorry to disappint, but can't break my word with the gentlemen, you know." "Is there any other entrance into the bowling-green?" inquired O'Connor, "except through that door." "Divil a one, sir, where would it be?--divil a one, gentlemen," replied mine host, "no other way in or out." "We will rest ourselves here for a time, then," said O'Connor. Accordingly the party seated themselves in the low-roofed chamber through which the bowlers on quitting the ground must necessarily pass; and calling for some liquor to prevent suspicion, moodily awaited the appearance of the young baronet and his companions. Many a stern, impatient glance of expectation did O'Connor direct to the old door which alone separated him from the traitor and hypocrite who had with such monstrous fraud practised upon his unsuspecting confidence. At length he heard gay laughter and the tread of many feet approaching; the proprietor of "The Jolly Bowlers" opened the door, and several merry groups passed them by and took their departure, but O'Connor's eye in vain sought among them the form of young Ashwoode. "I see the grey horse still at the door; I know it as well as I know my own hand," said the Italian; "as sure as I am leeving man, Sir Henry is there still." After an interval so considerable that O'Connor almost despaired of the appearance of Ashwoode, voices were again audible, and steps approaching the door-way at a slow pace; the time between the first approach of those sounds, and the actual appearance of those who caused them, appeared to the overwrought anxiety of O'Connor all but interminable. At length, however, two figures entered from the bowling-green--the one was that of a spare but dignified-looking man, somewhat advanced in years, but carrying in his countenance a singular expression of jollity and good humour--the other was that of Sir Henry Ashwoode. "God be thanked," said O'Hanlon, grasping the hilt of his sword, "here comes the perjured villain Wharton." O'Connor had another object, however, and beheld no one existing thing but only the now hated form of his false friend; both he and O'Hanlon started to their feet as the two figures entered the small and darksome room. O'Connor threw himself directly in their path and said,-- "Sir Henry Ashwoode, a word with you." The appeal was startling and unexpected, and there was in the voice and attitude of him who uttered it, something of deep, intense, constrained passion and resolution, which made the two companions involuntarily and suddenly check their advance. One moment sufficed for Sir Henry to recognize O'Connor, and another convinced him that his quondam friend had discovered his treachery, and was there to unmask, perhaps to punish him. His presence of mind, however, seldom, if ever, forsook him in such scenes as this--he instantly resolved upon the tone in which to meet his injured antagonist. "Pray, sir," said he, with stern _hauteur_, "upon what ground do you presume to throw yourself thus menacingly in my way? Move aside and let me pass, or your rashness shall cost you dearly." "Ashwoode--Sir Henry--you well know there is one consideration which would unstring my arm if lifted against your life--you presume upon the forbearance which this respect commands," said O'Connor. "Promise but this--that you will undeceive your sister, whom you have practised upon as cruelly as you have on me, and I will call you to no further account, and inflict no further humiliation." "Very good, sir, very magnanimous, and exceedingly tragic," rejoined Ashwoode, scornfully. "Turn aside, sirrah, and leave my path open, or by the ---- you shall rue it." "I will not leave the spot on which I stand but with my life, except on the conditions I have named," replied O'Connor. "Once more, before I _strike_ you, leave the way," cried Ashwoode, whose constitutional pugnacity began to be thoroughly aroused. "Turn aside, sirrah! How dare you confront gentlemen--insolent beggar, how dare you!" Yielding to the furious impulse of the moment, Sir Henry Ashwoode drew his sword, and with the naked blade struck his antagonist twice with no sparing hand. The passions which O'Connor had, with all his energy, hitherto striven to master, would now brook restraint no longer; at this last extremity of insult the blood sprang from his heart in fiery currents and tingled through every vein; every feeling but the one deadly sense of outraged pride, of repeated wrong, followed and consummated by one degrading and intolerable outrage, vanished from his mind. With the speed of light his sword was drawn and presented at Ashwoode's breast. Each threw himself into the cautious attitude of deadly vigilance, and quick as lightning the bright blades crossed and clashed in the mortal rivalry of cunning fence. Each party was possessed of consummate skill in the use of the fatal weapon which he wielded, and several times in the course of the fierce debate, so evenly were they matched, the two, as by voluntary accommodation, paused in the conflict to take breath. With faces pale as death with rage, and a consciousness of the deadly issue in which alone the struggle could end, and with eyes that glared like those of savage beasts at bay, each eyed the other. Thus alternately they paused and renewed the combat, and for long, with doubtful fortune. In the position of the antagonists there was, however, an inequality, and, as it turned out, a decisive one--the door through which Ashwoode and his companion had entered, and to which his back was turned, lay open, and the light which it admitted fell full in O'Connor's eyes. This, as all who have handled the foil can tell, is a disadvantage quite sufficient to determine even a less nicely balanced contest than that of which we write. After several pauses in the combat, and as many desperate renewals of it, Ashwoode, in one quick lunge, passed his blade through his opponent's sword-arm. Though the blood flowed plenteously, neither party seemed inclined to abate his deadly efforts. O'Connor's arm began to grow stiff and weak, and the energy and quickness of his action impaired; the consequences of this were soon exhibited. Ashwoode lunged twice or thrice rapidly, and one of these passes, being imperfectly parried, took effect in his opponent's breast. O'Connor staggered backward, and his hand and eye faltered for a moment; but he quickly recovered, and again advanced and again with the same result. Faint, dizzy, and half blind, but with resolution and rage, enhanced by defeat, he staggered forward again, wild and powerless, and was received once more upon the point of his adversary's sword. He reeled back, stood for a moment, his sword dropped upon the ground, and he shook his empty hand in fruitless menace at his triumphant antagonist, and then rolled headlong upon the pavement, insensible, and weltering in gore--the combat was over. Ashwoode and O'Connor had hardly crossed their weapons when O'Hanlon sprang forward and sternly accosted Lord Wharton, for it was no other, who accompanied Ashwoode. "My lord, you need not interfere," said he, observing a movement on Lord Wharton's part as if he would have separated the combatants. "This is a question which all your diplomacy will not arrange--they will fight it to the end. If you give them not fair play while I secure the door, I will send my sword through your excellency's body." So saying, O'Hanlon drew his weapon, and keeping occasional watch upon Wharton--who, however, did not exhibit any further disposition to interfere--he strode to the outer door, which opened upon the public road, and to prevent interruption from that quarter, drew the bar and secured it effectually. "Now, my lord," said he, returning and resuming his position, "I have secured this fortunate meeting against intrusion. What think you, while our friends are thus engaged, were we, for warmth and exercise sake, likewise to cross our blades? Will your lordship condescend to gratify a simple gentleman so far?" "Out upon you, fellow; know you who I am?" said Wharton, with sturdy good-humour. "I know thee well, Lord Wharton--a wily, selfish, double-dealing politician; a profligate in morals; an infidel in religion; and a traitor in politics. I know thee--who doth not?" "Landlord," said Wharton, turning toward that personage, who, with amazement, irresolution, and terror in his face, inspected these violent proceedings, "landlord, I say, call in a lackey or two; I'll bring this ruffian to reason quickly. Have you gotten a pump in the neighbourhood? Landlord, I say, bestir thyself, or, by ----, I'll spur thee with my sword-point." "Stir not, if you would keep your life," said O'Hanlon, in a tone which the half-stupefied host of "The Jolly Bowlers" dared not disobey. "If you would not suffer death upon the spot where you stand, do not attempt to move one step, nor to speak one word. My lord," he continued, "I am right glad of this rencounter. I would have freely given half what I possess in the world to have secured it. Believe me, I will not leave it unimproved. My lord, in plain terms, for ten thousand reasons I desire your death, and will not leave this place till I have striven to effect it. Draw your sword, if you be a man; draw your sword, unless cowardice has come to crown your vices." O'Hanlon drew his sword, and allowing Wharton hardly time sufficient to throw himself into an attitude of defence, he attacked him with deadly resolution. It was well for the viceroy that he was an expert swordsman, otherwise his career would undoubtedly have been abruptly terminated upon the floor of "The Jolly Bowlers." As it was, he received a thrust right through the shoulder, and staggering back, stumbled and fell upon the uneven pavement which studded the floor. This occurred almost at the same moment with O'Connor's fall, and believing that he had mortally hurt his noble antagonist, O'Hanlon, without stopping to look about him hastily lifted his fallen and senseless companion from the pavement and bore him in his arms through the outer door, which the landlord had at length found resolution enough to unbar. Fortunately a hackney coach stood there waiting for a chance job from some of the aristocratic bowlers within, and in this vehicle he hurriedly deposited his inanimate burden, and desiring the coachman to drive for his life into the city, sprang into the conveyance himself. Irishmen are proverbially ready at all times to aid an escape from the fangs of justice, and without pausing to ask a question, the coachman, to whom the sight of blood and of the naked sword, which O'Hanlon still carried, was warrant sufficient, mounted the box with incredible speed, pressed his hat firmly down upon his brows, shook the reins, and lashed his horses till they smoked again; and thus, at a gallop, O'Hanlon and his bleeding companion thundered onward toward the city. Ashwoode did not interfere to stay the fugitives, for he was not sorry to be relieved of the embarrassment which he foresaw in having the body of his victim left, as it were, in his charge. He therefore gladly witnessed its removal, and addressed himself to Lord Wharton, who was rising with some difficulty from his prostrate position. "Are you hurt, my lord?" inquired Ashwoode, kneeling by his side and assisting him to rise. "Hush! nothing--a mere scratch. Above all things, make no row about it. By ----, I would not for worlds that anything were heard of it. Fortunately, this accident is a trivial one--the blood flows rather fast, though. Let's get into a coach, if, indeed, the scoundrels have not run away with the last of them." They found one, however, at the door, and getting in with all convenient dispatch, desired the man to drive slowly toward the castle. CHAPTER XLVIII. THE STAINED RUFFLES. We must now return for a brief space to Morley Court. The apartment which lay beneath what had been Sir Richard Ashwoode's bed-chamber, and in which Mary and her gay cousin, Emily Copland, had been wont to sit and work, and read and sing together, had grown to be considered, by long-established usage, the rightful and exclusive property of the ladies of the family, and had been surrendered up to their private occupation and absolute control. Around it stood full many a quaint cabinet of dark old wood, shining like polished jet, little bookcases, and tall old screens, and music stands, and drawing tables. These, along with a spinet and a guitar, and countless other quaint and pretty sundries indicating the habitual presence of feminine refinement and taste, abundantly furnished the chamber. In the window stood some choice and fragrant flowers, and the light fell softly upon the carpet through the clustering bowers of creeping plants which mantled the outer wall, in sombre rivalry of the full damask curtains, whose draperies hung around the deep receding casements. Here sat Mary Ashwoode, as the evening, whose tragic events we have in our last chapter described, began to close over the old manor of Morley Court. Her embroidery had been thrown aside, and lay upon the table, and a book, which she had been reading, was open before her; but her eyes now looked pensively through the window upon the fair, sad landscape, clothed in the warm and melancholy tints of evening. Her graceful arm leaned upon the table, and her small, white hand supported her head and mingled in the waving tresses of her dark hair. "At what hour did my brother promise to return?" said she, addressing herself to her maid, who was listlessly arranging some books in the little book-case. "Well, I declare and purtest, I can't rightly remember," rejoined the maid, cocking her head on one side reflectively, and tapping her eyebrow to assist her recollection. "I don't think, my lady, he named any hour precisely; but at any rate, you may be sure he'll not be long away now." "I thought he said seven o'clock," continued Mary; "would he were come! I feel very solitary to-day; and this evening we might pass happily together, for that strange man will not return to-night--he said so--my brother told me so." "I believe Mr. Blarden changed his mind, my lady," said the maid; "for I know he gave orders before he went for a fire in his room to-night." Even as she spoke she heard Sir Henry's step upon the stairs, and her brother entered the room. "Harry, Harry, I am so glad to see you," said she, running lightly to him and throwing her arms around his neck. "Come, come, sit you down beside me; we shall be happy together at least for this evening. Come, Harry, come." So saying she led him, passive and gloomy, to the fireside, and drew a chair beside that into which he had thrown himself. "Dear brother, the time seemed so very tedious to-day while you were away," said she. "I thought it would never pass. Why are you so silent and thoughtful, brother? has anything happened to vex you?" "Nothing," said he, glancing at her with a strange expression--"nothing to vex me--no, nothing--perhaps the contrary." "Dear brother, have you heard good news? Come and tell me," said she; "though I fear from the sadness of your face you do but flatter me. Have you, Harry--have you heard or seen anything that gave you comfort?" "No, not comfort; I know not what I say. Have you any wine here?" said Ashwoode, hurriedly; "I am tired and thirsty." "No, not here," answered she, somewhat surprised at the oddity of the question, as well as by the abruptness and abstraction of his manner. "Carey," said he, "run down--bring wine quickly; I'm exhausted--quite wearied. I have played more at bowls this afternoon than I've done for years," he added, addressing his sister as the maid departed on her errand. "You do look very pale, brother," said she, "and your dress is all disordered; and, gracious God!--see all the ruffles of this hand are steeped in blood--brother, brother, for God's sake--are you hurt?" "Hurt--I--?" said he hastily, and endeavouring to smile! "no, indeed--I hurt! far be it from me--this blood is none of mine; one of our party scratched his hand, and I bound his handkerchief round the wound, and in so doing contracted these tragic spots that startle you so. No, no, believe me, when I am hurt I will make no secret of it. Carey, pour some wine into that glass--fill it--fill it, child--there," and he drank it off--"fill it again--so two or three more, and I shall be quite myself again. How snug this room of yours is, Mary." "Yes, brother, I am very fond of it; it is a pleasant old room, and one that has often seen me happier than I shall be again," said she, with a sigh; "but do you feel better? has the wine refreshed you? You still look pale," she added, with fears not yet half quieted. "Yes, Mary, I am refreshed," he said, with a sudden and reckless burst of strange merriment that shocked her; "I could play the match through again--I could leap, and laugh and sing;" and then he added quickly in an altered voice--"has Blarden returned?" "No," said she; "I thought you said he would remain in town to-night." "I said wrong if I said so at all," replied Ashwoode; "and if he _did_ intend to stay in town he has changed his plans--he will be here this evening; I thought I should have found him here on my return; I expect him every moment." "When, dear brother, is this visit of his to end?" asked the girl imploringly. "Not for weeks--for months, I hope," replied Ashwoode drily and quickly; "why do you inquire, pray?" "Simply because I wish it were ended, brother," answered she sadly; "but if it vexes you I will ask no more." "It _does_ vex me, then," said Ashwoode, sternly; "it _does_, and you know it"--he accompanied these words with a look even more savage than the tone in which he had uttered them, and a silence of some minutes followed. Ashwoode desired nothing so much as to speak with his sister intelligibly upon the subject of Blarden's designs, and of his own entire approval of them; but, somehow, often as he had resolved upon it, he had never yet approached the topic, even in imagination, in his sister's presence, without feeling himself unnerved and abashed. He now strove to fret himself into a rage, in the instinctive hope that under the influence of this stimulus he might find nerve to broach the subject in plain terms; he strode quickly to and fro across the floor, casting from time to time many an angry glance at the poor girl, and seeking by every mechanical agency to work himself into a passion. "And so it is come to this at last," said he, vehemently, "that I may not invite my friends to my own house; or that if I dare to do so, they shall necessarily be exposed to the constant contempt and rudeness of those who ought to be their entertainers; all their advances towards acquaintance met with a hoity-toity, repulsive impertinence, and themselves treated with a marked and insulting avoidance, shunned as though they had the plague. I tell you now plainly, once for all, _I will_ be master in my own house; you shall treat my guests with attention and respect; you must do so; I command you; you shall find that I am master here." "No doubt of it, by ----," ejaculated Nicholas Blarden, himself entering the room at the termination of Ashwoode's stormy harangue; "but where the devil is the good of roaring that way? your sister is not deaf, I suppose? Mistress Mary, your most obedient----" Mary did not wait for further conference; but rising with a proud mien and a burning cheek, she left the room and went quickly to her own chamber, where she threw herself into a chair, covered her eyes with her hands, and burst into an agony of weeping. "Well, but she _is_ a fine wench," cried Nicholas Blarden, as soon as she had disappeared. "The tantarums become her better than good humour;" so saying, he half filled Ashwoode's glass with wine, and rinsed it into the fireplace; then coolly filled a bumper and quaffed it off, and then another and another. "Sit down here and listen to me," said he to Ashwoode, in that insolent, domineering tone which he so loved to employ in accosting him, "sit down here, I say, young man, and listen to me while I give you a bit of my mind." Ashwoode, who knew too well the consequences of even murmuring under the tyranny of his task-master, in silence did as he was commanded. "I tell you what it is," said Blarden, "I don't like the way this affair is going on; the girl avoids me; I don't know her, by ----, a curse better to-day than I did the first day I came into the house; this won't do, you know; it will never do; you had better strike out some expeditious plan, or it's very possible I may tire of the whole concern and cut it back, do you mind; you had better sharpen your wits, my fine fellow." "The fault is your own," said Ashwoode gloomily; "if you desire expedition, you can command it, by yourself speaking to her; you have not as yet even hinted at your intentions, nor by any one act made her acquainted with your designs; let her see that you like her; let her understand you; you have never done so yet." "She's infernally proud," said Blarden, "just as proud as yourself: but we know a knack, don't we, for bringing pride to its senses? Eh? Nothing, I believe, Sir Henry, like _fear_ in such cases; don't you think so? I've known it succeed sometimes to a miracle--fear of one kind or another is the only way we have of working men or women. Mind I tell you she must be frightened, and well frightened too, or she'll run rusty. I have a knack with me--a kind of gift--of frightening people when I have a fancy; and if you're in earnest, as I guess you pretty well are, between us we'll tame her." "It were not advisable to proceed at once to extremities," said Ashwoode, who, spite of his constitutional selfishness, felt some odd sensations, and not of the pleasantest kind, while they thus conversed. "You must begin by showing your wishes in your manner; be attentive to her; and, in short, let her unequivocally see the nature of your intentions; _tell_ her that you want to marry her; and when she refuses, then it is time enough to commence those--those--other operations at which you hint." "Well, d----n me, but there is some sense in what you say," observed Blarden, filling his glass again. "Umph! perhaps I've been rather backward; I believe I _have_; she's coy, shy, and a proud little baggage withal--I like her the better for it--and requires a lot of wooing before she's won; well, I'll make myself clear on to-morrow. I'm blessed if she sha'n't understand me beyond the possibility of question or doubt; and if she won't listen to reason, _then_ we'll see whether there isn't a way to break her spirit if she was as proud as the Queen." With these words Blarden arose and drained the flask of wine, then observed authoritatively,-- "Get the cards and follow me to the parlour. I want something to amuse me; be quick, d'ye hear?" And so saying he took his departure, followed by Sir Henry Ashwoode, whose condition was now more thoroughly abject and degraded than that of a purchased slave. CHAPTER XLIX. OLD SONGS--THE UNWELCOME LISTENER--THE BARONET'S PLEDGE. Next day Mary Ashwoode sat alone in the same room in which she had been so unpleasantly intruded upon on the evening before. The unkindness of her brother had caused her many a bitter tear during the past night, and although still entirely in the dark as to Blarden's designs, there was yet something in his manner during the brief moment of their yesterday evening's rencontre which alarmed her, and suggested, in a few hurried and fevered dreams which troubled her broken slumbers of the night past, his dreaded image in a hundred wild and fantastic adventures. She sat, as we have already said, alone in the self-same room, and as mechanically she pursued her work, her thoughts were far away, and wherever they turned still were they clouded with anxiety and sorrow. Wearied at length with the monotony of an occupation which availed not even momentarily to draw her attention from the griefs which weighed upon her, she threw her work aside, and taking the guitar which in gayer hours had often yielded its light music to her touch, and trying to forget the consciousness of her changed and lonely existence in the happier recollections which returned in these once familiar sounds, she played and sang the simple melodies which had been her favourites long ago; but while thus her hands strayed over the chords of the instrument, and the low and silvery cadences of her sweet voice recalled many a touching remembrance of the past, she was startled and recalled at once from her momentary forgetfulness of the present by a voice close behind her which exclaimed,-- "Capital--never a better--encore, encore;" and on looking hurriedly round, her glance at once encountered and recognized the form and features of Nicholas Blarden. "Go on, go on, do," said that gentleman in his most engaging way, and with an amorous grin; "do--go on, can't you--by ----, I'm half sorry I said a word." "I--I would rather not," stammered she, rising and colouring; "I have played and sung enough--too much already." "No, no, not at all," continued Blarden, warming as he proceeded; "hang me, no such thing, you were just going on strong when I came in--come, come, I won't _let_ you stop." Her heart swelled with indignation at the coarse, familiar insolence of his manner; but she made no other answer than that conveyed by laying down the instrument, and turning from it and him. "Well, rot me, but this is too bad," continued he, playfully; "come, take it up again--come, you _must_ tip us another stave, young lady--do--curse me if I heard half your songs, you're a perfect nightingale." So saying he took up the guitar, and followed her with it towards the fireplace. "Come, you won't refuse, eh?--I'm in earnest," he continued; "upon my soul and oath I want to hear more of it." "I have already told you, sir," said Mary Ashwoode, "that I do not wish to play or sing any more at present. I am sure you are not aware, Mr. Blarden, that this is my private apartment; no one visits me here uninvited, and at present I wish to be alone." Thus speaking, she resumed her seat and her work, and sat in perfect silence, her heaving breast and glowing cheeks alone betraying the strength of her emotions. "Ho, ho! rot me, but she's sulky," cried Blarden, with a horse-laugh, while he flung the guitar carelessly upon the table; "sure you wouldn't turn me out--that would be very hard usage, and no mistake. Eh! Miss Mary?" Mary continued to ply her silks in silence, and Blarden threw himself into a chair opposite to her. "I like to rise you--hang me, if I don't," said Blarden, exultingly--"you are always a snug-looking bit of goods, but when your blood's up, you're a downright beauty--rot me, but you are--why the devil don't you talk to me--eh?" he added, more roughly than he had yet spoken. Mary Ashwoode began now to feel seriously alarmed at the man's manner, and as her eyes encountered his gloating gaze, her colour came and went in quick succession. "Confoundedly pretty, sure enough, and well you know it, too," continued he--"curse me, but you _are_ a fine wench--and I'll tell you what's more--I'm more than half in love with you at this minute, may the devil have me but I am." Thus speaking, he drew his chair nearer hers. "Mr. Blarden--sir--I insist on your leaving me," said Mary, now thoroughly frightened. "And _I_ insist on _not_ leaving you," replied Blarden, with an insolent chuckle--"so it's a fair trial of strength between us, eh?--ho, ho, what are you afraid of?--stick up to your fight--do then--I like you all the better for your spirit--confound me but I do." He advanced his chair still nearer to that on which she was seated. "Well, but you _do_ look pretty, by Jove," he exclaimed. "I like _you_, and I am determined to make you like _me_--I am--you _shall_ like me." He arose, and approached her with a half amorous, half menacing air. Pale as death, Mary Ashwoode arose also, and moved with hurried, trembling steps towards the door. He made a movement as if to intercept her exit, but checked the impulse, and contented himself with observing with a scowl of spite and disappointment, as she passed from the room,-- "Pride will have a fall, my fine lady--you'll be tame enough yet for all your tantarums, by Jove." Breathless with haste and agitation, Mary reached the study, where she knew her brother was now generally to be found. He was there engaged in the miserable labour of looking through accounts and letters, in arranging the complicated records of his own ruin. "Brother," said she, running to his side with the earnestness of deep agitation, "brother, listen to me." He raised his eyes, and at a glance easily divined the cause of her excitement. "Well," said he, "speak on--I hear." "Brother," she resumed, "that man--that Mr. Blarden, came uninvited into my study; he was at first very coarse and free in his manner--very disagreeable and impudent--he refused to leave me when I requested him to do so, and every moment became more and more insolent--his manner and language terrified me. Brother, dear brother, you must not expose me to another such scene as that which has just passed." Ashwoode paused for a good while, with the pen still in his fingers, and his eyes fixed abstractedly upon his sister's pale face. At length he said,-- "Do you wish me to make this a quarrel with Blarden? Was there enough to warrant a--a duel?" He well knew, however, that he was safe in putting the question, and in anticipating her answer, he calculated rightly the strength of his sister's affection for him. "Oh! no, no, brother--no!" she cried, with imploring terror; "dear brother, you are everything to me now. No, no; promise that you will not!" "Well, well, I do," said Ashwoode; "but how would you have me act?" "Do not ask this man to prolong his visit," replied she; "or if he must, at least let me go elsewhere while he remains here." "You have but one female relative in Ireland with a house to receive you," rejoined Ashwoode, "and that is Lady Stukely; and I have reason to think she would not like to have you as a guest just now." "Dear Harry--dear brother, think of some place," said she, with earnest entreaty. "I now feel secure nowhere; that rude man, the very sight of whom affrights me, will not forbear to intrude upon my privacy; alone--in my own little room--anywhere in this house--I am equally liable to his intrusions and his rudeness. Dear brother, take pity on me--think of some place." "Curse that beast Blarden!" muttered Sir Henry Ashwoode, between his teeth. "Will nothing ever teach the ruffian one particle of tact or common sense? What good end could he possibly propose to himself by terrifying the girl?" Ashwoode bit his lips and frowned, while he thought the matter over. At length he said,-- "I shall speak to Blarden immediately. I begin to think that the man is not fit company for civilized people. I think we must get rid of him at whatever temporary inconvenience, without actual rudeness. Without anything approaching to a quarrel, I can shorten his visit. He shall leave this either to-night or before seven o'clock to-morrow morning." "And you promise there shall be no quarrel--no violence?" urged she. "Yes, Mary, I do promise," rejoined Ashwoode. "Dear, dear brother, you have set my heart at rest," cried she. "Yes, you _are_ my own dear brother--my protector!" And with all the warmth and enthusiasm of unsuspecting love, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed her betrayer. Mary had scarcely left the room in which Sir Henry Ashwoode was seated, when he perceived Blarden sauntering among the trees by the window, with his usual swagger; the young man put on his hat and walked quickly forth to join him; as soon as he had come up with him, Blarden turned, and anticipating him, said,-- "Well, I _have_ spoken out, and I think she understands me too; at any rate, if she don't, it's no fault of mine." "I wish you had managed it better," said Ashwoode; "there is a way of doing these things. You have frightened the foolish girl half out of her wits." "Have I, though?" exclaimed Blarden, with a triumphant grin. "She's just the girl we want--easily cowed. I'm glad to hear it. We'll manage her--we'll bring her into training before a week--hang me, but we will." "You began a little too soon, though," urged Ashwoode; "you ought to have tried gentle means first." "Devil the morsel of good in them," rejoined Blarden. "I see well enough how the wind sits--she don't like me; and I haven't time to waste in wooing. Once we're buckled, she'll be fond enough of me; matrimony 'll turn out smooth enough--I'll take devilish good care of that; but the courtship will be the devil's tough business. We must begin the taming system off-hand; there's no use in shilly shally." "I tell you," rejoined Ashwoode, "you have been too precipitate--I speak, of course, merely in relation to the policy and expediency of the thing. I don't mean to pretend that constraint may not become necessary hereafter; but just now, and before our plans are well considered, and our arrangements made, I think it was injudicious to frighten her so. She was talking of leaving the house and going to Lady Stukely's, or, in short, anywhere rather than remain here." "Threaten to run away, did she?" cried Blarden, with a whistle of surprise which passed off into a chuckle. "Yes, in plain terms, she said so," rejoined Ashwoode. "Then just turn the key upon her at once," replied Blarden--"lock her up--let her measure her rambles by the four walls of her room! Hang me, if I can see the difficulty." Ashwoode remained silent, and they walked side by side for a time without exchanging a word. "Well, I believe I'm right," cried Blarden, at length; "I think our game is plain enough, eh? Don't let her budge an inch. Do you act turnkey, and I'll pay her a visit once a day for fear she'd forget me--I'll be her father confessor, eh?--ho, ho!--and between us I think we'll manage to bring her to before long." "We must take care before we proceed to this extremity that all our agents are trustworthy," said Ashwoode. "There is no immediate danger of her attempting an escape, for I told her that you were leaving this either to-night or to-morrow morning, and she's now just as sure as if we had her under lock and key." "Well, what do you advise? Can't you speak out? What's all the delay to lead to?" said Blarden. "Merely that we shall have time to adjust our schemes," replied Ashwoode; "there is more to be done than perhaps you think of. We must cut off all possibility of correspondence with friends out of doors, and we must guard against suspicion among the servants; they are all fond of her, and there is no knowing what mischief might be done even by the most contemptible agents. Some little preparation before we employ coercion is absolutely indispensable." "Well, then, you'd have me keep out of the way," said Blarden. "But mind you, I won't leave this; I like to have my own eye upon my own business." "There is no reason why you should leave it," rejoined Ashwoode. "The weather is now cold and broken, so that Mary will seldom leave the house; and when she remains in it, she is almost always in the little drawing-room with her work, and books, and music; with the slightest precaution you can effectually avoid her for a few days." "Well, then, agreed--done and done--a fair go on both sides," replied Blarden, "but it must not be too long; knock out some scheme that will wind matters up within a fortnight at furthest; be lively, or she shall lead apes, and you swing as sure as there's six sides to a die." CHAPTER L. THE PRESS IN THE WALL. Larry Toole, having visited in vain all his master's usual haunts, returned in the evening of that day on which we last beheld him, to the "Cock and Anchor," in a state of extreme depression and desolateness. "By the holy man," said Larry, in reply to the inquiries of the groom, who encountered him at the yard gate, "he's gone as clane as a whistle. It's dacent thratement, so it is--gone, and laves me behind to rummage the town for him, and divil a sign of him, good or bad. I'm fairly burstin' with emotions. Why did he make off with himself? Why the devil did he desart me? There's no apology for sich minewvers, nor no excuse in the wide world, anless, indeed, he happened to be dhrounded or dhrunk. I'm fairly dry with the frettin'. Come in with me, and we'll have a sorrowful pot iv strong ale together by the kitchen fire; for, bedad, I want something badly." Accordingly the two worthies entered the great old kitchen, and by the genial blaze of its cheering hearth, they discussed at length the probabilities of recovering Larry's lost master. "Usedn't he to take a run out now and again to Morley Court?" inquired the groom; "you told me so." "By the hokey," exclaimed Larry, with sudden alacrity, "there is some sinse in what you say--bedad, there is. I don't know how in the world I didn't think iv going out there to-day. But no matter, I'll do it to-morrow." And in accordance with this resolution, upon the next day, early in the forenoon, Mr. Toole pursued his route toward the old manor-house. As he approached the domain, however, he slackened his pace, and, with extreme hesitation and caution, began to loiter toward the mansion, screening his approach as much as possible among the thick brushwood which skirted the rich old timber that clothed the slopes and hollows of the manor in irregular and stately masses. Sheltered in his post of observation, Larry lounged about until he beheld Sir Henry emerge from the hall door and join Nicholas Blarden in the _tête-à-tête_ which we have in our last chapter described. Our romantic friend no sooner beheld this occurrence, than he felt all his uneasiness at once dispelled. He marched rapidly to the hall door, which remained open, and forthwith entered the house. He had hardly reached the interior of the hall, when he was encountered by no less a person than the fair object of his soul's idolatry, the beauteous Mistress Betsy Carey. "La, Mr. Laurence," cried she, with an affected start, "you're always turning up like a ghost, when you're least expected." "By the powers of Moll Kelly!" rejoined Larry, with fervour, "it's more and more beautiful, the Lord be merciful to us, you're growin' every day you live. What the divil will you come to at last?" "Well, Mr. Toole," rejoined she, relaxing into a gracious smile, "but you do talk more nonsense than any ten beside. I wonder at you, so I do, Mr. Toole. Why don't you have a discreeterer way of conversation and discourse?" "Och! murdher!--heigho! beautiful Betsy," sighed Larry, rapturously. "Did you walk, Mr. Toole?" inquired the maiden. "I did so," rejoined Larry. "Young master's just gone out," continued the maid. "So I seen, jewel," replied Mr. Toole. "An' you may as well come into the parlour, an' have some drink and victuals," added she, with an encouraging smile. "Is there no fear of his coming in on me?" inquired Larry, cautiously. "Tilly vally, man, who are you afraid of?" exclaimed the handmaiden, cheerily. "Come, Mr. Toole, you used not to be so easily frightened." "I'll never be afraid to folly your lead, most beautiful and bewildhering iv famales," ejaculated Mr. Toole, gallantly. "So here goes; folly on, and I'll attind you behind." Accordingly, they both entered the great parlour, where the table bore abundant relics of a plenteous meal, and Mistress Betsy Carey, with her own fair hands, placed a chair for him at the table, and heaping a plate with cold beef and bread, laid it before her grateful swain, along with a foaming tankard of humming ale. The maid was gracious, and the beef delicious; his ears drank in her accents, and his throat her ale, and his heart and mouth were equally full. Thus, in a condition as nearly as human happiness can approach to unalloyed felicity, realizing the substantial bliss of Mahomet's paradise, Mr. Toole ogled and ate, and glanced and guzzled in soft rapture, until the force of nature could no further go on, and laying down his knife and fork, he took one long last draught of ale, measuring, it is supposed, about three half-pints, and then, with an easy negligence, wiping the froth from his mouth with the cuff of his coat, he addressed himself to the fair dame once more,-- "They may say what they like, by the hokey! all the world over; but divil bellows me, if ever I seen sich another beautiful, fascinating, flusthrating famale, since I was the size iv that musthard pot--may the divil bile me if I did," ejaculated Mr. Toole, rapturously throwing himself into the chair with something between a sigh and a grunt, and ready to burst with love and repletion. The fair maiden endeavoured to look contemptuous; but she smiled in spite of herself. "Well, well, Mr. Toole," she exclaimed, "I see there is no use in talking; a fool's a fool to the end of his days, and some people's past cure. But tell me, how's Mr. O'Connor?" "Bedad, it's time for me to think iv it," exclaimed Larry, briskly. "Do you know what brought me here?" "How should _I_ know?" responded she, with a careless toss of her head, and a very conscious look. "Well," replied Mr. Toole, "I'll tell you at once. I lost the masther as clane as a new shilling, an' I'm fairly braking my heart lookin' for him; an' here I come, trying would I get the chance iv hearing some soart iv a sketch iv him." "Is that all?" inquired the damsel, drily. "All!" ejaculated Larry; "begorra. I think it's enough, an' something to spare. _All!_ why, I tell you the masther's lost, an' anless I get some news of him here, it's twenty to one the two of us 'ill never meet in this disappinting world again. _All!_ I think that something." "An' pray, what should _I_ know about Mr. O'Connor?" inquired the girl, tartly. "Did you see him, or hear of him, or was he out here at all?" asked he. "No, he wasn't. What would bring him?" replied she. "Then he _is_ gone in airnest," exclaimed Larry, passionately; "he's gone entirely! I half guessed it from the first minute. By jabers, my bitther curse attind that bloody little public. He's lost, an' tin to one he's _in glory_, for he was always unfortunate. Och! divil fly away with the liquor." "Well, to be sure," ejaculated the lady's maid, with contemptuous severity, "but it is surprising what fools some people is. Don't you think your master can go anywhere for a day or two, but he must bring _you_ along with him, or ask _your_ leave and licence to go where he pleases forsooth? Marry, come up, it's enough to make a pig laugh only to listen to you." Just at this moment, and when Larry was meditating his reply, steps were heard in the hall, and voices in debate. They were those of Nicholas Blarden and of Sir Henry Ashwoode. Larry instantly recognized the latter, and his companion both of them. "They're coming this way," gasped Larry, with agonized alarm. "Tare an' ouns, evangelical girl, we're done for. Put me somewhere quick, or begorra it's all over with us." "What's to be done, merciful Moses? Where can you go?" ejaculated the terrified girl, surveying the room with frantic haste. "The press. Oh! thank God, the press. Come along, quick, quick, Mr. Toole, for gracious goodness sake." So saying, she rushed headlong at a kind of cupboard or press, whose doors opened in the panelling of the wall, and fumbling with frightful agitation among her keys, she succeeded at length in unlocking it, and throwing open its door, exhibited a small orifice of about four feet and a half by three in the wall. "Now, Mr. Toole, into it, as you vally your precious life--quick, quick, for the love of heaven," ejaculated the maiden. Larry was firmly persuaded that the feat was a downright physical impossibility; yet with a devotion and desperation which love and terror combined alone could inspire, he mounted a chair, and, supported by all the muscular strength of his soul's idol, scrambled into the aperture. A projecting shelf about half way up threw his figure so much out of equilibrium, that the task of keeping him in his place was no light one. By main strength, however, the girl succeeded in closing the door and locking her visitor fairly in, and before her master entered the chamber, Mr. Toole became a close prisoner, and the key which confined him was safely deposited in the charming Betsy's pocket. Blarden roared lustily to the servants, and with sundry impressive imprecations, commanded them to remove every vestige of the breakfast of which the prisoner had just clandestinely partaken. Meanwhile he continued to walk up and down the room, whistling a lively ditty, and here and there, at particularly sprightly parts, drumming with his foot in time upon the floor. "Well, that job's done at last," said he. "The room's clean and quiet, and we can't do better than take a twist at the cards. So let's have a pack, and play your best, d'ye mind." This was addressed to Ashwoode, who, of course, acquiesced. "Oh, bloody wars, I'm in for it," murmured Larry, "they'll be playin' here to no end, and I smothering fast, as it is; I'll never come out iv this pisition with my life." Few situations could indeed be conceived physically more uncomfortable. A shelf projecting about midway pressed him forward, exerting anything but a soothing influence upon the backbone, so that his whole weight rested against the door of his narrow prison, and was chiefly sustained by his breast-bone and chin. In this very constrained attitude, and afraid to relieve his fatigue by moving even in the very slightest degree, lest some accidental noise should excite suspicion and betray his presence, the ill-starred squire remained; his discomforts still further enhanced by the pouring of some pickles, which had been overturned upon an upper shelf, in cool streams of vinegar down his back. "I could not have betther luck," murmured he. "I never discoorsed a famale yet, but I paid through the nose for it. Didn't I get enough iv romance, bad luck to it, an' isn't it a plisint pisition I'm in at last--locked up in an ould cupboard in the wall, an' fairly swimming in vinegar. Oh, the women, the women. I'd rather than every stitch of cloth on my back, I walked out clever an' clane to meet the young masther, and not let myself be boxed up this way, almost dying with the cramps and the snuffication. Oh, them women, them women!" Thus mourned our helpless friend in inarticulate murmurings. Meanwhile young Ashwoode opened two or three drawers in search of a pack of cards. "There are several, I know, in that locker," said Ashwoode. "I laid some of them there myself." "This one?" inquired Blarden, making the interrogatory by a sharp application of the head of his cane to the very panel against which Larry's chin was resting. The shock, the pain, and the exaggerated loudness of the application caused the inmate of the press, in spite of himself, to ejaculate,-- "Oh, holy Pether!" "Did you hear anything queer?" inquired Blarden, with some consternation. "Anyone calling out?" "No," said Ashwoode. "Well, see what the nerves is," cried Blarden, "by ----, I'd have bet ten to one I heard a voice in the wall the minute I hit that locker door--this ---- weather don't agree with me." This sentence he wound up by administering a second knock where he had given the first; and Larry, with set teeth and a grin, which in a horse-collar would have won whole pyramids of gingerbread, nevertheless bore it this time with the silent stoicism of a tortured Indian. "The nerves is a ---- quare piece of business," observed Mr. Blarden--a philosophical remark in which Larry heartily concurred--"but get the cards, will you--what the ---- is all the delay about?" In obedience to Ashwoode's summons, Mistress Betsy Carey entered the room. "Carey," said he, "open that press and take out two or three packs of cards." "I can't open the locker," replied she, readily, "for the young mistress put the key astray, sir--I'll run and look for it, if you please, sir." "God bless you," murmured Larry, with fervent gratitude. "Hand me that bunch of keys from under your apron," said Blarden, "ten to one we'll find some one among them that'll open it." "There's no use in trying, sir," replied the girl, very much alarmed, "it's a pitiklar soart of a lock, and has a pitiklar key--you'll ruinate it, sir, if you go for to think to open it with a key that don't fit it, so you will--I'll run and look for it if you please, sir." "Give me that bunch of keys, young woman; give them, I tell you," exclaimed Blarden. Thus constrained, she reluctantly gave the keys, and among them the identical one to whose kind offices Mr. O'Toole owed his present dignified privacy. "Come in here, Chancey," said Mr. Blarden, addressing that gentleman, who happened at that moment to be crossing the hall--"take these keys here and try if any of them will pick that lock." Chancey accordingly took the keys, and mounting languidly upon a chair, began his operations. It were not easy to describe Mr. Toole's emotions as these proceedings were going forward--some of the keys would not go in at all--others went in with great difficulty, and came out with as much--some entered easily, but refused to turn, and during the whole of these various attempts upon his "dungeon keep," his mental agonies grew momentarily more and more intense, so much so that he was repeatedly prompted to precipitate the _dénouement_, by shouting his confession from within. His heart failed him, however, and his resolution grew momentarily feebler and more feeble--he would have given worlds at that moment that he could have shrunk into the pickle-pot, whose contents were then streaming down his back--gladly would he have compounded for escape at the price of being metamorphosed for ever into a gherkin. His prayers were, however, unanswered, and he felt his inevitable fate momentarily approaching. "This one will do it--I declare to God I have it at last," drawled Chancey, looking lazily at a key which he held in his hand; and then applying it, it found its way freely into the key-hole. "Bravo, Gordy, by ----," cried Blarden, "I never knew you fail yet--you're as cute as a pet fox, you are." Mr. Blarden had hardly finished this flattering eulogium, when Chancey turned the key in the lock: with astonishing violence the doors burst open, and Larry Toole, Mr. Chancey, and the chair on which he was mounted, descended with the force of a thunderbolt on the floor. In sheer terror, Chancey clutched the interesting stranger by the throat, and Larry, in self-defence, bit the lawyer's thumb, which had by a trifling inaccuracy entered his mouth, and at the same time, with both his hands, dragged his nose in a lateral direction until it had attained an extraordinary length and breadth. In equal terror and torment the two combatants rolled breathless along the floor; the charming Betsy Carey screamed murder, robbery, and fire--while Ashwoode and Blarden both started to their feet in the extremest amazement. "How the devil did you get into that press?" exclaimed Ashwoode, as soon as the rival athletes had been separated and placed upon their feet, addressing Larry Toole. "Oh! the robbing villain," ejaculated Mistress Betsy Carey--"don't suffer nor allow him to speak--bring him to the pump, gentlemen--oh! the lying villain--kick him out, Mr. Chancey--thump him, Sir Henry--don't spare him, Mr. Blarden--turn him out, gentlemen all--he's quite aperiently a robber--oh! blessed hour, but it's I that ought to be thankful--what in the world wide would I do if he came powdering down on me, the overbearing savage!" "Och! murder--the cruelty iv women!" ejaculated Larry, reproachfully--"oh! murdher, beautiful Betsy." "Don't be talking to me, you sneaking, skulking villain," cried Mistress Carey, vehemently, "you must have stole the key, so you must, and locked yourself up, you frightful baste. For goodness gracious sake, gentlemen, don't keep him talking here--he's dangerous--the Turk." "Oh! the villainy iv women!" repeated Larry, with deep pathos. A brief cross-examination of Mistress Carey and of Larry Toole sufficed to convict the fair maiden of her share in concealing the prisoner. "Now, Mr. Toole," said Ashwoode, addressing that personage, "you have been once before turned out of this house for misconduct--I tell you, that if you do not make good use of your time, and run as fast as your best exertions will enable you, you shall have abundant reason to repent it, for in five minutes more I will set the dogs after you; and if ever I find you here again, I will have you ducked in the horse-pond for a full hour--depart, sirrah--away--run." Larry did not require any more urgent remonstrances to induce him to expedite his retreat--he made a contrite bow to Sir Henry--cast a look of melancholy reproach at the beautiful Betsy, who, with a heightened colour, was withdrawing from the scene, and then with sudden nimbleness, effected his retreat. "The fellow," said Ashwoode, "is a servant of that O'Connor, whom I mentioned to you. I do not think we shall ever have the pleasure of his company again. I am glad the thing has happened, for it proves that we cannot trust Carey." "That it does," echoed Blarden, with an oath. "Well, then, she shall take her departure hence before a week," rejoined Ashwoode. "We shall see about her successor without loss of time. So much for Mistress Carey." CHAPTER LI. FLORA GUY. "Why, I thought you had done for that fellow, that O'Connor," exclaimed Blarden, after he had carefully closed the door. "I thought you had pinked him through and through like a riddle--isn't he dead--didn't you settle him?" "So I thought myself, but some troublesome people have the art of living through what might have killed a hundred," rejoined Ashwoode; "and I do not at all like this servant of his privately coming here, to hold conference with my sister's maid--it looks suspicious; if it be, however, as I suspect, I have effectually countermined them." "Well, then," replied Blarden, with an oath, "at all events we must set to work now in earnest." "The first thing to be done is to find a substitute for the girl whom I am about to dismiss," said Ashwoode, "we must select carefully, one whom we can rely upon--do _you_ choose her?" "Why, I'm no great judge of such cattle," rejoined Blarden. "But here's Chancey that understands them. I stake this ring to a sixpence he has one in his eye this very minute that'll fit our purpose to a hair--what do you say, Gordy, boy--can you hit on the kind of wench we want--eh, you old sly boots?" Chancey sat sleepily before the fire, and a languid, lazy smile expanded his sallow sensual face as he gazed at the bars of the grate. "Are you tongue-tied, or what?" exclaimed Blarden; "speak out--can you find us such a one as we want? she must be a regular knowing devil, and no mistake--as sly as yourself--a dead hand at a scheming game like this--a deep one." "Well, maybe I do," drawled Chancey, "I think I know a girl that would do, but maybe you'd think her too bad." "She can't be too bad for the work we want her for--what the devil do you mean by BAD?" exclaimed Blarden. "Well," continued Chancey, disregarding the last interrogatory, "she's Flora Guy, she attends in the 'Old Saint Columbkil,' a very arch little girl--I think she'll do to a nicety." "Use your own judgment, I leave it all to you," said Blarden, "only get one at once, do you mind, you know the sort we want." "I suppose she can't come any sooner than to-morrow, she must have notice," said Chancey, "but I'll go in there to-day if you like, and talk to her about it; I'll have her out with you here to-morrow to a certainty, an' I declare to G---- she's a very smart little girl." "Do so," said Ashwoode, "and the sooner the better." Chancey arose, stuffed his hands into his breeches pockets according to his wont, and with a long yawn lounged out of the room. "Do you keep out of the way after this evening," continued Sir Henry, addressing himself to Blarden; "I will tell her that you are to leave us this night, and that your visit ends; this will keep her quiet until all is ready, and then she must be tractable." "Do you run and find her, then," said Blarden, "and tell her that I'm off for town this evening--tell her at once--and mind, bring me word what she says--off with you, doctor--ho, ho, ho!--mind, bring me word what she says--do you hear?" With this pleasant charge ringing in his ears, Sir Henry Ashwoode departed upon his honourable mission. Chancey strolled listlessly into town, and after an easy ramble, at length found himself safe and sound once more beneath the roof of the 'Old Saint Columbkil.' He walked through the dingy deserted benches and tables of the old tavern, and seating himself near the hearth, called a greasy waiter who was dozing in a corner. "Tim, I'm rayther dry to-day, Timothy," said Mr. Chancey, addressing the functionary, who shambled up to him more than half asleep; "what will you recommend, Timothy--what do you think of a pot of light ale?" "Pint or quart?" inquired Tim shortly. "Well, we'll say a pint to begin with, Timothy," said Chancey, meekly; "and do you see, Timothy, if Miss Flora Guy is on the tap; I wish she would bring it to me herself--do you mind, Timothy?" Tim nodded and departed, and in a few minutes a brisk step was heard, and a neat, good-humoured looking wench approached Mr. Chancey, and planted a pint pot of ale before him. "Well, my little girl," said Chancey, with the quiet dignity of a patron, "would you like to get a fine situation in a baronet's family, my dear; to be own maid to a baronet's sister, where they eat off of silver every day in the week, and have more money than you or I could count in a twelve-month?" "Where's the good of liking it, Mr. Chancey?" replied the girl, laughing; "it's time enough to be thinking of it when I get the offer." "Well, you _have_ the offer this minute, my little girl," rejoined Chancey; "I have an elegant place for you--upon my conscience I have--up at Morley Court, with Sir Henry Ashwoode; he's a baronet, dear, and you're to be own maid to Miss Mary Ashwoode." "It can't be the truth you're telling me," said the girl, in unfeigned amazement. "I declare to G--d, and upon my soul, it is the plain truth," drawled Chancey; "Sir Henry Ashwoode, the baronet, asked me to recommend a tidy, sprightly little girl, to be own maid to his elegant, fine sister, and I recommended you--I declare to G--d but I did, and I come in to-day from the baronet's house to hire you, so I did." "Well, an' is it in airnest you are?" said the girl. "What I'm telling you is the rale truth," rejoined Chancey: "I declare to G--d upon my soul and conscience, and I wouldn't swear that in a lie, if you like to take the place you can get it." "Well, well, after _that_--why, my fortune's made," cried the girl, in ecstasies. "It is _so_, indeed, my little girl," rejoined Chancey; "your fortune's made, sure enough." "An' my dream's out, too; for I was dreaming of nothing but washing, and that's a sure sign of a change, all the live-long night," cried she, "washing linen, and such lots of it, all heaped up; well, I'm a sharp dreamer--ain't I, though?" "You will take it, then?" inquired Chancey. "_Will_ I--maybe I won't," rejoined she. "Well, come out to-morrow," said Chancey. "I can't to-morrow," replied she; "for all the table-cloth is to be done, an' I would not like to disappoint the master after being with him so long." "Well, can you next day?" "I can," replied she; "tell me where it is." "Do you know Tony Bligh's public--the old 'Bleeding Horse?'" inquired he. "I do--right well," she rejoined with alacrity. "They'll direct you there," said Chancey; "ask for the manor of Morley Court; it's a great old brick house, you can see it a mile away, and whole acres of wood round it--it's a wonderful fine place, so it is; remember it's Sir Henry himself you're to see when you go there; an' do you mind what I'm saying to you, if I hear that you were talking and prating about the place here to the chaps that's idling about, or to old Pottles, or the sluts of maids, or, in short, to anyone at all, good or bad, you'll be sure to lose the situation; so mind my advice, like a good little girl, and don't be talking to any of them about where you're going; for it wouldn't look respectable for a baronet to be hiring his servants out of a tavern--do you mind me, dear." "Oh, never fear me, Mr. Chancey," she rejoined; "I'll not say a word to a living soul; but I hope there's no fear the place will be taken before me, by not going to-morrow." "Oh! dear me! no fear at all, I'll keep it open for you; now be a good girl, and remember, don't disappoint." So saying he drained his pot of ale to the last drop, and took his departure in the pleasing conviction that he had secured the services of a fitting instrument to carry out the infernal schemes of his employers. CHAPTER LII. OF MARY ASHWOODE'S WALK TO THE LONESOME WELL--AND OF WHAT SHE SAW THERE--AND SHOWING HOW SCHEMES OF PERIL BEGAN TO CLOSE AROUND HER. On the following evening, Mary Ashwoode, in the happy conviction that Nicholas Blarden was far away, and for ever removed from her neighbourhood, walked forth at the fall of the evening unattended, to ramble among the sequestered, but now almost leafless woods, which richly ornamented the old place. Through sloping woodlands, among the stately trees and wild straggling brushwood, now densely crowded together, and again opening in broad vistas and showing the level sward, and then again enclosing her amid the gnarled and hoary trunks and fantastic boughs, all touched with the mellow golden hue of the rich lingering light of evening, she wandered on, now treading the smooth sod among the branching roots, now stepping from mossy stone to stone across the wayward brook--now pausing on a gentle eminence to admire the glowing sky and the thin haze of evening, mellowing all the distant shadowy outlines of the landscape; and by all she saw at every step beguiled into forgetfulness of the distance to which she had wandered. She now approached what had been once a favourite spot with her. In a gentle slope, and almost enclosed by wooded banks, was a small clear well, an ancient lichen-covered arch enclosed it; and all around in untended wildness grew the rugged thorn and dwarf oak, crowding around it with a friendly pressure, and embowering its dark clear waters with their ivy-clothed limbs; close by it stood a tall and graceful ash, and among its roots was placed a little rustic bench where, in happier times, Mary had often sat and read through the pleasant summer hours; and now, alas! there was the little seat and there the gnarled roots and the hoary stems of the wild trees, and the graceful ivy clusters, and the time-worn mossy arch that vaulted the clear waters bubbling so joyously beneath; how could she look on these old familiar friends, and not feel what all who with changed hearts and altered fortunes revisit the scenes of happier times are doomed to feel? For a moment she paused and stood lost in vain and bitter regrets by the old well-side. Her reverie was, however, soon and suddenly interrupted by the sound of something moving among the brittle brushwood close by; she looked quickly in the direction of the noise, and though the light had now almost entirely failed, she yet discovered, too clearly to be mistaken, the head and shoulders of Nicholas Blarden, as he pushed his way among the bushes toward the very spot where she stood. With an involuntary cry of terror she turned, and running at her utmost speed, retraced her steps toward the old mansion; not daring even to look behind her, she pursued her way among the deepening shadows of the old trees with the swiftness of terror; and, as she ran, her fears were momentarily enhanced by the sound of heavy foot-falls in pursuit, accompanied by the loud short breathing of one exerting his utmost speed. On--on she flew with dizzy haste; the distance seemed interminable, and her exhaustion was such that she felt momentarily tempted to forego the hopeless effort, and surrender herself to the mercy of her pursuer. At length she approached the old house--the sounds behind her abated; she thought she heard hoarse volleys of muttered imprecations, but not hazarding even a look behind, she still held on her way, and at length, almost wild with fear, entered the hall and threw herself sobbing into her brother's arms. "Oh God! brother; he's here; am I safe?" and she burst into hysterical sobs. As soon as she was a little calmed, he asked her,-- "What has alarmed you, Mary; what have you seen to agitate you so?" "Oh! brother; have you deceived me; _is_ that fearful man still an inmate of the house?" she said. "No; I tell you no," replied Ashwoode, "he's gone; his visit ended with yesterday evening; he's fifty miles away by this time; tut--tut--folly, child; you must not be so fanciful." "Well, brother, _he_ has deceived _you_," she rejoined, with the earnestness of terror; "he is _not_ gone; he is about this place; so surely as you stand there, I saw him; and, O God! he pursued me, and had my strength faltered for a moment, or my foot slipped, I should have been in his power;" she leaned down her head and clasped her hands across her eyes, as if to exclude some image of horror. "This is mere raving, child," said Ashwoode, "the veriest folly; I tell you the man is gone; you heard, if anything at all, a dog or a hare springing through the leaves, and your imagination supplied the rest. I tell you, once for all, that Blarden is threescore good miles away." "Brother, as surely as I see you, I saw him this night," she replied. "I could not be mistaken; I saw him, and for several seconds before I could move, such was the palsy of terror that struck me. I saw him, and watched him advancing towards me--gracious heaven! for while I could reckon ten; and then, as I fled, he still pursued; he was so near that I actually heard his panting, as well as the tread of his feet;--brother--brother--there was no mistake; there _could_ be none in this." "Well, be it so, since you will have it," replied Ashwoode, trying to laugh it off; "you have seen his _fetch_--I think they call it so. I'll not dispute the matter with you; but this I will aver, that his corporeal presence is removed some fifty miles from hence at this moment; take some tea and get you to bed, child; you have got a fit of the vapours; you'll laugh at your own foolish fancies to-morrow morning." That night Sir Henry Ashwoode, Nicholas Blarden, and their worthy confederate, Gordon Chancey, were closeted together in earnest and secret consultation in the parlour. "Why did you act so rashly--what could have possessed you to follow the girl?" asked Ashwoode, "you have managed one way or another so thoroughly to frighten the girl, to make her so fear and avoid you, that I entirely despair, by fair means, of ever inducing her to listen to your proposals." "Well, that does not take me altogether by surprise," said Blarden, "for I have been suspecting so much this many a day; we must then go to work in right earnest at once." "What measures shall we take?" said Ashwoode. "What measures!" echoed Blarden; "well, confound me if I know what to begin with, there's such a lot of them, and all good--what do you say, Gordy?" "You ought to ask her to marry you off-hand," said Chancey, demurely, but promptly; "and if she refuses, let her be locked up, and treat her as if she was _mad_--do you mind; and I'll go to Patrick's-close, and bring out old Shycock, the clergyman; and the minute she strikes, you can be coupled; she'll give in very soon, you'll find; little Ebenezer will do whatever we bid him, and swear whatever we like; we'll all swear that you and she are man and wife already; and when she denies it, threaten her with the mad-house; and then we'll see if she won't come round; and you must first send away the old servants--every mother's skin of them--and get _new_ ones instead; and that's my advice." "It's not bad, either," said Blarden, knitting his brows twice or thrice, and setting his teeth. "I like that notion of threatening her with Bedlam; it's a devilish good idea; and I'll give long odds it will work wonders; what do you say, Ashwoode?" "Choose your own measures," replied the baronet. "I'm incapable of advising you." "Well, then, Gordy, that's the go," said Blarden; "bring out his reverence whenever I tip you the signal; and he shall have board and lodging until the job's done; he'll make a tip-top domestic chaplain; I suppose we'll have family prayers while he stays--eh?--ho, ho!--devilish good idea, that; and Chancey'll act clerk--eh? won't you, Gordy?" and, tickled beyond measure at the facetious suggestion, Mr. Blarden laughed long and lustily. "I suppose I may as well keep close until our private chaplain arrives, and the new waiting-maid," said Blarden; "and as soon as all is ready, I'll blaze out in style, and I'll tell you what, Ashwoode, a precious good thought strikes me; turn about you know is fair play; and as I'm fifty miles away to-day, it occurs to me it would be a deuced good plan to have _you_ fifty miles away to-morrow--eh?--we could manage matters better if you were supposed out of the way, and that she knew I had the whole command of the house, and everything in it; she'd be a cursed deal more frightened; what do you think?" "Yes, I entirely agree with you," said Ashwoode, eagerly catching at a scheme which would relieve him of all prominent participation in the infamous proceedings--an exemption which, spite of his utter selfishness, he gladly snatched at. "I will do so. I will leave the house in reality." "No--no; my tight chap, not so fast," rejoined Blarden, with a savage chuckle. "I'd rather have my eye on you, if you please; just write her a letter, dated from Dublin, and say you're obliged to go anywhere you please for a month or so; she'll not find you out, for we'll not let her out of her room; and now I think everything is settled to a turn, and we may as well get under the blankets at once, and be stirring betimes in the morning." CHAPTER LIII. THE DOUBLE FAREWELL. Next day Mistress Betsy Carey bustled into her young mistress's chamber looking very red and excited. "Well, ma'am," said she, dropping a short indignant courtesy, "I'm come to bid you good-bye, ma'am." "How--what can you mean, Carey?" said Mary Ashwoode. "I hope them as comes after me," continued the handmaiden, vehemently, "will strive to please you in all pints and manners as well as them that's going." "Going!" echoed Mary; "why, this can't be--there must be some great mistake here." "No mistake at all, ma'am, of any sort or description; the master has just paid up my wages, and gave me my discharge," rejoined the maid. "Oh, the ingratitude of some people to their servants is past bearing, so it is." And so saying, Mistress Carey burst into a passion of tears. "There _is_ some mistake in all this, my poor Carey," said the young lady; "I will speak to my brother about it immediately; don't cry so." "Oh! my lady, it ain't for myself I'm crying; the blessed saints in heaven knows it ain't," cried the beautiful Betsy, glancing devotionally upward through her tears; "not at all and by no means, ma'am, it's all for other people, so it is, my lady; oh! ma'am, you don't know the badness and the villainy of people, my lady." "Don't cry so, Carey," replied Mary Ashwoode, "but tell me frankly what fault you have committed--let me know why my brother has discharged you." "Just because he thinks I'm too fond of you, my lady, and too honest for what's going on," cried she, drying her eyes in her apron with angry vehemence, and speaking with extraordinary sharpness and volubility; "because I saw Mr. O'Connor's man yesterday--and found out that the young gentleman's letters used to be stopped by the old master, God rest him, and Sir Henry, and all kinds of false letters written to him and to you by themselves, to breed mischief between you. I never knew the reason before, why in the world it was the master used to make me leave every letter that went between you, for a day or more in his keeping. Heaven be his bed; I was too innocent for them, my lady; we were both of us too simple; oh dear! oh dear! it's a quare world, my lady. And that wasn't all--but who do you think I meets to-day skulking about the house in company with the young master, but Mr. Blarden, that we all thought, glory be to God, was I don't know how far off out of the place; and so, my lady, because them things has come to my knowledge, and because they knowed in their hearts, so they did, that I'd rayther be crucified than hide as much as the black of my nail from you, my lady, they put me away, thinking to keep you in the dark. Oh! but it's a dangerous, bad world, so it is--to put me out of the way of tellin' you whatever I knowed; and all I'm hoping for is, that them that's coming in my room won't help the mischief, and try to blind you to what's going on;" hereupon she again burst into a flood of tears. "Good God," said Mary Ashwoode, in the low tones of horror, and with a face as pale as marble, "_is_ that dreadful man here--have you seen him?" "Yes, my lady, seen and talked with him, my lady, not ten minutes since," replied the maid, "and he gave me a guinea, and told me not to let on that I seen him--he did--but he little knew who he was speaking to--oh! ma'am, but it's a terrible shocking bad world, so it is." Mary Ashwoode leaned her head upon her hand in fearful agitation. This ruffian, who had menaced and insulted and pursued her, a single glance at whose guilty and frightful aspect was enough to warn and terrify, was in league and close alliance with her own brother to entrap and deceive her--Heaven only could know with what horrible intent. "Carey, Carey," said the pale and affrighted lady, "for God's sake send my brother--bring him here--I must see Sir Henry, your master--quickly, Carey--for God's sake quickly." The young lady again leaned her head upon her hand and became silent; so the lady's maid dried her eyes, and left the room to execute her mission. The apartment in which Mary Ashwoode was now seated, was a small dressing-room or boudoir, which communicated with her bed-chamber, and itself opened upon a large wainscotted lobby, surrounded with doors, and hung with portraits, too dingy and faded to have a place in the lower rooms. She had thus an opportunity of hearing any step which ascended the stairs, and waited, in breathless expectation, for the sounds of her brother's approach. As the interval was prolonged her impatience increased, and again and again she was tempted to go down stairs and seek him herself; but the dread of encountering Blarden, and the terror in which she held him, kept her trembling in her room. At length she heard two persons approach, and her heart swelled almost to bursting, as, with excited anticipation, she listened to their advance. "Here's the room for you at last," said the voice of an old female servant, who forthwith turned and departed. "I thank you kindly, ma'am," said the second voice, also that of a female, and the sentence was immediately followed by a low, timid knock at the chamber door. "Come in," said Mary Ashwoode, relieved by the consciousness that her first fears had been delusive--and a good-looking wench, with rosy cheeks, and a clear, good-humoured eye, timidly and hesitatingly entered the room, and dropped a bashful courtesy. "Who are you, my good girl, and what do you want with me?" inquired Mary, gently. "I'm the new maid, please your ladyship, that Sir Henry Ashwoode hired, if it pleases you, ma'am, instead of the young woman that's just gone away," replied she, her eyes staring wider and wider, and her cheeks flushing redder and redder every moment, while she made another courtesy more energetic than the first. "And what is your name, my good girl?" inquired Mary. "Flora Guy, may it please your ladyship," replied the newcomer, with another courtesy. "Well, Flora," said her new mistress, "have you ever been in service before?" "No, ma'am, if you please," replied she, "unless in the old Saint Columbkil." "The old Saint Columbkil," rejoined Mary. "What is that, my good girl?" The ignorance implied in this question was so incredibly absurd, that spite of all her fears and all her modesty, the girl smiled, and looked down upon the floor, and then coloured to the eyes at her own presumption. "It's the great wine-tavern and eating-house, ma'am, in Ship Street, if you please," rejoined she. "And who hired you?" inquired Mary, in undisguised surprise. "It was Mr. Chancey, ma'am--the lawyer gentleman, please your ladyship," answered she. "Mr. Chancey!--I never heard of him before," said the young lady, more and more astonished. "Have you seen Sir Henry--my brother?" "Oh! yes, my lady, if you please--I saw him and the other gentleman just before I came upstairs, ma'am," replied the maid. "What other gentleman?" inquired Mary, faintly. "I think Sir Henry was the young gentleman in the frock suit of sky-blue and silver, ma'am--a nice young gentleman, ma'am--and there was another gentleman, my lady, with him; he had a plum-coloured suit with gold lace; he spoke very loud, and cursed a great deal; a large gentleman, my lady, with a very red face, and one of his teeth out. I seen him once in the tap-room. I remembered him the minute I set eyes on him, but I can't think of his name. He came in, my lady, with that young lord--I forget _his_ name, too--that was ruined with play and dicing, my lady; and they had a quart of mulled sack--it was I that brought it to them--and I remembered the red-faced gentleman very well, for he was turning round over his shoulder, and putting out his tongue, making fun of the young lord--because he was tipsy--and winking to his own friends." "What did my brother--Sir Henry--your master--what did he say to you just now?" inquired Mary, faintly, and scarcely conscious what she said. "He gave me a bit of a note to your ladyship," said the girl, fumbling in the profundity of her pocket for it, "just as soon as he put the other girl--her that's gone, my lady--into the chaise--here it is, ma'am, if you please." Mary took the letter, opened it hurriedly, and with eyes unsteady with agitation, read as follows:-- "MY DEAR MARY,--I am compelled to fly as fast as horseflesh can carry me, to escape arrest and the entire loss of whatever little chance remains of averting ruin. I don't see you before leaving this--my doing so were alike painful to us both--perhaps I shall be here again by the end of a month--at all events, you shall hear of me some time before I arrive. I have had to discharge Carey for very ill-conduct I have not time to write fully now. I have hired in her stead the bearer, Flora Guy, a very respectable, good girl. I shall have made at least two miles away in my flight before you read this. Perhaps you had better keep within your own room, for Mr. Blarden will shortly be here to look after matters in my absence. I have hardly a moment to scratch this line. "Always your attached brother, "HENRY ASHWOODE." Her eye had hardly glanced through this production when she ran wildly toward the door; but, checking herself before she reached it, she turned to the girl, and with an earnestness of agony which thrilled to her very heart, she cried,-- "Is he gone? tell me, as you hope for mercy, is he--_is_ he gone?" "Who, who is it, my lady?" inquired the girl, a good deal startled. "My brother--my brother: is he gone?" cried she more wildly still. "I seen him riding away very fast on a grey horse, my lady," said the maid, "not five minutes before I came up stairs." "Then it's too late. God be merciful to me! I am lost, I have none to guard me; I have none to help me--don't--don't leave me; for God's sake don't leave the room for one instant----" There was an imploring earnestness of entreaty in the young lady's accents and manner, and a degree of excited terror in her dilated eyes and pale face, which absolutely affrighted the attendant. "No, my lady," said she, "I won't leave you, I won't indeed, my lady." "Oh! my poor girl," said Mary, "you little know the griefs and fears of her you've come to serve. I fear me you have changed your lot, however hard before, much for the worst in coming here; never yet did creature need a friend so much as I; and never was one so friendless before," and thus speaking, poor Mary Ashwoode leaned forward and wept so bitterly that the girl was almost constrained to weep too for very pity. "Don't take it to heart so much, my lady; don't cry. I'll do my best, my lady, to serve you well; indeed I will, my lady, and true and faithful," said the poor damsel, approaching timidly but kindly to her young mistress's side. "I'll not leave you, my lady; no one shall harm you nor hurt a hair of your head; I'll stay with you night and day as long as you're pleased to keep me, my lady, and don't cry; sure you won't, my lady?" So the poor girl in her own simple way strove to comfort and encourage her desolate mistress. It is a wonderful and a beautiful thing how surely, spite of every difference of rank and kind and forms of language, the words of kindness and of sympathy--be they the rudest ever spoken, if only they flow warm from the heart of a fellow-mortal--will gladden, comfort, and cheer the sorrow-stricken spirit. Mary felt comforted and assured. "Do you be but true to me; stay by my side in this season of my sorest trouble; and may God reward you as richly as I would my poor means could," said Mary, with the same intense earnestness of entreaty. "There is kindness and truth in your face. I am sure you will not deceive me." "Deceive you, my lady! God forbid," said the poor maid, earnestly; "I'd die before I'd deceive you; only tell me how to serve you, my lady, and it will be a hard thing that I won't do for you." "There is no need to conceal from you what, if you do not already know, you soon must," said Mary, speaking in a low tone, as if fearful of being overheard; "that red-faced man you spoke of, that talked so loud and swore so much, that man I fear--fear him more than ever yet I dreaded any living thing--more than I thought I _could_ fear anything earthly--him, this Mr. Blarden, we must avoid." "Blarden--Mr. Blarden," said the maid, while a new light dawned upon her mind. "I could not think of his name--Nicholas Blarden--Tommy, that is one of the waiters in the 'Columbkil,' my lady, used to call him 'red ruin.' I know it all now, my lady; it's he that owns the great gaming house near High Street, my lady; and another in Smock Alley; I heard Mr. Pottles say he could buy and sell half Dublin, he's mighty rich, but everyone says he's a very bad man: I couldn't think of his name, and I remember everything about him now; it's all found out. Oh! dear--dear; then it's all a lie; just what I thought, every bit from beginning to end--nothing else but a lie. Oh, the villain!" "What lie do you speak of?" asked Mary; "tell me." "Oh, the villain!" repeated the girl. "I wish to God, my lady, you were safe out of this house----" "What is it?" urged Mary, with fearful eagerness; "what lie did you speak of? what makes you now think my danger greater?" "Oh! my lady, the lies, the horrible lies he told me to-day, when Sir Henry and himself were hiring me," replied she. "Oh! my lady, I'm sure you are not safe here----" "For God's sake tell me plainly, what did they say?" repeated Mary. "Oh, ma'am, what do you think he told me? As sure as you're sitting there, he told me he was a mad-doctor," replied she; "and he said, my lady, how that you were not in your right mind, and that he had the care of you; and, oh, my God, my lady, he told me never to be frightened if I heard you crying out and screaming when he was alone with you, for that all mad people was the same way----" "And was Sir Henry present when he told you this?" said Mary, scarce articulately. "He was, my lady," replied she, "and I thought he turned pale when the red-faced man said that; but he did not speak, only kept biting his lips and saying nothing." "Then, indeed, my case is hopeless," said Mary, faintly, while all expression, save that of vacant terror, faded from her face; "give me some counsel--advise me, for God's sake, in this terrible hour. What shall I do?" "Ah, my lady, I wish to the blessed saints I could," rejoined the girl; "haven't you some friends in Dublin; couldn't I go for them?" "No--no," said she, hastily, "you must not leave me; but, thank God, you have advised me well. I have one friend, and indeed only one, in Dublin, whom I may rely upon, my uncle, Major O'Leary; I will write to him." She sat down, and with cold trembling hands traced the hurried lines which implored his succour; she then rang the bell. After some delay it was answered by a strange servant; and, after a few brief inquiries, to her unutterable horror she learned that all who remained of the old faithful servants of the family had been dismissed, and persons whose faces she had never seen before, hired in their stead. These were prompt and decisive measures, and ominously portended some sinister catastrophe; the whole establishment reduced to a few strangers, and--as she had too much reason to fear--tools and creatures of the wretch Blarden. Having ascertained these facts, Mary Ashwoode, without giving the letter to the man, dismissed him with some trivial direction, and turning to her maid, said,-- "You see how it is; I am beset by enemies; may God protect and save me; what shall I do? my mind--my senses, will forsake me. Merciful heaven! what will become of me?" "Shall I take it myself, my lady?" inquired the maid. Mary raised herself eagerly, but with sudden dejection, said,-- "No--no; it cannot be; you must not leave me. I could not bear to be alone here; besides, they must not think you are my friend; no, no, it cannot be." "Well, my lady," said the maid decisively, "we'll leave the house to-night; they'll not be on their guard against that, and once beyond the walls, you're safe." "It is, I believe, the only chance of safety left me," replied Mary, distractedly; "and, as such, it shall be tried." CHAPTER LIV. THE TWO CHANCES--THE BRIBED COURIER. "I don't half like the girl you've picked up," said Nicholas Blarden, addressing his favourite parasite, Chancey; "she don't look half sharp enough for our work; she hasn't the cut of a town lass about her; she's too like a milk-maid, too simple, too soft. I've confounded misgivings she's no schemer." "Well, well--dear me, but you're very suspicious," said Chancey. "I'd like to know did ever anything honest come out of the 'Old Saint Columbkil!' there wasn't a sharper little wench in the place than herself, and I'll tell you that's a big word--no, no; there's not an inch of the fool about her." "Well, she can't do us much mischief anyway," said Blarden; "the three others are as true as steel--the devil's own chickens; and mind you don't let the door-keys out of your pocket. Honour's all very fine, and ought not to be doubted; but there's nothing to my mind like a stiff bit of a rusty lock." Chancey smiled sleepily, and slapped the broad skirt of his coat twice or thrice, producing therefrom the ringing clank which betoken the presence of the keys in question. "So then we're all caged, by Jove," continued Blarden, rapturously; "and very different sorts of game we are too: did you ever see the show-box where the cats and the rats and the little birds are all boxed up together, higgledy-piggledy, in the same wire cage. I can't but think of it; it's so devilish like." "Well, well--dear me; I declare to God but you're a terrible funny chap," said Chancey, enjoying a quiet chuckle; "but some way or another," he continued, significantly, "I'm thinking the cat will have a claw at the little bird yet." "Well, maybe it will;" rejoined Blarden, "you never knew one yet that was not fond of a tit-bit when he could have it. Eh?" Thus playfully they conversed, seasoning their pleasantries with sack and claret, and whatever else the cellars of Morley Court afforded, until evening closed, and the darkness of night succeeded. Mary Ashwoode and her maid sat prepared for the execution of their adventurous project; they had early left the outer room in which we saw them last, and retired into her bedchamber to avoid suspicion; as the night advanced they extinguished the lights, lest their gleaming through the windows should betray the lateness of their vigil, and alarm the fears of their persecutors. Thus, in silence and darkness, not daring to speak, and almost afraid to breathe, they waited hour after hour until long past midnight. The well-known sounds of riotous swearing and horse-laughter, and the heavy trampling of feet, as the half-drunken revellers staggered to their beds, now reached their ears in noises faint and muffled by the distance. At length all was again quiet, and nearly a whole hour of silence passed away ere they ventured to move, almost to breathe. "Now, Flora, open the outer door softly," whispered Mary, "and listen for any, the faintest sound; take off your shoes, and for your life move noiselessly." "Never fear, my lady," responded the girl in a tone as low; and slipping off her shoes from her feet, she pressed her hand upon the young lady's wrist, to intimate silence, and glided into the little boudoir. With sickening anxiety the young lady heard her cross the small chamber, now and then stumbling against some pieces of furniture and cautiously groping her way; at length the door-handle turned, and then followed a silence. After an interval of a few seconds the girl returned. "Well, Flora," whispered Mary, eagerly, as she approached, "is all still?" "Oh! blessed hour! my lady, the door's locked on the outside," replied the maid. "It can't be," said Mary Ashwoode, while her very heart sank within her. "Oh! Flora, Flora--girl, don't say that." "It is indeed, my lady--as sure as I'm a living soul, it is so," replied she fearfully; "and it was wide open when I came up. Oh! blessed hour! my lady, what are we to do?" "I will try; I will see; perhaps you are mistaken. God grant you may be," said the young lady, making her way to the door which opened on to the lobby. She reached it--turned the handle--pressed it with all her feeble strength, but in vain; it was indeed securely locked upon the outside; her project of escape was baffled at the very outset, and with a heart-sickening sense of terror and dismay--such as she had never felt before--she returned with her attendant to her chamber. A night, sleepless, except for a few brief and fevered slumbers, crowded with terrors, passed heavily away, and the morning found Mary Ashwoode, pale, nervous, and feverish. She resolved, at whatever hazard, to endeavour to induce one of the new servants to convey her letter to Major O'Leary. The detection of this attempt could at worst result in nothing worse than to precipitate whatever mischief Blarden and his confederates had plotted, and which would if not so speedily, at all events as surely overtake her, were no such attempt made. "Flora," said she, "I am resolved to try this chance, I fear me it is but a poor one; you, however, my poor girl, must not be compromised should it fail; you must not be exposed by your faithfulness to the vengeance of these villains; do you go into the next room, and I will try what may be done." So saying, she rang the bell, and in a few minutes it was answered by the same man who had obeyed her summons on the day before. The man, although arrayed in livery, had by no means the dapper air of a professed footman, and possessed rather a villainous countenance than otherwise; he stood at the door with one hand fumbling at the handle, while he asked with an air half gruff and half awkward what she wanted. She sat in silence for a minute like the enchanter whose spells have been for the first time answered by the appearance of the familiar; too much agitated and affrighted to utter her mandate; with a violent effort she mastered her trepidation, and with an appearance of self-possession and carelessness which she was far from feeling, she said,-- "Can you, my good man, find a trusty messenger to carry a letter for me to a friend in Dublin?" The man remained silent for some seconds, twisted his mouth into several strange contortions, and looked very hard indeed at her. At length he said, closing the door at the same time, and speaking in a low key,-- "Well, I don't say but I _might_ find one, but there's a great many things would make it very costly; maybe you could not afford to pay him?" "I could--I would--see here," and she took a diamond ring from her finger; "this is a diamond; it is of value--convey but this letter safely and it is yours." The man took the ring from the table where she laid it, and examined it curiously. "It's a pretty ring--it is," said he, removing it a little from his eye, and turning it in different directions so as to make it flash and sparkle in the light, "it _is_ a pretty ring, rayther small for my fingers, though--it's a real diamond?" "It is indeed, valuable--worth forty pounds at least," she replied. "Well, then, here goes, it's worth a bit of a risk," and so saying he deposited it carefully in a corner of his waistcoat pocket, "give me the letter now, ma'am." She handed him the letter, and he thrust it into the deepest abyss of his breeches pocket. "Deliver that letter but safely," said she, "and what I have given you shall be but the earnest of what's to come, it is important--urgent--execute but the mission truly, and I will not spare rewards." The man gave two short nods of huge significance, accompanied with a slight grunt. "I say again, let me but have assurance that the message has been done," repeated she, "and you shall have abundant reason to rejoice, above all things dispatch--and--and--_secrecy_." The man winked very hard with one eye, and at the same time with his crooked finger drew his nose so much on one side, that he seemed intent on removing that feature into exile somewhere about the region of his ear; and having performed this elegant and expressive pantomime for several seconds, he stooped forward, and in an emphatic whisper said,-- "_Ne-ver fear._" He then opened the door and abruptly made his exit, leaving poor Mary Ashwoode full of agitating hopes. CHAPTER LV. THE FEARFUL VISITANT. Two or three days had passed, during which Mary had ascertained the fact that every door affording egress from the house was kept constantly locked, and that the new servants, as well as Blarden and his companions, were perpetually on the alert, and traversing the lower apartments, so that even had the door of the mansion laid open it would have been impossible to attempt an escape without encountering some one of those whose chief object was to keep her in close confinement, perhaps the very man from whose presence her inmost soul shrank in terror--she felt, therefore, that she was as effectually and as helplessly a prisoner as if she lay in the dungeons of a gaol. Often again had she endeavoured to see the man to whom she had confided her letter to Major O'Leary, but in vain; her summons was invariably answered by the others, and fearing to excite suspicion, she, of course, did not inquire for him, and so, after a time, desisted from her endeavours. Her window commanded a partial view of the old shaded avenue, and hour after hour would she sit at her casement, watching in vain for the longed-for appearance of her uncle, and listening, as fruitlessly, for the clang of his horse's hoofs upon the stony court. "Oh! Flora, will he ever come?" she would exclaim, with a voice of anguish, "will he ever--ever come to deliver me from this horrible thraldom? I watch in vain, from the light of early dawn till darkness comes--I watch in vain, for the welcome sight of my friend--in vain--in vain I listen for the sound of his approach--heaven pity me, where shall I turn for hope--all--all have forsaken me--all that ever I loved have fallen from me, and left me desolate in this extremity--has he, too, my last friend, forsaken me--will they leave me here to misery--oh, that I might lay me down where head and heart are troubled no more, and be at rest in the cold grave. He'll never come--no--no--no--never." Then she would wring her hands, still gazing from the casement, and hopelessly sob and weep. She knew not why it was that Nicholas Blarden had suffered her, for a day or two, to be exempt from the dreaded intrusions of his hated presence. But this afforded her little comfort; she knew not how soon--at what moment--the monster might choose to present himself before her under circumstances of horror so dreadful as those of her present friendless and forsaken abandonment to his mercy--and when these imminent fears were for an instant hushed, a thousand agonizing thoughts, arising from the partial revelations of her late servant, Carey, occupied her mind. That the correspondence between her and O'Connor had been falsified--she dreaded, yet she hoped it might be true--she feared, yet prayed it might be so--and while the thought that others had wrought their estrangement, and that the coolness of indifference had not touched the heart of him she so fondly loved visited her mind, a thousand bright, but momentary hopes, fluttered her poor heart, and, for an instant, her dangers and her fears were all forgotten. The day had passed, and its broad, clear light had given place to the red, dusky glow of sunset, when Mary Ashwoode heard the measured tread of several persons approaching her room. With an instinctive consciousness of her peril, she started to her feet, while every tinge of colour fled entirely from her cheeks. "Flora--stay by me--oh, God, they are coming!" she said, and the words had hardly escaped her lips, when the door of the boudoir, in which she stood, was pushed open, and Nicholas Blarden, followed by Gordon Chancey, entered the room. There was in the countenance of Blarden none of his usual affectation of good humour; on the contrary, it wore a scowl of undisguised and formidable menace, the effect of which was enhanced by the baleful significance of the malignant glance which he fixed upon her, and as he stood there biting his lips in ominous silence, and gazing with savage, gloating eyes, upon the affrighted girl, it were not easy to imagine an apparition more intimidating and hideous. Even Chancey seemed a little uneasy in the anticipation of what was coming, and the sallow face of the barrister looked more than usually sallow, and his glittering eyes more glossy than ever. "Go out of the room, _you_--do you mind," said Blarden, grimly, addressing Flora Guy, who had placed herself a little in advance of her young mistress, and who stood mute and thunderstruck, looking upon the two intruders--"are you palsied, or what--quit the room when I command you, you brimstone fool;" and he clutched her by the shoulder, and thrust her headlong out of the chamber, flinging the door to, with a crash that made the walls ring again. "Listen to me and mind me, and weigh my words, or you'll rue it," said he, with a tremendous oath, addressing himself to the speechless and terrified lady. "I have a bit of information to give you, and then a bit of advice after it; you must know it's my intention we shall be married; mind me, _married_ to-morrow evening; I know you don't like it; but _I_ do, and that's enough for my purpose; and whenever I make my mind up to a thing, there is not that power in earth, or heaven, or hell, to turn me from it. I was always considered a tough sort of a chap when I was in earnest about anything; and I can tell you I'm mighty well in earnest here; and now you may as well know how completely I have you under my thumb; there is not a servant in the house that does not belong to me; there is not a door in the house but the key of it is in my keeping; there is not a word spoken in the house but I hear it, nor a thing done that I don't know of it, and _here's your letter for you_," he shouted, and flung her letter to Major O'Leary open before her on the table. "How dare you tamper with my servant's honesty? how _dare_ you?" thundered he, with a stamp upon the floor which made the ornaments on the cabinet dance and jingle; "but mind how you try it again--beware; mind how you offer to bribe them again; I give you fair warning; you're my property now--to do what I like with, just as much as my horse or my dog; and if you _won't_ obey me, why I'll find a way to _make_ you; to-morrow evening I'll have a parson here, and we'll be buckled; make no rout about it, and it will be better for you, for whatever you do or say, if I had to get you into a strait-waistcoat and clap a plaister over your mouth to keep you quiet, married we shall be; husband and wife, and plenty of witnesses to vouch for it; do you understand me, and no mistake; and if you're foolish enough to make a row about it, I'll tell you what I'll do in such a case," and he fixed his eyes with a still more horrible expression upon her. "I have a particular friend, do you mind--a very obliging, particular old friend that's a mad-doctor; do you hear me; not a very lucky one to be sure, for he has made devilish few cures; a mad-doctor, do you mind?--and I'll have him to reside here and superintend your treatment; do you hear me? don't stand gaping there like an idiot; do you hear me?" Blarden during this address had advanced into the room and stood by the little table, leaning his knuckles upon it, and stooping forward and advancing his menacing and hideous face, so as to diminish still further the intervening distance, when, all on a sudden, like a startled bird, she darted across the room, and ere they had time to interpose, had opened the door, and was half-way across the lobby; she passed Flora Guy, who was sobbing at the door with her apron to her eyes, and at the head of the stairs beheld Sir Henry Ashwoode, no less confounded at the rencounter than was she herself. "My brother! my brother!" she shrieked, and threw herself fainting into his arms. Spite of all that was base in his character, the young man was so shocked and confounded that he turned pale as death, and speech and recollection for a moment forsook him. Almost at the same instant Chancey and Blarden were at his side. "What the devil ails you?" said Blarden, furiously, addressing Ashwoode, "what do you stand there hugging her for, you white-faced idiot?" Ashwoode's lips moved; but he could not speak, and the senseless burden still lay in his arms. "Let her go, will you, you d----d oaf? take hold of the girl, Chancey, and you, you idiot, come here and lend a hand; carry her into her room, and mind, sweet lips, keep the key in your pocket; and if you want help tatter the bells; get down, will you, you moon-struck fool?" he continued, addressing Ashwoode; "what do you stand there for, with your whitewashed face?" Ashwoode, scarcely knowing what he did, staggered down the stairs and made his way to the parlour, where he sat gasping, with his face buried in his hands. Meanwhile, with many a meek expression of pity, the lawyer assisted Flora Guy in bearing the inanimate body of her mistress into the chamber, where, in happy unconsciousness, she lay under the tender care of her humble friend and servant. Blarden and Chancey having accomplished the object of their mission, departed to the lower regions to enjoy whatever good cheer Morley Court afforded. CHAPTER LVI. EBENEZER SHYCOCK. In pursuance of the arrangements which Mr. Blarden had, on the evening before, announced to his intended victim, Gordon Chancey was despatched early the next morning to engage the services of a clergyman for the occasion. He knew pretty well how to choose his man, and for the most part, when a plot was to be executed, in theatrical phrase, _cast_ the parts well. He proceeded leisurely to the city, and sauntering through the streets, found himself at length in Saint Patrick's Close; beneath the shadow of the old Cathedral he turned down a narrow and deserted lane and stopped before a dingy, miserable little shop, over whose doorway hung a panel with the dusky and faded similitude of two great keys crossed, now scarcely discernible through the ancient dust and soot. The shop itself was a chaotic depository of old locks, holdfasts, chisels, crowbars, and in short, of rusty iron in almost every conceivable shape. Chancey entered this dusky shop, and accosting a very grimed and rusty-looking little boy who was, with a file, industriously employed in converting a kitchen candlestick into a cannon, inquired,-- "I say, my good boy, does the Reverend Doctor Ebenezer Shycock stop here yet?" "Aye, does he," said the youth, inspecting the visitor with a broad and leisurely stare, while he wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Up the stairs, is it?" demanded Chancey. "Aye, the garrets," replied the boy. "And mind the hole in the top lobby," he shouted after him, as he passed through the little door in the back of the shop and began to ascend the narrow stairs. He did "mind the hole in the top lobby" (a very necessary caution, by the way, as he might otherwise have been easily engulfed therein and broken either his neck or his leg, after descending through the lath and plaster, upon the floor of the landing-place underneath); and having thus safely reached the garret door, he knocked thereupon with his knuckles. "Come in," answered a female voice, not of the most musical quality, and Chancey accordingly entered. A dirty, sluttish woman was sitting by the window, knitting, and as it seemed, she was the only inmate of the room. "Is the Reverend Ebenezer at home, my dear?" inquired the barrister. "He is, and he isn't," rejoined the female, oracularly. "How's that, my good girl?" inquired Chancey. "He's in the house, but he's not good for much," answered she. "Has he been throwing up the little finger, my dear?" said Chancey, "he used to be rayther partial to brandy." "Brandy--brandy--who says brandy?" exclaimed a voice briskly from behind a sheet which hung upon a string so as to screen off one corner of the chamber. "Ay, ay, that's the word that'll waken you," said the woman. "Here's a gentleman wants to speak with you." "The devil there is!" exclaimed the clerical worthy, abruptly, while with a sudden chuck he dislodged the sheet which had veiled his presence, and disclosed, by so doing, the form of a stout, short, bull-necked man, with a mulberry-coloured face and twinkling grey eyes--one of them in deep mourning. He wore a greasy red night-cap and a very tattered and sad-coloured shirt, and was sitting upright in a miserable bed, the covering of which appeared to be a piece of ancient carpet. With one hand he scratched his head, while in the other he held the sheet which he had just pulled down. "How are you, Parson Shycock?" said Chancey; "how do you find yourself this morning, doctor?" "Tolerably well. But what is it you want with me? out with it, spooney. Any job in my line, eh?" inquired the clergyman. "Yes, indeed, doctor," replied Chancey, "and a very good job; you're wanted to marry a gentleman and a lady privately, not a mile and a half out of town, this evening; you'll get five guineas for the job, and I think that's no trifle." The parson mused, and scratched his head again. "Well," said he, "you must do a little job for me first. You can't be ignorant that we members of the Church militant are often hard up; and whenever I'm in a fix I pop wig, breeches, and gown, and take to my bed; you'll find the three articles in this lane, corner house--sign, three golden balls; present this docket--where the devil is it? ay, here; all right--present this along with two guineas, paid in advance on account of job: bring me the articles, and I'll get up and go along with you in a brace of shakes. And stay; didn't I hear some one talking of brandy? or--or was I dreaming? You may as well get in a half-pint, for I'm never the thing till I have some little moderate refreshment; so, dearly beloved, mizzle at once." "Dear me, dear me, doctor," said Chancey, "how can you think I'd go for to bring two guineas along with me?" "If you haven't the _rhino_, this is no place for you, my fellow-sinner," rejoined the couple-beggar; "and if you _have_, off with you and deliver the togs out of pop. You wouldn't have a clergyman walk the streets without breeches, eh, dearly beloved cove?" "Well, well, but you're a wonderful man," rejoined Chancey, with a faint smile. "I suppose, then, I must do it; so give me the docket, and I'll be here again as soon as I can." "And do you mind me, you stray sheep, you, don't forget the lush," added the pastor. "I'm very desirous to wet my whistle; my mums, by the hokey, is as dry as a Dutch brick. Good-bye to you, and do you mind, be back here in the twinkling of a brace of bed-posts." With this injunction, and bearing the crumpled document, which the reverend divine had given him, as his credentials with the pawnbroker, Mr. Chancey cautiously lounged down the crazy stairs. "I say, my nutty Nancy," observed the parson, after a long yawn and a stretch, addressing the female who sat at the window, "that chap's made of money. I had a pint with him once in Clarke's public--round the corner there. His name's Chancey, and he does half the bills in town--a regular Jew chap." So saying, the Reverend Ebenezer Shycock, LL.D., unceremoniously rolled himself out of bed and hobbled to a crazy deal box, in which were deposited such articles of attire as had not been transmitted to the obliging proprietor of the neighbouring three golden balls. While the reverend divine was kneeling before this box, and, with a tenderness suited to their frail condition, removing the few scanty articles of his wardrobe and laying them reverently upon a crazy stool beside him, Mr. Chancey returned, bearing the liberated decorations of the doctor's person, as also a small black bottle. "Oh, dear me, doctor," said Chancey, "but I'm glad to see you're stirring. Here's the things." "And the--the lush, eh?" inquired the clergyman, peering inquisitively round Chancey's side to have a peep at the bottle. "Yes, and the lush too," said the barrister. "Well, give me the breeches," said the doctor, with alacrity, clutching those essential articles and proceeding to invest his limbs therein. "And, Nancy, a sup of water and a brace of cups." A cracked mug and a battered pewter goblet made their appearance, and, along with the ruin of a teapot which contained the pure element, were deposited on a chair--for tables were singularly scarce in the reverend doctor's establishment. "Now, my beloved fellow-sinner, mix like a Trojan!" exclaimed the divine; "and take care, take care, pogey aqua, don't drown it with water; chise it, _chise_ it, man, that'll do." With these words he grasped the vessel, nodded to Chancey, and directing his two grey eyes with a greedy squint upon the liquor as it approached his lips, he quaffed it at a single draught. Without waiting for an invitation, which Chancey thought his clerical acquaintance might possibly forget, the barrister mingled some of the same beverage for his own private use, and quietly gulped it down; seeing which, and dreading Mr. Chancey's powers, which he remembered to have already seen tested at "Clarke's public," the learned divine abstractedly inverted the brandy bottle into his pewter goblet, and shedding upon it an almost imperceptible dew from the dilapidated teapot, he terminated the _symposium_ and proceeded to finish his toilet. This was quickly done, and Mr. Gordon Chancey and the Reverend Ebenezer Shycock--two illustrious and singularly well-matched ornaments of their respective professions--proceeded arm in arm, both redolent of grog, to the nearest coach stand, where they forthwith supplied themselves with a vehicle; and while Mr. Chancey pretty fully instructed his reverend companion in the precise nature of the service required of him, and, as far as was necessary, communicated the circumstances of the whole case, they traversed the interval which separated Dublin city from the manor of Morley Court. CHAPTER LVII. THE CHAPLAIN'S ARRIVAL AT MORLEY COURT--THE KEY--AND THE BOOZE IN THE BOUDOIR. The hall door was opened to the summons of the two gentlemen by no less a personage than Nicholas Blarden himself, who, having carefully locked it again, handed the key to his accomplice, Gordon Chancey. "Here, take it, Gordy, boy," exclaimed he, "I make you porter for the term of the honeymoon. Keep the gates well, old boy, and never let the keys out of your pocket unless I tell you. And so," continued he, treating the Reverend Ebenezer Shycock to a stare which took in his whole person, "you have caught the doctor and landed him fairly. Doctor--what's your name? no matter--it's a delightful turn-up for a sinner like me to have the heavenly consolation of your pious company. Follow me in here; I dare say your reverence would not object to a short interview with the brandy flask, or something of the kind--even saints must wet their whistles now and again." So saying, Blarden led the way into the parlour. "Here, guzzle away, old gentleman, there's plenty of the stuff here," said Blarden, "only beware how you make a beast of yourself. You mustn't tie up your red rag, do you mind? We'll want you to stand and read; and if you just keep senses enough for that, you may do whatever you like with the rest." The clergyman nodded, and with a single sweep of his grey eyes, took in the contents of the whole table. His shaking hand quickly grasped the neck of the brandy flask, and he filled out and quaffed a comforting bumper. "Now, take it easy, do, or, by Jove, you'll not _keep_ till evening," said Blarden. "Chancey, have an eye on the parson, for his mind's so intent on heaven that he may possibly forget where he is and what he's doing. After dinner, Ashwoode and I have to go into town--some matters that must be wound up before the evening's entertainment begins--we'll be out, however, at eight o'clock or so. And mind this," he continued, gripping the barrister's shoulder in his hand with an energizing pressure, and speaking into his ear to secure attention, "you know that little room upstairs wherein we had the bit of chat with my lady love--the--the boudoir, I think they call it--now, mind me well--when the dusk comes on, do you and his reverence there take your pipes and your brandy, or whatever else you're amusing yourselves with at the time, and sit in that same room together, so that not a mouse can cross the floor unknown to you. Don't forget this, for we can't be too sharp. Do you hear me, old Lucifer?" "Never fear, never fear," rejoined Mr. Chancey. "The Reverend Ebenezer and I will spend the evening there--and, indeed, I declare to God, it's a very neat little room, so it is, for a quiet pipe and a pot of sack." "Well, that's a point settled," rejoined Blarden. "And do you mind me, don't let that beastly old sot knock himself up before we come home. Do you hear me, old scarecrow," he continued, poking the reverend doctor somewhere about the region of the abdomen with the hilt of his sword, which he was adjusting at his side, and addressing himself to that gentleman, "if I find you drunk when I return this evening, I'll make it your last bout--I'll tap the brandy, old tickle pitcher, and stave the cask, and send you to seek your fortune in the other world. Mind my words--I'm not given to joking when I have real business on hand; and faith, you'll find me as ready to _do_ as to promise." So saying, he left the room. "A rum cove, that, upon my little word," said the Reverend Ebenezer Shycock, filling out another bumper of his beloved cordial. "Take the bottle away at once; lock it up, my fellow-worm, lock it up, or I'll be at it again. Lock it up while I have this glass in my hand, or I must have another, and that might be--_might_, I say--_possibly_ might--but d----n it, no, it can't--I will have one more." And so saying, with desperate resolution, he quaffed what he had already in his hand and filled out another. Chancey did not wait till he had repeated his mandate, but quietly removed the seductive flask and placed it beyond the reach and the sight of his clerical friend, who, feeling himself a little pleasant, sat down before the hearth, and in a voice whose tone nearly resembled that of a raven labouring under an affection of the chest, he chaunted through his nose, with many significant winks and grimaces, a ditty at that time in high acceptance among the votaries of vice and license, and whose words were such as even the 'Old St. Columbkill' would hardly have tolerated. This performance over--which, by the way, Chancey relished in his own quiet way with intense enjoyment--the reverend gentleman, composed himself for a doze for several hours, from which he aroused himself to eat and to drink a little more. Thus pleasantly the day wore on, until at length the sun descended in glory behind the far-off blue hills, and the pale twilight began to herald the approach of night. That day Mary Ashwoode appeared to have lost all energy of thought and feeling; she lay pale and silent upon her bed, seeming scarcely conscious even of the presence of her faithful attendant. From the moment of her yesterday's interview with Blarden, and the meeting with her brother, she had been thus despairing and stupefied. Flora Guy sat in the window, sometimes watching the pale face of the wretched lady, and at others looking out upon the old woodlands and the great avenue, darkened among its double rows of huge old limes. As the day wore on she suddenly exclaimed,-- "Oh, my lady, here's a gentleman coming with Mr. Chancey up the avenue, I see them between the trees, and the coach driving away." "Can it--_can_ it be?" exclaimed Mary, starting wildly up in the bed--"is it he?" "It's a little stout gentleman, with a red pimply face--they're talking under the window now, my lady; he has a band on, and a black gown across his arm--as sure as daylight, my lady--he is--blessed hour; he _is_ a parson." Mary Ashwoode did not speak, but the momentary flash of hope faded from her face, and was succeeded by a paleness so deadly that lips and cheeks looked bloodless as the marble lineaments of a statue; in dull and silent despair she sank again where she had lain before. "Don't fear them, my lady," said the poor girl, placing herself by the bedside where, more like a corpse than a living being, her hapless mistress lay; "I will not leave you, and though they may threaten, they dare not hurt you--don't fear them, my lady." The blanched cheeks and evident excitement of the honest maiden, however, too clearly belied her words of encouragement. Twice or thrice the girl, in the course of the day, locking the door of her mistress's chamber, according to the orders of Nicholas Blarden and his confederates, but less in obedience to them than for the sake of _her_ security, ran downstairs to learn whatever could be gathered from the servants of the intended movements of the conspirators; each time, as she descended the stairs, the parlour bell was rung, and a servant encountered her before she had well reached the hall; and Mr. Chancey, too, with his hands in his pockets, and his cunning eyes glittering suspiciously through their half-closed lids, would meet and question her before she passed: were ever sentinels more vigilant--was ever _surveillance_ more jealous and complete? During these excursions she picked up whatever was to be learned of the intentions of those in whose power her young mistress now helplessly and despairingly lay. "Sir Henry Ashwoode and Mr. Blarden is gone to town together, my lady," said the maid, in a whisper, for she felt the vigilance of Chancey and his creatures might pursue her even to the chamber where she stood; "they'll not be out till about eight o'clock, my lady, at the soonest, maybe not till near nine or ten; at any rate it will be dark long before they come, and God knows what may turn up before then--don't lose heart, my lady--don't give up." In vain, entirely in vain, however, were the words of hope and courage spoken; they fell cold and dead upon the palsied senses and stricken heart of despairing terror. Mary Ashwoode scarcely understood, and seemed not even to have heard them. As the evening approached the poor girl made another exploring ramble, in the almost desperate speculation that she might possibly hit upon something which might suggest even a hint of some mode of escape. Having encountered Chancey and one of the serving men, as usual, and passed her examination, she crossed the large old hall, and without any definite pre-determination, entered Sir Henry's study, where he and Blarden had been sitting, and carelessly thrown upon the table a large key. For a moment she could scarcely believe her eyes, and her heart bounded high with hope as she grasped it quickly and rolled it in her apron--"Could it be the key of one of the doors through which alone liberty was to be regained?" With a deliberate step, which strangely belied her restless anxiety, she passed the door within which Chancey was sitting, and ascended to the young lady's chamber. "My lady, is this it?" exclaimed she, almost breathless with excitement, and holding the key before the lady's face. Mary Ashwoode with a momentary eagerness glanced at it. "No, no," said she, faintly, "I know all the keys of the outer doors; it was I who brought them to my father every night; but this is none of them--no, no, no, no." There was a dulness and apathy upon the young lady, and a seeming insensibility to everything--to hope, to danger--to all, in short, which had intensely interested every faculty of mind and feeling but the day before--which frightened and dismayed her humble friend. "Don't, my lady--don't give up--oh, sure you won't lose heart entirely; see if I won't think of something--never mind, if I don't think of some way or another yet." The red discoloured tints of evening were now fading from the landscape, and rapidly giving place to the dim twilight--the harbinger of a night of dangers, terrors, and adventures; and as the poor maiden sat by the young lady's side, with a heart full of dark and ominous foreboding, she heard the door of the outer chamber--the little boudoir which we have often had occasion to mention--opened, and two persons entered it. "They are here--they are come. Oh, God! they are here," exclaimed Mary Ashwoode, clasping her small hand in terror round the girl's wrist. "The door's locked, my lady," said the girl, scarcely less terrified than her mistress; "they can't come in without letting us know first.' So saying, she ran to the door and peeped through the keyhole, to reconnoitre the party, and then stepping on tip-toe to the young lady, who, more dead than alive, was sitting by the bed-side, she said in a whisper,-- "Who do you think it is, ma'am? blessed hour! my lady, who should it be but that lawyer gentleman--that Mr. Chancey, and the old parson--they are settling themselves at the table." Mr. Gordon Chancey and the Reverend Ebenezer Shycock were determined to make themselves comfortable in their new quarters. Accordingly they heaped wood and turf upon the expiring fire, and compelled the servant to ply the kitchen bellows, until the hearth crackled and roared again; then drawing the table to the fire-side--a pretty little work-table of poor Mary's--now covered with brandy-flasks, pieces of tobacco, pipes, and the other apparatus of their coarse debauch--the two worthies, illuminated by a pair of ponderous wax-candles, and by the blaze of a fire, and having drawn the curtains, sat themselves down and commenced their jolly vigils. Chancey possessed the rare faculty of preserving his characteristic cunning throughout every phase and stage of intoxication short of absolute insensibility; on the present occasion, however, he was resolved not to put this convenient accomplishment to the test. The goodwill of Nicholas Blarden was too lucrative a possession to be lightly parted with, and he could not afford to hazard it by too free an indulgence upon the present important occasion; he therefore conducted his assaults upon the bottle with a very laudable abstemiousness. Not so, however, his clerical companion; he, too, had, in connection with his convivial frailties, a compensating gift of his own; he possessed, in an eminent degree, the power of recovering his intellects upon short notice from the influence of brandy, and of descending almost at a single bound from the loftiest altitude of drunken inspiration to the dull insipid level of ordinary sobriety; all he asked was fifteen minutes to bring himself to. He used to say with becoming pride--"If I could have done it in _ten_, I'd have been a bishop by this time; but _dis aliter visum_; I had not time one forenoon; being wapper-eyed, I was five minutes short of my allowance to get right, consequently officiated oddly--fell on my back on the way out, and couldn't get up; but what signifies it? I'm better off, as matters stand, ten to one; so here goes, my fellow-sinner, to it again; one brimmer more." The reverend doctor, therefore, was much less cautious than his companion, and soon began to exhibit very unequivocal symptoms of a declension in his intellectual and physical energies, and a more than corresponding elevation in his hilarious spirits. "I say," said Chancey, "my good man, you'd better stop; you have too much in as it is; they'll be here before half-an-hour, and if Mr. Blarden finds you this way, I declare to God I think he'll crack your neck down the staircase." "Well, dearly beloved," said the clerical gentleman, "I believe you _are_ right; I'll bring myself to. I _am_ a little heavy-eyed or so; all I ask for is a towel and cold water." So saying, with many a screw of the lips, and many a hiccough, he made an effort to rise, but tumbled back--with an expression of the most heavenly benevolence--into his chair, knocking his head with an audible sound upon the back of it, and at the same time overturning one of the candles. "Pull the bell, dearly beloved," said he, with a smile and a hiccough--"a basin of water and a towel." "Devil broil you, for a drunken beast," said Chancey, seriously alarmed at the condition of the couple-beggar; "he'll never be fit for his work to-night." "Fifteen minutes, neither more nor less," hiccoughed the divine, with the same celestial smile--"towel, basin of cold water, and fifteen minutes." Chancey did procure the cold water and a napkin, which, being laid before the clergyman, he proceeded with much deliberation, while various expressions of stupendous solemnity and beaming benevolence flitted in beautiful alternations across his expressive countenance, to prepare them for use. He doffed his wig, and first bathing his head, face, and temples completely in the cool liquid, saturated the towel likewise therein, and wound it round his shorn head in the fashion of a Turkish turban; having accomplished which feat, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and became, to all intents and purposes, for the time being, stone dead. Leaving his reverend companion undisturbed to the operation of his own hydropathic treatment, Gordon Chancey drew his seat near to the fire, and filling his pipe anew with tobacco, leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs, and more than half closing his eyes, prepared himself luxuriously for what he called "a raal elegant draw of particular pigtail." CHAPTER LVIII. THE SIGNAL. Flora Guy peeped eagerly through the keyhole of her lady's chamber into the little apartment in which the two boon companions were seated. After reconnoitring for a very long time, she moved lightly to her mistress's side, and said, in a low but distinct tone,-- "Now, my lady, you must get up and rouse yourself--for God's sake, mistress dear, shake off the heaviness that's over you, and we have a chance left still." "Are they not in the next room to us?" inquired Mary. "Yes, my lady," replied the maid, "but the parson gentleman is drunk or asleep, and Mr. Chancey is there alone--and--and has the four keys beside him on the table; don't be frightened, my lady, do you stay quite quiet, and I'll go into the room." Mary Ashwoode made no answer, but pressed the poor girl's hand in her cold fingers, and without moving, almost without breathing, awaited the result. Flora Guy, meanwhile, opened the door, and passed into the outer apartment, assuming, as she did so, an air of easy and careless indifference. Chancey turned as she entered the room, fanning the smoke of his tobacco pipe aside with his hand, and eying her with a jealous glance. "Well, my little girl," said he, "and what makes you leave your young lady, my dear?" "An' is a body never to get an instant minute to themselves?" rejoined she, with an indignant toss of her head; "why then, I tell you what it is, Mr. Chancey, I'm tired to death, so I am, sitting in that little room the whole blessed day, and not a word, good or bad, will the young lady say--she's gone stupid like." "Is the door locked?" said Chancey, suspiciously, and at the same time rising and approaching the young lady's chamber. As he did so, Flora Guy, availing herself instantly of this averted position, snatched up, without waiting to choose, one of the four great keys which lay upon the table, and replaced it dexterously with that which she had but a short time before shown to her mistress; in doing so, however, spite of all her caution, a slight clank was audible. "Well, _is_ it locked?" inquired the damsel, hoping by the loud tone in which she uttered the question to drown the suspicious sounds which threatened her schemes with instant detection. "Yes, it is locked," rejoined Chancey, glancing quickly at the keys; "but what do you want there? move off from my place, will you?" and shambling to the table he hastily gathered the four keys in his grasp, and thrust them into his deep coat pocket. "You're in a mighty quare humour, so you are, Mr. Chancey," said the girl, affecting a saucy tone, through which, had his ear been listening for the sound, he might have detected the quaver of extreme agitation, "you usedn't to be so cross by no means at the Columbkil, but mighty pleasant, so you used." "Well, my little girl," said Chancey, whose suspicions were now effectually quieted, "I declare to God you're the first that ever said I was bad tempered, so you are--will you have something to drink?" "What have you there, Mr. Chancey?" inquired she. "This is brandy, my little girl, and this is sack, dear," rejoined Chancey, "both of them elegant; you must have whichever you like--which will you choose, dear?" "Well, then, I'll have a little drop of the sack, mulled, I thank you, Mr. Chancey," replied she. "There's nothing to mull it in here, my little girl," objected the barrister. "Oh, but I'll get it in a minute though," replied she, "I'll run down for a saucepan." "Well, dear, run away," replied he, "but don't be long, for Miss Ashwoode might want you, my little girl, and it wouldn't do if you were out of the way, you know." Without waiting to hear the end of this charge, Flora Guy ran down the staircase, and speedily returned with the utensil required. "Maybe I'd better go in for a minute first, and see if she wants me," suggested the girl. "Very well, my dear," replied Chancey. And accordingly, she turned the key in the chamber door, closed it again, and stood by the young lady's side; such was her agitation that for three or four seconds she could not speak. "My lady," at length she said, "I have one of the keys--when I go in next I'll leave your room door unlocked, only closed just, and no more--the lobby door is ajar--I left it that way this very minute; and when you hear me saying 'the sack's upset!'--do you open your door, and cross the room as quick as light, and out on the lobby, and stop by the stairs, my lady, and I'll follow you as fast as I can. Here, my lady," continued the poor girl, bringing a small box from her mistress's toilet; "your rings, my lady--they'll be wanted--mind, your rings, my lady--there is the little case, keep it in your pocket; if we escape, my lady, they'll be wanted--mind, Mr. Chancey has ears like needle points. Keep up your heart, my lady, and in the name of God we'll try this chance." "Into His hands I commit myself," said the young lady, with a tone and air of more firmness and energy than she had shown for days; "my heart is strengthened, my courage comes again--oh, thank God, I am equal to this dreadful hour." Flora Guy made a gesture of silence, and then, opening the door briskly, and shutting it again with an ostentatious noise, and drawing the key from the lock, she crossed the room to where Chancey, who had watched her entrance, was sitting. "Well, my dear," said he, "how is that delicate young lady in there?" "Why, she's raythur bad, I'm afraid," rejoined the girl; "she's the whole day long in a sort of a heavy dulness like--she don't seem to mind anything." "So much the better, my dear," said Chancey, "she'll be the less inclined to gad, or to be troublesome--come, mix the spices and the sugar, dear, and settle the liquor in the saucepan--you want some refreshment, so you do, for I declare to God, I never saw anyone so pale in all my life as you are this minute." "I'll not be long so," said the girl, affecting a tone of briskness, and proceeding to mingle the ingredients in the little saucepan, "for I think if I was dead itself, let alone a little bit tired, a cup of mulled sack would cheer me up again." So saying, she placed the little saucepan on the bar. "Is the parson asleep?" inquired she. "Indeed, my dear, I'm very much afraid it's tipsy he is," drawled Chancey, demurely, "take care of that clergyman, my dear, for indeed I'm afraid he has very loose conduct." "Will I blacken his nose with a burned cork?" inquired she. "Oh! no, my little girl," replied Chancey, with a tranquil chuckle, and turning his sleepy grey eyes upon the apoplectic visage of the stupefied drunkard who sat bolt upright before him; "no, no, we don't know the minute he may be wanted; he'll have to perform the ceremony very soon, my dear; and Mr. Blarden, if he took the fancy, would think nothing of braining half a dozen of us. I declare to God he wouldn't." "Well, Mr. Chancey, will you mind the little saucepan for one minute," said she, "while I'm putting a bit of turf or a few sticks under it." "Indeed I will," said he, turning his eyes lazily upon the utensil, but doing nothing more to secure it. Flora Guy accordingly took some wood, and, pretending to arrange the fire, overturned the wine; the loud hiss of the boiling liquid, and the sudden cloud of whirling steam and ashes, ascending toward the ceiling, and puffing into his face, half confounded the barrister, and at the same instant, Flora Guy, clapping her hands, and exclaimed with a shrill cry,-- "_The sack's upset! the sack's upset!_ lend a hand, Mr. Chancey--Mr. Chancey, do you hear?" and, while thus conjured, the barrister, in obedience to her vociferous appeal, made some indistinct passes at the saucepan with the poker, which he had grasped at the first alarm; the damsel, without daring to look directly where every feeling would have riveted her eyes, beheld a dark form glide noiselessly behind Chancey, and pass from the room. For the moment, so intense was her agony of anxiety, she felt upon the very point of fainting; in an instant more, however, she had recovered all her energies, and was bold and quick-witted as ever; one glance in the direction of the lady's chamber showed her the door slowly swinging open; fortunately the barrister was at the moment too much occupied with the extraction of the remainder of the saucepan from the fire, to have yet perceived the treacherous accident, one glance at which would have sealed their ruin, and Flora Guy, running noiselessly to the door, remedied the perilous disclosure by shutting it softly and quickly; and then, with much clattering of the key, and a good deal of pushing beside, forcing it open again, she passed into the room and spoke a little in a low tone, as if to her mistress; and then, returning, she locked the door of the then untenanted chamber in real earnest, and, crossing to Chancey, said:--"I wonder at you, so I do, Mr. Chancey; you frightened the young mistress half out of her wits; and I'm all over dust and ashes; I must run down and wash every inch of my face and hands, so I must; and here, Mr. Chancey, will you keep the key of the bed-room till I come back? afraid I might drop it; and don't let it out of your hands." [Illustration: "Glide noiselessly behind Chancey." _To face page 293._] "I will indeed, dear; but don't be long away," rejoined the barrister, extending his hand to receive the key of the now vacant chamber. So Flora Guy boldly walked forth upon the lobby, and closing the chamber door behind her, found herself in the vast old gallery, hung round with grim and antique portraits, and lighted only by the fitful beams of a clouded moon shining doubtfully through the stained glass of a solitary window. Mary Ashwoode awaited her approach, concealed in a small recess or niche in the wall, shrined like an image in the narrow enclosure of carved oak, not daring to stir, and with a heart throbbing as though it would burst. "My lady, are you there?" whispered the maid, scarce audibly; great nervous excitement renders the sense morbidly acute, and Mary Ashwoode heard the sound distinctly, faint though it was, and at some distance from her; she stepped falteringly from her place of concealment, and took the hand of her conductress in a grasp cold as that of death itself, and side by side they proceeded down the broad staircase. They had descended about half-way when a loud and violent ringing from the bell of the chamber where Chancey was seated made their very hearts bound with terror; they stood fixed and breathless on the stair where the fearful peal had first reached their ears. Again the summons came louder still, and at the same moment the sounds of steps approached from below, and the gleam of a candle quickly followed; Mary Ashwoode felt her ears tingle and her head swim with terror; she was on the point of sinking upon the floor. In this dreadful extremity her presence of mind did not forsake Flora Guy: disengaging her hand from that of her terrified mistress, she tripped lightly down the stairs to meet the person who was approaching--a turn in the staircase confronted them, and she saw before her the serving man whose treachery had already defeated Mary Ashwoode's hopes of deliverance. "What keeps you such a time answering the bell?" inquired she, saucily, "you needn't go up now, for I've got your message; bring up clean cups and a clean saucepan, for everything's destroyed with the dust and dirt Mr. Chancey's after kicking up; what did he do, do you think, but upsets the sack into the fire. Now be quick with the things, will you? the bell won't be easy one minute till they're done." "Give me a kiss, sweet lips," exclaimed the man, setting down his candle, "and I'll not be a brace of shakes about the message; come, you _must_," he continued, playfully struggling with the affrighted girl. "Well, do the message first, at any rate," said she, forcing herself, with some difficulty, from his grasp, as the bell rang a third time; "it will be a nice piece of business, so it will, if Mr. Chancey comes down and catches you here, pulling me about, so it will, you'll look well, won't you, when he's telling it to Mr. Blarden?--don't be a fool." The reiterated application to the bell had more effect upon the serving man than all her oratory, and muttering a curse or two, he ran down, determined, vindictively, to bring up soiled cups, and a dirty saucepan. The man had hardly departed, when the maid exclaimed, in a hurried whisper, "Come--come--quick--quick, for your life!" and with scarcely the interval of three seconds, they found themselves in the hall. "Here's the key, my lady; see which of the doors does it open," whispered she, exhibiting the key in the dusky and imperfect light. "Here--here--this way," said Mary Ashwoode, moving with weak and stumbling steps through a tiled lobby which opened upon the great hall, and thence along a narrow passage upon which several doors opened. "Here, here," she exclaimed, "this door--this--I cannot open it--my strength is gone--this is it--for God's sake, quickly." After two or three trials, Flora Guy succeeded in getting the key into the lock, and then exerting the whole strength of her two hands, with a hoarse jarring clang the bolt revolved, the door opened, and they stood upon the fresh and dewy sward, beneath the shadow of the old ivy-mantled walls. The girl locked the door upon the outside, fearful that its lying open should excite suspicion, and flung the key away into the thick weeds and brushwood. "Now, my lady, the shortest way to the high road?" inquired Flora in a hurried whisper, and supporting, as well as she could, the tottering steps of her mistress, "how do you feel, my lady? Don't lose heart now, a few minutes more and you will be safe--courage--courage, my lady." "I am better now, Flora," said Mary faintly, "much better--the cool air refreshes me." As she thus spoke, her strength returned, her step grew fleeter and firmer, and she led the way round the irregular ivy-clothed masses of the dark old building and through the stately trees that stood gathered round it. Over the unequal sward they ran with the light steps of fear, and under the darksome canopy of the vast and ancient linden-trees, gliding upon the smooth grass like two ghosts among the chequered shade and dusky light. On, on they sped, scarcely feeling the ground beneath their feet as they pursued their terrified flight; they had now gained the midway distance in the ancient avenue between the mansion and great gate, and still ran noiselessly and fleetly along, when the quick ear of Mary Ashwoode caught the distant sounds of pursuit. "Flora--Flora--oh, God! we are followed," gasped the young lady. "Stop an instant, my lady," rejoined the maid, "let us listen for a second." They did pause, and distinctly, between them and the old mansion, they heard, among the dry leaves with which in places the ground was strewn, the tread of steps pursuing at headlong speed. "It is--it is, I hear them," said Mary distractedly. "Now, my lady, we must run--run for our lives; if we but reach the road before them, we may yet be saved; now, my lady, for God's sake don't falter--don't give up." And while the sounds of pursuit grew momentarily louder and more loud, they still held their onward way with throbbing hearts, and eyes almost sightless with fatigue and terror. CHAPTER LIX. HASTE AND PERIL. The rush of feet among the leaves grew every moment closer and closer upon them, and now they heard the breathing of their pursuer--the sounds came near--nearer--they approached--they reached them. "Oh, God! they are up with us--they are upon us," said Mary, stumbling blindly onward, and at the same moment she felt something laid heavily upon her shoulder--she tottered--her strength forsook her, and she fell helplessly among the branching roots of the old trees. "My lady--oh, my lady--thank God, it's only the dog," cried Flora Guy, clapping her hands in grateful ecstasies; and at the same time, Mary felt a cold nose thrust under her neck and her chin and cheeks licked by her old favourite, poor Rover. More dead than alive, she raised herself again to her feet, and before her sat the great old dog, his tail sweeping the rustling leaves in wide circles, and his good-humoured tongue lolling from among his ivory fangs. With many a frisk and bound the fine dog greeted his long-lost mistress, and seemed resolved to make himself one of the party. "No, no, poor Rover," said Mary, hurriedly--"we have rambled our last together--home, Rover, home." The old dog looked wonderingly in the face of his mistress. "Home, Rover--home," repeated she, and the noble dog did credit to his good training by turning dejectedly, and proceeding at a slow, broken trot homeward, after stopping, however, and peeping round his shoulder, as though in the hope of some signal relentingly inviting his return. Thus relieved of their immediate fears, the two fugitives, weak, exhausted, and breathless, reached the great gate, and found themselves at length upon the high road. Here they ventured to check their speed, and pursue their way at a pace which enabled them to recover breath and strength, but still fearfully listening for any sound indicative of pursuit. The moon was high in the heavens, but the dark, drifting scud was sailing across her misty disc, and giving to her light the character of ceaseless and ever varying uncertainty. The road on which they walked was that which led to Dublin city, and from each side was embowered by tall old trees, and rudely fenced by unequal grassy banks. They had proceeded nearly half-a-mile without encountering any living being, when they heard, suddenly, a little way before them, the sharp clang of horses' hoofs upon the road, and shortly after, the moon shining forth for a moment, revealed distinctly the forms of two horsemen approaching at a slow trot. "As sure as light, my lady, it's they," said Flora Guy, "I know Sir Henry's grey horse--don't stop, my lady--don't try to hide--just draw the hood over your head, and walk on steady with me, and they'll never mind us, but pass on." With a throbbing heart, Mary obeyed her companion, and they walked side by side by the edge of the grassy bank and under the tall trees--the distance between them and the two mounted figures momentarily diminishing. "I say he's as lame as a hop-jack," cried the well-known voice of Nicholas Blarden, as they approached--"hav'n't you an eye in your head, you mouth, you--look there--another false step, by Jove." Just at this moment the girls, looking neither to the right nor left, and almost sinking with fear, were passing them by. "Stop you, one of you, will you?" said Blarden, addressing them, and at the same time reining in his horse. Flora Guy stopped, and making a slight curtsey, awaited his further pleasure, while Mary Ashwoode, with faltering steps and almost dead with terror, walked slowly on. "Have you light enough to see a stone in a horse's hoof, my dimber hen?--have you, I say?" "Yes, sir," faltered the girl, with another curtsey, and not venturing to raise her voice, for fear of detection. "Well, look into them all in turn, will you?" continued Blarden, "while I walk the beast a bit. Do you see anything? is there a stone there?--is there?" "No, sir," said she again, with a curtsey. "No, sir," echoed he--"but I say 'yes, sir,' and I'll take my oath of it. D----n it, it can't be a strain. Get down, Ashwoode, I say, and look to it yourself; these blasted women are fit for nothing but darning old stockings--get down, I say, Ashwoode." Without awaiting for any more formal dismissal, Flora Guy walked quickly on, and speedily overtook her companion, and side by side they continued to go at the same moderate pace, until a sudden turn in the road interposing trees and bushes between them and the two horsemen, they renewed their flight at the swiftest pace which their exhausted strength could sustain; and need had they to exert their utmost speed, for greater dangers than they had yet escaped were still to follow. Meanwhile Nicholas Blarden and Sir Henry Ashwoode mended their pace, and proceeded at a brisk trot toward the manor of Morley Court. Both rode on more than commonly silent, and whenever Blarden spoke, it was with something more than his usual savage moroseness. No doubt their rapid approach to the scene where their hellish cruelty and oppression were to be completed, did not serve either to exhilarate their spirits or to soothe the asperities of Blarden's ruffian temper. Now and then, indeed, he did indulge in a few flashes of savage exulting glee at his anticipated triumph over the hereditary pride of Sir Henry, against whom, with all a coward's rancour, he still cherished a "lodged hate," and in mortifying and insulting whom his kestrel heart delighted and rioted with joy. As they approached the ancient avenue, as if by mutual consent, they both drew bridle and reduced their pace to a walk. "You shall be present and give her away--do you mind?" said Blarden, abruptly breaking silence. "There's no need for that--surely there is none?" said Ashwoode. "Need or no need, it's my humour," replied Blarden. "I've suffered enough already in this matter," replied Sir Henry, bitterly; "there's no use in heaping gratuitous annoyances and degradation upon me." "Ho, ho, running rusty," exclaimed Blarden, with the harsh laugh of coarse insult--"running rusty, eh? I thought you were broken in by this time--paces learned and mouth made, eh?--take care, take care." "I say," repeated Ashwoode, impetuously, "you can have no object in compelling my presence, except to torment me." "Well, suppose I allow that--what then, eh?--ho, ho!" retorted Blarden. Sir Henry did not reply, but a strange fancy crossed his mind. "I say," resumed Blarden, "I'll have no argument about it; I choose it, and what I choose must be done--that's enough." The road was silent and deserted; no sound, save the ringing of their own horses' hoofs upon the stones, disturbed the stillness of the air; dark, ragged clouds obscured the waning moon, and the shadows were deepened further by the stooping branches of the tall trees which guarded the road on either side. Ashwoode's hand rested upon the pommel of his holster pistol, and by his side moved the wretch whose cunning and ferocity had dogged and destroyed him--with startling vividness the suggestion came. His eyes rested upon the dusky form of his companion, all calculations of consequences faded away from his remembrance, and yielding to the dark, dreadful influence which was upon him, he clutched the weapon with a deadly gripe. "What are you staring at me for?--am I a stone wall, eh?" exclaimed Blarden, who instinctively perceived something odd in Ashwoode's air and attitude, spite of the obscurity in which they rode. The spell was broken. Ashwoode felt as if awaking from a dream, and looked fearfully round, almost expecting to behold the visible presence of the principle of mischief by his side, so powerful and vivid had been the satanic impulse of the moment before. They turned into the great avenue through which so lately the fugitives had fearfully sped. "We're at home now," cried Blarden; "come, be brisk, will you?" And so saying, he struck Ashwoode's horse a heavy blow with his whip. The spirited animal reared and bolted, and finally started at a gallop down the broad avenue towards the mansion, and at the same pace Nicholas Blarden also thundered to the hall door. CHAPTER LX. THE UNTREASURED CHAMBER. Their obstreperous summons at the door was speedily answered, and the two cavaliers stood in the hall. "Well, all's right, I suppose?" inquired Blarden, tossing his gloves and hat upon the table. "Yes, sir," replied the servant, "all but the lady's maid; Mr. Chancey's been calling for her these five minutes and more, and we can't find her." "How's this--all the doors locked?" inquired Blarden vehemently. "Ay, sir, every one of them," replied the man. "Who has the keys?" asked Blarden. "Mr. Chancey, sir," replied the servant. "Did he allow them out of his keeping--did he?" urged Blarden. "No, sir--not a moment--for he was saying this very minute," answered the domestic, "he had them in his pocket, and the key of Miss Mary's room along with them; he took it from Flora Guy, the maid, scarce a quarter of an hour ago." "Then all _is_ right," said Blarden, while the momentary blackness of suspicion passed from his face, "the girl's in some hole or corner of this lumbering old barrack, but here comes Chancey himself, what's all the fuss about--who's in the upper room--the--the boudoir, eh?" he continued, addressing the barrister, who was sneaking downstairs with a candle in his hand, and looking unusually sallow. "The Reverend Ebenezer and one of the lads--they're sitting there," answered Chancey, "but we can't find that little girl, Flora Guy, anywhere." "Have you the keys?" asked Blarden. "Ay, dear me, to be sure I have, except the one that I gave to little Bat there, to let you in this minute. I have the three other keys; dear me--dear me--what could ail me?" And so saying, Chancey slapped the skirt of his coat slightly so as to make them jingle in his pocket. "The windows are all fast and safe as the wall itself--screwed down," observed Blarden, "let's see the keys--show them here." Chancey accordingly drew them from his pocket, and laid them on the table. "There's the three of them," observed he, calmly. "Have you no more?" inquired Blarden, looking rather aghast. "No, indeed, the devil a one," replied Chancey, thrusting his arm to the elbow in his coat pocket. "D--n me, but I think this is the key of the cellar," ejaculated Blarden, in a tone which energized even the apathetic lawyer, "come here, Ashwoode, what key's this?" "It _is_ the cellar key," said Ashwoode, in a faltering voice and turning very pale. "Try your pockets for another, and find it, or ----." The aposiopesis was alarming, and Blarden's direction was obeyed instantaneously. "I declare to God," said Chancey, much alarmed, "I have but the three, and that in the door makes four." "You d----d oaf," said Blarden, between his set teeth, "if you have botched this business, I'll let you know for what. Ashwoode, which of the keys is missing?" After a moment's hesitation, Ashwoode led the way through the passage which Mary and her companion had so lately traversed. "That's the door," said he, pointing to that through which the escape had been effected. "And what's this?" cried Blarden, shouldering past Sir Henry, and raising something from the ground, just by the door-post, "a handkerchief, and marked, too--it's the young lady's own--give me the key of the lady's chamber," continued he, in a low changed voice, which had, in the ears of the barrister, something more unpleasant still than his loudest and harshest tones--"give me the key, and follow me." He clutched it, and followed by the terror-stricken barrister, and by Sir Henry Ashwoode, he retraced his steps, and scaled the stairs with hurried and lengthy strides. Without stopping to glance at the form of the still slumbering drunkard, or to question the servant who sat opposite, on the chair recently occupied by Chancey, he strode directly to the door of Mary Ashwoode's sleeping apartment, opened it, and stood in an untenanted chamber. For a moment he paused, aghast and motionless; he ran to the bed--still warm with the recent pressure of his intended victim--the room was, indeed, deserted. He turned round, absolutely black and speechless with rage. As he advanced, the wretched barrister--the tool of his worst schemes--cowered back in terror. Without speaking one word, Blarden clutched him by the throat, and hurled him with his whole power backward. With tremendous force he descended with his head upon the bar of the grate, and thence to the hearthstone; there, breathless, powerless, and to all outward seeming a livid corpse, lay the devil's cast-off servant, the red blood trickling fast from ears, nose, and mouth. Not waiting to see whether Chancey was alive or dead, Mr. Blarden seized the brandy flask and dashed it in the face of the stupid drunkard--who, disturbed by the fearful hubbub, was just beginning to open his eyes--and leaving that reverend personage drenched in blood and brandy, to take care of his boon companion as best he might, Blarden strode down the stairs, followed by Ashwoode and the servants. "Get horses--horses all," shouted he, "to the stables--by Jove, it was they we met on the road--the two girls--quick to the stables--whoever catches them shall have his hat full of crowns." Led by Blarden, they all hurried to the stables, where they found the horses unsaddled. "On with the saddles--for your life be quick," cried Blarden, "four horses--fresh ones." While uttering his furious mandates, with many a blasphemous imprecation, he aided the preparations himself, and with hands that trembled with eagerness and rage, he drew the girths, and buckled the bridles, and in almost less than a minute, the four horses were led out upon the broken pavement of the stable-yard. "Mind, boys," cried Blarden, "they are two mad-women--escaped mad-women--ride for your lives. Ashwoode, do you take the right, and I'll take the left when we come on the road--do you follow me, Tony--and Dick, do you go with Sir Henry--and, now, devil take the hindmost." With these words he plunged the spurs into his horse's flanks, and with the speed of a thunder blast, they all rode helter-skelter, in pursuit of their human prey. CHAPTER LXI. THE CART AND THE STRAW. While this was passing, the two girls continued their flight toward Dublin city. They had not long passed Ashwoode and Nicholas Blarden, when Mary's strength entirely failed, and she was forced first to moderate her pace to a walk, and finally to stop altogether and seat herself upon the bank which sloped abruptly down to the road. "Flora," said she, faintly, "I am quite exhausted--my strength is entirely gone; I must perforce rest myself and take breath here for a few minutes, and then, with God's help, I shall again have power to proceed." "Do so, my lady," said Flora, taking her stand beside her mistress, "and I'll watch and listen here by you. Hish! don't I hear the sound of a car on the road before us?" So, indeed, it seemed, and at no great distance too. The road, however, just where they had placed themselves, made a sweep which concealed the vehicle, whatever it might be, effectually from their sight. The girl clambered to the top of the bank, and thence commanding a view of that part of the highway which beneath was hidden from sight, she beheld, two or three hundred yards in advance of them, a horse and cart, the driver of which was seated upon the shaft, slowly wending along in the direction of the city. "My lady," said she, descending from her post of observation, "if you have strength to run on for only a few perches more of the road, we'll be up with a car, and get a lift into town without any more trouble; try it, my lady." Accordingly they again set forth, and after a few minutes' further exertion, they came up with the vehicle and accosted the driver, a countryman, with a short pipe in his mouth, who, with folded arms, sat listlessly upon the shaft. "Honest man, God bless you, and give us a bit of a lift," said Flora Guy; "we've come a long way and very fast, and we are fairly tired to death." The countryman drew the halter which he held, and uttering an unspellable sound, addressed to his horse, succeeded in bringing him and the vehicle to a standstill. "Never say it twiste," said he; "get up, and welcome. Wait a bit, till I give the straw a turn for yees; not for it; step on the wheel; don't be in dread, he won't move." So saying, he assisted Mary Ashwoode into the rude vehicle, and not without wondering curiosity, for the hand which she extended to him was white and slender, and glittered in the moonlight with jewelled rings. Flora Guy followed; but before the cart was again in motion, they distinctly heard the far-off clatter of galloping hoofs upon the road. Their fears too truly accounted for these sounds. "Merciful God! we are pursued," said Mary Ashwoode; and then turning to the driver, she continued, with an agony of imploring terror--"as you look for pity at the dreadful hour when all shall need it, do not betray us. If it be as I suspect, we are pursued--pursued with an evil--a dreadful purpose. I had rather die a thousand deaths than fall into the hands of those who are approaching." "Never fear," interrupted the man; "lie down flat both of you in the cart and I'll hide you--never fear." They obeyed his directions, and he spread over their prostrate bodies a covering of straw; not quite so thick, however, as their fears would have desired; and thus screened, they awaited the approach of those whom they rightly conjectured to be in hot pursuit of them. The man resumed his seat upon the shaft, and once more the cart was in motion. Meanwhile, the sharp and rapid clang of the hoofs approached, and before the horsemen had reached them, the voice of Nicholas Blarden was shouting-- "Holloa--holloa, honest fellow--saw you two young women on the road?" There was scarcely time allowed for an answer, when the thundering clang of the iron hoofs resounded beside the conveyance in which the fugitives were lying, and the horsemen both, with a sudden and violent exertion, brought their beasts to a halt, and so abruptly, that although thrown back upon their haunches, the horses slid on for several yards upon the hard road, by the mere impetus of their former speed, knocking showers of fire flakes from the stones. "I say," repeated Blarden, "did two girls pass you on the road--did you see them?" "Divil a sign of a girl I see," replied the man, carelessly; and to their infinite relief, the two fugitives heard their pursuer, with a muttered curse, plunge forward upon his way. This relief, however, was but momentary, for checking his horse again, Blarden returned. "I say, my good chap, I passed you before to-night, not ten minutes since, on my way out of town, not half-a-mile from this spot--the girls were running this way, and if they're between this and the gate--they must have passed you." "Devil a girl I seen this---- Oh, begorra! you're right, sure enough," said the driver, "what the devil was I thinkin' about--two girls--one of them tall and slim, with rings on her fingers--and the other a short, active bit of a colleen?" "Ay--ay--ay," cried Blarden. "Sure enough they did overtake me," said the man, "shortly after I passed two gentlemen--I suppose you are one of them--and the little one axed me the direction of Harold's-cross--and when I showed it to them, bedad they both made no more bones about it, but across the ditch with them, an' away over the fields--they're half-way there by this time--it was jist down there by the broken bridge--they were quare-looking girls." "It would be d----d odd if they were not--they're both mad," replied Blarden; "thank you for your hint." And so saying, as he turned his horse's head in the direction indicated, he chucked a crown piece into the cart. As the conveyance proceeded, they heard the driver soliloquizing with evident satisfaction-- "Bedad, they'll have a plisint serenade through the fields, the two of them," observed he, standing upon the shafts, and watching the progress of the two horsemen--"there they go, begorra--over the ditch with them. Oh, by the hokey, the sarvint boy's down--the heart's blood iv a toss--an' oh, bloody wars! see the skelp iv the whip the big chap gives him--there they go again down the slope--now for it--over the gripe with them--well done, bedad, and into the green lane--devil take the bushes, I can't see another sight iv them. Young women," he continued, again assuming his sitting position, and replacing his pipe in the corner of his mouth--"all's safe now--they're clean out of sight--you may get up, miss." Accordingly, Mary Ashwoode and Flora Guy raised themselves. "Here," said the latter, extending her hand toward the driver, "here's the silver he threw to you." "I wisht I could airn as much every day as aisily," said the man, securing his prize; "that chap has raal villiany in his face; he looks so like ould Nick, I'm half afeard to take his money; the crass of Christ about us, I never seen such a face." "You're an honest boy at any rate," said Flora Guy, "you brought us safe through the danger." "An' why wouldn't I--what else 'id I do?" rejoined the countryman; "it wasn't for to sell you I was goin'." "You have earned my gratitude for ever," said Mary Ashwoode; "my thanks, my prayers; you have saved me; your generosity, and humanity, and pity, have delivered me from the deadliest peril that ever yet overtook living creature. God bless you for it." She removed a ring from her finger, and added--"Take this; nay, do not refuse so poor an acknowledgment for services inestimable." "No, miss, no," rejoined the countryman, warmly, "I'll not take it; I'll not have it; do you think I could do anything else but what I did, and you putting yourself into my hands the way you did, and trusting to me, and laving yourselves in my power intirely? I'm not a Turk, nor an unnatural Jew; may the devil have me, body and soul, the hour I take money, or money's worth, for doin' the like." Seeing the man thus resolved, she forbore to irritate him by further pressing the jewel on his acceptance, and he, probably to put an end to the controversy, began to shake and chuck the rope halter with extraordinary vehemence, and at the same time with the heel of his brogue, to stimulate the lagging jade, accompanying the application with a sustained hissing; the combined effect of all which was to cause the animal to break into a kind of hobbling canter; and so they rumbled and clattered over the stony road, until at length their charioteer checked the progress of his vehicle before the hospitable door-way of "The Bleeding Horse"--the little inn to which, in the commencement of these records, we have already introduced the reader. "Hould that, if you plase," said he, placing the end of the halter in Flora Guy's hand, "an' don't let him loose, or he'll be makin' for the grass and have you upset in the ditch. I'll not be a minute in here; and maybe the young lady and yourself 'id take a drop of something; the evenin's mighty chill entirely." They both, of course, declined the hospitable proposal, and their conductor, leaving them on the cart, entered the little hostelry; outside the door were two or three cars and horses, whose owners were boozing within; and feeling some return of confidence in the consciousness that they were in the neighbourhood of persons who could, and probably would, protect them, should occasion arise, Mary Ashwoode, with her light mantle drawn around her, and the hood over her head, sat along with her faithful companion, awaiting his return, under the embowering shadow of the old trees. "Flora, I am sorely perplexed; I know not whither to go when we have reached the city," said Mary, addressing her companion in a low tone. "I have but one female relative residing in Dublin, and she would believe, and think, and do, just as my brother might wish to make her. Oh, woeful hour! that it should ever come to this--that I should fear to trust another because she is my own brother's friend." She had hardly ceased to speak when a small man, with his cocked hat set somewhat rakishly on one side, stepped forth from the little inn door; he had just lighted his pipe, and was inhaling its smoke with anxious attention lest the spark which he cherished should expire before the ignition of the weed became sufficiently general; his walk was therefore slow and interrupted; the top of his finger tenderly moved the kindling tobacco, and his two eyes squinted with intense absorption at the bowl of the pipe; by the time he had reached the back of the cart in which Mary Ashwoode and her attendant were seated, his labours were crowned by complete success, as was attested by the dense volumes of smoke which at regular intervals he puffed forth. He carried a cutting-whip under his arm, and was directing his steps toward a horse which, with its bridle thrown over a gate-post, was patiently awaiting his return. As he passed the rude vehicle in which the two fugitives were couched, he happened to pause for a moment, and Mary thought she recognized the figure before her as that of an old acquaintance. "Is that Larry--Larry Toole?" inquired she. "It's myself, sure enough," rejoined that identical personage; "an' who are you--a woman, to be sure, who else 'id be axin' for me?" "Larry, don't you know me?" said she. "Divil a taste," replied he. "I only see you're a female av coorse, why wouldn't you, for, by the piper that played before Moses, I'm never out of one romance till I'm into another." "Larry," said she, lowering her voice, "it is Miss Ashwoode who speaks to you." "Don't be funnin' me, can't you?" rejoined Larry, rather pettishly. "I've got enough iv the thricks iv women latterly; an' too much. I'm a raal marthyr to famale mineuvers; there's a bump on my head as big as a goose's egg, glory be to God! an' my bones is fairly aching with what I've gone through by raison iv confidin' myself to the mercy of women. Oh thunder----" "I tell you, Larry," repeated Mary, "I am, indeed, Miss Ashwoode." "No, but who are you, in earnest?" urged Larry Toole; "can't you put me out iv pain at wonst; upon my sowl I don't know you from Moses this blessed minute." "Well, Larry, although you cannot recognize my voice," said she, turning back her hood so as to reveal her pale features in the moonlight, "you have not forgotten my face." "Oh, blessed hour! Miss Mary," exclaimed Larry, in unfeigned amazement, while he hurriedly thrust his pipe into his pocket, and respectfully doffed his hat. "Hush, hush," said Mary, with a gesture of caution. "Put on your hat, too; I wish to escape observation; put it on, Larry; it is my wish." Larry reluctantly complied. "Can you tell me where in town my uncle O'Leary is to be found?" inquired she, eagerly. "Bedad, Miss Mary, he isn't in town at all," replied the man; "they say he married a widdy lady about ten days ago; at any rate he's gone out of town more than a week; I didn't hear where." "I know not whither to turn for help or counsel, Flora," said she, despairingly, "my best friend is gone." "Well," said Larry--who, though entirely ignorant of the exact nature of the young lady's fears, had yet quite sufficient shrewdness to perceive that she was, indeed, involved in some emergency of extraordinary difficulty and peril--"well, miss, maybe if you'd take a fool's advice for once, it might turn out best," said Larry. "There's an ould gentleman that knows all about your family; he was out at the manor, and had a long discourse, himself and Sir Richard--God rest him--a short time before the ould masther died; the gentleman's name is Audley; and, though he never seen you but once, he wishes you well, and 'id go a long way to sarve you; an' above all, he's a raal rock iv sinse. I'm not bad myself, but, begorra, I'm nothin' but a fool beside him; now do you, Miss Mary, and the young girl that's along with you, jist come in here; you can have a snug little room to yourselves, and I'll go into town and have the ould gentleman out with you before you know what you're about, or where you are; he'll ax no more than the wind iv the word to bring him here in a brace iv shakes; and my name's not Larry if he don't give you suparior advice." A slight thing determines a mind perplexed and desponding; and Mary Ashwoode, feeling that whatever objection might well be started against the plan proposed by Larry Toole, yet felt that, were it rejected, she had none better to follow in its stead; anything rather than run the risk of being placed again in her brother's keeping; there was no time for deliberation, and therefore she at once adopted the suggestion. Larry, accordingly, conducted them into the little inn, and consigned them to the care of a haggard, slovenly girl, who, upon a hint from that gentleman, conducted them to a little chamber, up a flight of stairs, looking out upon the back yard, where, with a candle and a scanty fire, she left the two anxious fugitives; and, as she descended, they heard the clank of the iron shoes, as Larry spurred his horse into a hard gallop, speeding like the wind upon his mission. The receding sounds of his rapid progress had, however, hardly ceased to be heard, when the fears and anxieties which had been for a moment forgotten, returned with heavier pressure upon the poor girl's heart, and she every moment expected to hear the dreaded voices of her pursuers in the passage beneath, or to see their faces entering at the door. Thus restlessly and fearfully she awaited the return of her courier. CHAPTER LXII. THE COUNCIL--SHOWING WHAT ADVICE MR. AUDLEY GAVE, AND HOW IT WAS TAKEN. Larry Toole was true to his word. Without turning from the direct course, or pausing on his way for one moment, he accomplished the service which he had volunteered, and in an incredibly short time returned to the little inn, bringing Mr. Audley with him in a coach. With an air of importance and mystery, suitable to the occasion, the little gentleman, followed by his attendant, proceeded to the chamber where Miss Ashwoode and her maid were awaiting his arrival. Mary arose as he entered the room, and Larry, from behind, ejaculated, in a tone of pompous exultation, "Here he is, Miss Mary--Mr. Audley himself, an' no mistake." "Tut, tut, Larry," exclaimed the little gentleman, turning impatiently toward that personage, whose obstreperous announcement had disarranged his plans of approach; "hold your tongue, Larry, I say--ahem!" "Mr. Audley," said Mary, "I hope you will pardon----" "Not one word of the kind--excuse the interruption--not a word," exclaimed the little gentleman, gallantly waving his hand--"only too much honour--too proud, Miss Ashwoode, I have long known something of your family, and, strange as it may appear, have felt a peculiar interest in you--although I had not the honour of your acquaintance--for the sake of--of other parties. I have ever entertained a warm regard for your welfare, and although circumstances are much, very much changed, I cannot forget relations that once subsisted--ahem!" This was said diplomatically, and he blew his nose with a short decisive twang. "I understand, my poor young lady," he continued, relapsing into the cordial manner that was natural to him, "that you are at this moment in circumstances of difficulty, perhaps of danger, and that you have been disappointed in this emergency by the absence of your relative, Major O'Leary, with whose acquaintance, by-the-bye, I am honoured, and a more worthy, warm-hearted--but no matter--in his absence, then, I venture to tender my poor services--pray, if it be not too bold a request, tell me fully and fairly, the nature of your embarrassment; and if zeal, activity, and the friendliest dispositions can avail to extricate you, you may command them all--pray, then, let me know what I _can_ do to serve you." So saying, the old gentleman took the pale and lovely lady's hand, with a mixture of tenderness and respect which encouraged and assured her. Larry having withdrawn, she told the little gentleman all that she could communicate, without disclosing her brother's implication in the conspiracy. Even this reserve, the old gentleman's warm and kindly manner, and the good-natured simplicity, apparent in all he said and did, effectually removed, and the whole case, in all its bearings, and with all its circumstances, was plainly put before him. During the narrative, the little gentleman was repeatedly so transported with ire as to slap his thigh, sniff violently, and mutter incoherent ejaculations between his teeth; and when it was ended, was so far overcome by his feelings, that he did not trust himself to address the young lady, until he had a little vented his indignation by marching and countermarching, at quick time, up and down the room, blowing his nose with desperate abandonment, and muttering sundry startling interjections. At length he grew composed, and addressing Mary Ashwoode, observed,-- "You are quite right, my dear young lady--quite right, indeed, in resolving against putting yourself into the hands of anybody under Sir Henry's influence--perfectly right and wise. Have you _no_ relatives in this country, none capable of protecting you, and willing to do so?" "I have, indeed, one relative," rejoined she, but----" "Who is it?" interrupted Audley. "An uncle," replied Mary. "His name, my dear--his name?" inquired the old gentleman, impatiently. "His name is French--Oliver French," replied she, "but----" "Never mind," interrupted Audley again, "where does he live?" "He lives in an old place called Ardgillagh," rejoined she, "on the borders of the county of Limerick." "Is it easily found out?--near the high road from Dublin?--near any town?--easily got at?" inquired he, with extra-ordinary volubility. "I've heard my brother say," rejoined she, "that it is not far from the high road from Dublin; he was there himself. I believe the place is well known by the peasantry for many miles round; but----" "Very good, very good, my dear," interposed Mr. Audley again. "Has he a family--a wife?" "No," rejoined Mary; "he is unmarried, and an old man." "Pooh, pooh! why the devil hasn't he a wife? but no matter, you'll be all the welcomer. That's our ground--all the safer that it's a little out of the way," exclaimed the old man. "We'll steal a march--they'll never suspect us; we'll start at once." "But I fear," said Mary, dejectedly, "that he will not receive me. There has long been an estrangement between our family and him; with my father he had a deadly quarrel while I was yet an infant. He vowed that neither my father nor any child of his should ever cross his threshold. I've been told he bitterly resented what he believed to have been my father's harsh treatment of my mother. I was too young, however, to know on which side the right of the quarrel was; but I fear there is little hope of his doing as you expect, for some six or seven years since my brother was sent down, in the hope of a reconciliation, and in vain. He returned, reporting that my uncle Oliver had met all his advances with scorn. No, no, I fear--I greatly fear he will not receive me." "Never believe it--never think so," rejoined old Audley, warmly; "if he were man enough to resent your mother's wrongs, think you his heart will have no room for yours? Think you his nature's changed, that he cannot pity the distressed, and hate tyranny any longer? Never believe me, if he won't hug you to his heart the minute he sees you. I like the old chap; he was right to be angry--it was his duty to be in a confounded passion; he ought to have been kicked if he hadn't done just as he did--I'd swear he was right. Never trust me, if he'll not take your part with his whole heart, and make you his pet for as long as you please to stay with him. Deuce take him, I like the old fellow." "You would advise me, then, to apply to him for protection?" asked Mary Ashwoode, "and I suppose to go down there immediately." "Most unquestionably so," replied Mr. Audley, with a short nod of decision--"most unquestionably--start to-night; we shall go as far as the town of Naas; I will accompany you. I consider you my ward until your natural protectors take you under their affectionate charge, and guard you from grief and danger as they ought. My good girl," he continued, addressing Flora Guy, "you must come along with your mistress; I've a coach at the door. We shall go directly into town, and my landlady shall take you both under her care until I have procured two chaises, the one for myself, and the other for your mistress and you. You will find Mrs. Pickley, my landlady, a very kind, excellent person, and ready to assist you in making your preparations for the journey." The old gentleman then led his young and beautiful charge, with a mixture of gallantry and pity, by the hand down the little inn stairs, and in a very brief time Mary Ashwoode and her faithful attendant found themselves under the hospitable protection of Mrs. Pickley's roof-tree. CHAPTER LXIII. PARTING--THE SHELTERED VILLAGE, AND THE JOURNEY'S END. Never was little gentleman in such a fuss as Mr. Audley--never were so many orders issued and countermanded and given again--never were Larry Toole's energies so severely tried and his intellects so distracted--impossible tasks and contradictory orders so "huddled on his back," that he well nigh went mad under the burthen; at length, however, matters were arranged, two coaches with post-horses were brought to the door, Mary Ashwoode and her attendant were deposited in one, along with such extempore appliances for wardrobe and toilet as Mrs. Pickley, in a hurried excursion, was enabled to collect from the neighbouring shops and pack up for the journey, and Mr. Audley stood ready to take his place in the other. "Larry," said he, before ascending, "here are ten guineas, which will keep you in bread and cheese until you hear from me again; don't on any account leave the 'Cock and Anchor,' your master's horse and luggage are there, and, no doubt, whenever he returns to Dublin, which I am very certain must soon occur, he will go directly thither; so be you sure to meet him there, should he happen during my absence to arrive; and mark me, be very careful of this letter, give it him the moment you see him, which, please God, will be very soon indeed; keep it in some safe place--don't carry it in your breeches pocket, you blockhead, you'll grind it to powder, booby! indeed, now that I think on't, you had better give it at once in charge to the innkeeper of the 'Cock and Anchor;' don't forget, on your life I charge you, and now good-night." "Good-night, and good luck, your honour, and may God speed you!" ejaculated Larry, as the vehicles rumbled away. The charioteers had received their directions, and Mary Ashwoode and her trusty companion, confused and bewildered by the rapidity with which events had succeeded one another during the day, and stunned by the magnitude of the dangers which they had so narrowly escaped, found themselves, scarcely crediting the evidence of their senses, rapidly traversing the interval which separated Dublin city from the little town of Naas. It is not our intention to weary our readers with a detailed account of the occurrences of the journey, nor to present them with a catalogue of all the mishaps and delays to which Irish posting in those days, and indeed much later, was liable; it is enough to state that upon the evening of the fourth day the two carriages clattered into the wretched little village which occupied the road on which opened the avenue leading up to the great house of Ardgillagh. The village, though obviously the abode of little comfort or cheerfulness, was not on that account the less picturesque; the road wound irregularly where it stood, and was carried by an old narrow bridge across a wayward mountain stream which wheeled and foamed in many a sportive eddy within its devious banks. Close by, the little mill was couched among the sheltering trees, which, extending in irregular and scattered groups through the village, and mingling with the stunted bushes and briars of the hedges, were nearly met from the other side of the narrow street by the broad branching limbs of the giant trees which skirted the wild wooded domain of Ardgillagh. Thus occupying a sweeping curve of the road, and embowered among the shadowy arches of the noble timber, the little village had at first sight an air of tranquillity, seclusion, and comfort, which made the traveller pause to contemplate its simple attractions and to admire how it could be that a few wretched hovels with crazy walls and thatch overgrown with weeds, thus irregularly huddled together beneath the rude shelter of the wood, could make a picture so pleasing to the eye and so soothing to the heart. The vehicles were drawn up by their drivers before the door of a small thatched building which, however, stood a whole head and shoulders higher than the surrounding hovels, exhibiting a second storey with three narrow windows in front, and over its doorway, from which a large pig, under the stimulus of a broomstick, was majestically issuing, a sign-board, the admiration of connoisseurs for miles round, presenting a half-length portrait of the illustrious Brian Borhome, and admitted to be a startling likeness. Before this mansion--the only one in the place which pretended to the character of a house of public entertainment--the post-boys drew bridle, and brought the vehicles to a halt. Mr. Audley was upon the road in an instant, and with fussy gallantry assisting Mary Ashwoode to descend. Their sudden arrival had astounded the whole household--consternation and curiosity filled the little establishment. The proprietor, who sat beneath the capacious chimney, started to his feet, swallowing, in his surprise, a whole potato, which he was just deliberately commencing, and by a miracle escaped choking. The landlady dropped a pot, which she was scrubbing, upon the back of a venerable personage who was in a stooping posture, lighting his pipe, and inadvertently wiped her face in the pot clout; everybody did something wrong, and nobody anything right; the dog was kicked and the cat scalded, and in short, never was known in the little village of Ardgillagh, within the memory of man, except when Ginckle marched his troops through the town, such a universal hubbub as that which welcomed the two chaises and their contents to the door of Pat Moroney's hospitable mansion. Mrs. Moroney, with more lampblack upon her comely features than she was at that moment precisely aware of, hastened to the door, which she occupied as completely and exclusively as the corpulent specimen of Irish royalty over her head did his proper sign-board; all the time gazing with an admiring grin upon Mr. Audley and the lady whom he assisted to descend; and at exceedingly short and irregular intervals, executing sundry slight ducks, intended to testify her exuberant satisfaction and respect, while all around and about her were thrust the wondering visages of the less important inmates of the establishment; many were the murmured criticisms, and many the ejaculations of admiration and surprise, which accompanied every movement of the party under observation. "Oh! but she's a fine young lady, God bless her!" said one. "But isn't she mighty pale, though, entirely?" observed another. "That's her father--the little stout gentleman; see how he houlds her hand for fear she'd thrip comin' out. Oh! but he's a nate man!" remarked a third. "An' her hand as white as milk; an' look at her fine rings," said a fourth. "She's a rale lady; see the grand look of her, and the stately step, God bless her!" said a fifth. "See, see; here's another comin' out; that's her sisther," remarked another. "Hould your tongues, will yees?" ejaculated the landlady, jogging her elbow at random into somebody's mouth. "An' see the little one taking the box in her hand," observed one. "Look at the tall lady, how she smiles at her, God bless her! she's a rale good lady," remarked another. "An' now she's linkin' with him, and here they come, by gorra," exclaimed a third. "Back with yees, an' lave the way," exclaimed Mrs. Moroney; "don't you see the quality comin'?" Accordingly, with a palpitating heart, the worthy mistress of King Brian Borhome prepared to receive her aristocratic guests. With due state and ceremony she conducted them into the narrow chamber which, except the kitchen, was the only public apartment in the establishment. After due attention to his fair charge, Mr. Audley inquired of the hostess,-- "Pray, my good worthy woman, are we not now within a mile or less of the entrance into the domain of Ardgillagh?" "The gate's not two perches down the road, your honour," replied she; "is it to the great house you want to go, sir?" "Yes, my good woman; certainly," replied he. "Come here, Shawneen, come, asthore!" cried she, through the half-open door. "I'll send the little gossoon with you, your honour; he'll show you the way, and keep the dogs off, for they all knows him up at the great house. Here, Shawneen; this gintleman wants to be showed the way up to the great house; and don't let the dogs near him; do you mind? He hasn't much English," said she, turning to her guest, by way of apology, and then conveying her directions anew in the mother tongue. Under the guidance of this ragged little urchin, Mr. Audley accordingly set forth upon his adventurous excursion. Mrs. Moroney brought in bread, milk, eggs, and in short, the best cheer which her limited resources could supply; and, although Mary Ashwoode was far too anxious about the result of Mr. Audley's visit to do more than taste the tempting bowl of new milk which was courteously placed before her, Flora Guy, with right good will and hearty appetite, did ample justice to the viands which the hostess provided. After some idle talk between herself and Flora Guy, Mrs. Moroney observed in reply to an interrogatory from the girl,-- "Twenty or thirty years ago there wasn't such a fox-hunter in the country as Mr. French; but he's this many a year ailing, and winter after winter, it's worse and worse always he's getting, until at last he never stirs out at all; and for the most part he keeps his bed." "Is anyone living with him?" inquired Flora. "No, none of his family," answered she; "no one at all, you may say; there's no one does anything in his place, an' very seldom anyone sees him except Mistress Martha and Black M'Guinness; them two has him all to themselves; and, indeed, there's quare stories goin' about them." CHAPTER LXIV. MISTRESS MARTHA AND BLACK M'GUINNESS. Mr. Audley, preceded by his little ragged guide, walked thoughtfully on his way to visit the old gentleman, of whose oddities and strange and wayward temper the keeper of the place where they had last obtained a relay of horses had given a marvellous and perhaps somewhat exaggerated account. Now that he had reached the spot, and that the moment approached which was to be the crisis of the adventure, he began to feel far less confident of success than he had been while the issue of his project was comparatively remote. They passed down the irregular street of the village, and beneath the trees which arched overhead like the vast and airy aisles of some huge Gothic pile, and after a short walk of some two or three hundred yards, during which they furnished matter of interesting speculation to half the village idlers, they reached a rude gate of great dimensions, but which had obviously seen better days. There was no lodge or gate-house, and Mr. Audley followed the little conductor over a stile, which occupied the side of one of the great ivy-mantled stone piers; crossing this, he found himself in the demesne. A broken and irregular avenue or bridle track--for in most places it was little more--led onward over hill and through hollow, along the undulations of the soft green sward, and under the fantastic boughs of gnarled thorns and oaks and sylvan birches, which in thick groups, wild and graceful as nature had placed them, clothed the varied slopes. The rude approach which they followed led them a wayward course over every variety of ground--now flat and boggy, again up hill, and over the grey surface of lichen-covered rocks--again down into deep fern-clothed hollows, and then across the shallow, brawling stream, without bridge or appliance of any kind, but simply through its waters, forced, as best they might, to pick their steps upon the moss-grown stones that peeped above the clear devious current. Thus they passed along through this wild and extensive demesne, varied by a thousand inequalities of ground and by the irregular grouping of the woods, which owed their picturesque arrangement to the untutored fancies of nature herself, whose dominion had there never known the intrusions of the axe, or the spade, or the pruning-hook, but exulted in the unshackled indulgence of all her wildest revelry. After a walk of more than half-an-hour's duration, through a long vista among the trees, the grey gable of the old mansion of Ardgillagh, with its small windows and high and massive chimney stacks, presented itself. There was a depressing air of neglect and desertion about the old place, which even the unimaginative temperament of Mr. Audley was obliged to acknowledge. Rank weeds and grass had forced their way through the pavement of the courtyard, and crowded in patches of vegetation even to the very door of the house. The same was observable, in no less a degree, in the great stable-yard, the gate of which, unhinged, lay wide open, exhibiting a range of out-houses and stables, which would have afforded lodging for horse and man to a whole regiment of dragoons. Two men, one of them in livery, were loitering through the courtyard, apparently not very well knowing what to do with themselves; and as the visitors approached, a whole squadron of dogs, the little ones bouncing in front with shrill alarm, and the more formidable, at a majestic canter and with deep-mouthed note of menace, bringing up the rear, came snarling, barking, and growling, towards the intruders at startling speed. "Piper, Piper, Toby, Fan, Motheradauna, Boxer, Boxer, Toby!" screamed the little guide, advancing a few yards before Mr. Audley, who, in considerable uneasiness, grasped his walking cane with no small energy. The interposition of the urchin was successful, the dogs recognized their young friend, the angry clangour was hushed and their pace abated, and when they reached Mr. Audley and his guide, in compliment to the latter they suffered the little gentleman to pass on, with no further question than a few suspicious sniffs, as they applied their noses to the calves of that gentleman's legs. As they continued to approach, the men in the court, now alarmed by the vociferous challenge of the dogs, eyed the little gentleman inquisitively, for a visitor at Ardgillagh was a thing that had not been heard of for years. As Mr. Audley's intention became more determinate, and his design appeared more unequivocally to apply for admission, the servant, who watched his progress, ran by some hidden passage in the stable-yard into the mansion and was ready to gratify his curiosity legitimately, by taking his post in the hall in readiness to answer Mr. Audley's summons, and to hold parley with him at the door. "Is Mr. French at home?" inquired Mr. Audley. "Ay, sir, he is at home," rejoined the man, deliberately, to allow himself time fully to scrutinize the visitor's outward man. "Can I see him, pray?" asked the little gentleman. "Why, raly, sir, I can't exactly say," observed the man, scratching his head. "He's upstairs in his own chamber--indeed, for that matter, he's seldom out of it. If you'll walk into the room there, sir, I'll inquire." Accordingly, Mr. Audley entered the apartment indicated and sat himself down in the deep recess of the window to take breath. He well knew the kind of person with whom he had to deal, previously to encountering Oliver French in person. He had heard quite enough of Mistress Martha and of Black M'Guinness already, to put him upon his guard, and fill him with just suspicions as to their character and designs; he therefore availed himself of the little interval to arrange his plans of operation in his own mind. He had not waited long, when the door opened, and a tall, elderly woman, with a bunch of keys at her side, and arrayed in a rich satin dress, walked demurely into the room. There was something unpleasant and deceitful in the expression of the half-closed eyes and thin lips of this lady which inspired Mr. Audley with instinctive dislike of her--an impression which was rather heightened than otherwise by the obvious profusion with which her sunken and sallow cheeks were tinged with rouge. This demure and painted lady made a courtesy on seeing Mr. Audley, and in a low and subdued tone which well accorded with her meek exterior, inquired,-- "You were asking for Mr. Oliver French, sir?" "Yes, madam," replied Mr. Audley, returning the salute with a bow as formal; "I wish much to see him, if he could afford me half an hour's chat." "Mr. French is very ill--very--very poorly, indeed," said Mistress Martha, closing her eyes, and shaking her head. "He dislikes talking to strangers. Are you a relative, pray, sir?" "Not I, madam--not at all, madam," rejoined Mr. Audley. A silence ensued, during which he looked out for a minute at the view commanded by the window; and as he did so, he observed with the corner of his eyes that the lady was studying him with a severe and searching scrutiny. She was the first to break the silence. "I suppose it's about business you want to see him?" inquired she, still looking at him with the same sharp glance. "Just so," rejoined Mr. Audley; "it is indeed upon business." "He dislikes transacting business or speaking of it himself," said she. "He always employs his own man, Mr. M'Guinness. I'll call Mr. M'Guinness, that you may communicate the matter to him." "You must excuse me," said Mr. Audley. "My instructions are to give my message to Mr. Oliver French in person--though indeed there's no secret in the matter. The fact is, Madam, my mission is of a kind which ought to make me welcome. You understand me? I come here to announce a--a--an acquisition, in short a sudden and, I believe, a most unexpected acquisition. But perhaps I've said too much; the facts are for his own ear solely. Such are my instructions; and you know I have no choice. I've posted all the way from Dublin to execute the message; and between ourselves, should he suffer this occasion to escape him, he may never again have an opportunity of making such an addition to--but I must hold my tongue--I'm prating against orders. In a word, madam, I'm greatly mistaken, or it will prove the best news that has been told in this house since its master was christened." He accompanied his announcement with a prodigious number of nods and winks of huge significance, and all designed to beget the belief that he carried in his pocket the copy of a will, or other instrument, conveying to the said Oliver French of Ardgillagh the gold mines of Peru, or some such trifle. Mistress Martha paused, looked hard at him, then reflected again. At length she said, with the air of a woman who has made up her mind,-- "I dare to say, sir, it _is_ possible for you to see Mr. French. He is a little better to-day. You'll promise not to fatigue him--but you must first see Mr. M'Guinness. He can tell better than I whether his master is sufficiently well to-day for an interview of the kind." So saying, Mrs. Martha sailed, with saint-like dignity, from the room. "_She_ rules the roost, I believe," said Mr. Audley within himself. "If so, all's smooth from this forth. Here comes the gentleman, however--and, by the laws, a very suitable co-mate for that painted Jezebel." As Mr. Audley concluded this criticism, a small man, with a greasy and dingy complexion, and in a rusty suit of black, made his appearance. This individual was, if possible, more subdued, meek, and Christian-like than the lady who had just evacuated the room in his favour. His eyes were, if possible, habitually more nearly closed; his step was as soft and cat-like to the full; and, in a word, he was in air, manner, gait, and expression as like his accomplice as a man can well be to one of the other sex. A short explanation having passed between this person and Mr. Audley, he retired for a few minutes to prepare his master for the visit, and then returning, conducted the little bachelor upstairs. CHAPTER LXV. THE CONFERENCE--SHOWING HOW OLIVER FRENCH BURST INTO A RAGE AND FLUNG HIS CAP ON THE FLOOR. Mr. Audley followed Black M'Guinness as we have said up the stairs, and was, after an introductory knock at the door, ushered by him into Oliver French's bed-room. Its arrangements were somewhat singular--a dressing-table with all the appliances of the most elaborate cultivation of the graces, and a huge mirror upon it, stood directly opposite to the door; against the other wall, between the door and this table, was placed a massive sideboard covered with plate and wine flasks, cork-screws and cold meat, in the most admired disorder--two large presses were also visible, one of which lay open, exhibiting clothes, and papers, and other articles piled together in a highly original manner--two or three very beautiful pictures hung upon the walls. At the far end of the room stood the bed, and at one side of it a table covered with wines and viands, and at the other, a large iron-bound chest, with a heavy bunch of keys dangling from its lock--a little shelf, too, occupied the wall beside the invalid, abundantly stored with tall phials with parchment labels, and pill-boxes and gallipots innumerable. In the bed, surrounded by the drapery of the drawn curtains, lay, or rather sat, Oliver French himself, propped up by the pillows: he was a corpulent man, with a generous double chin; a good-natured grey eye twinkled under a bushy, grizzled eye-brow, and a countenance which bore unequivocally the lines of masculine beauty, although considerably disfigured by the traces of age, as well as of something very like intemperance and full living: he wore a silk night-gown and a shirt of snowy whiteness, with lace ruffles, and on his head was a crimson velvet cap. Grotesque as were the arrangements of the room, there was, nevertheless, about its occupant an air of aristocratic superiority and ease which at once dispelled any tendency to ridicule. "Mr. Audley, I presume," said the invalid. Mr. Audley bowed. "Pray, sir, take a chair. M'Guinness, place a chair for Mr. Audley, beside the table here. I am, as you see, sir," continued he, "a confirmed valetudinarian; I suffer abominably from gout, and have not been able to remove to my easy chair by the fire for more than a week. I understand that you have some matters of importance to communicate to me; but before doing so, let me request of you to take a little wine, you can have whatever you like best--there's some Madeira at your elbow there, which I can safely recommend, as I have just tasted it myself--o-oh! d---- the gout--you'll excuse me, sir--a cursed twinge." "Very sorry to see you suffering," responded Mr. Audley--"very, indeed, sir." "It sha'n't, however, prevent my doing you reason, sir," replied he, with alacrity. "M'Guinness, two glasses. I drink, sir, to our better acquaintance. Now, M'Guinness, you may leave the room." Accordingly Mr. M'Guinness withdrew, and the gentlemen were left _tête-à-tête_. "And now, sir," continued Oliver French, "be so good as to open the subject of your visit." Mr. Audley cleared his voice twice or thrice, in the hope of clearing his head at the same time, and then, with some force and embarrassment, observed,-- "I am necessarily obliged, Mr. French, to allude to matters which may possibly revive unpleasant recollections. I trust, indeed, my dear sir,--I'm sure that you will not suffer yourself to be distressed or unduly excited, when I tell you that I must recall to your memory a name which I believe does not sound gratefully to your ear--the name of Ashwoode." "Curse them," was the energetic commentary of the invalid. "Well, sir, I dare venture to say that you and I are not very much at variance in our estimate of the character of the Ashwoodes generally," said Mr. Audley. "You are aware, I presume, that Sir Richard has been some time dead." "Ha! actually _gone_ to hell?--no, sir, I was not aware of this. Pray, proceed, sir," responded Oliver French. "I am aware, sir, that he treated his lady harshly," resumed Audley. "Harshly, _harshly_, sir," cried the old man, with an energy that well nigh made his companion bounce from his seat--"why, sir, beginning with neglect and ending with blows--through every stage of savage insult and injury, his wretched wife, my sister--the most gentle, trusting, lovely creature that ever yet was born to misery, was dragged by that inhuman monster, her husband, Sir Richard Ashwoode; he broke her heart--he killed her, sir--_killed_ her. She was my sister--my only sister; I was justly proud of her--loved her most dearly, and the inhuman villain broke her heart." Through his clenched teeth he uttered a malediction, and with a vehemence of hatred which plainly showed that his feelings toward the family had undergone no favourable change. "Well, sir," resumed Mr. Audley, after a considerable interval, "I cannot wonder at the strength of your feelings in this matter, more especially at this moment. I myself burn with indignation scarce one degree less intense than yours against the worthy son of that most execrable man, and upon grounds, too, very nearly similar." He then proceeded to recount to his auditor, waxing warm as he went on, all the circumstances of Mary Ashwoode's sufferings, and every particular of the grievous persecution which she had endured at the hands of her brother, Sir Henry. Oliver French ground his teeth and clutched the bed-clothes as he listened, and when the narrative was ended, he whisked the velvet cap from his head, and flung it with all his force upon the floor. "Oh, God Almighty! that I had but the use of my limbs," exclaimed he, with desperation--"I would give the whole world a lesson in the person of that despicable scoundrel. I would--but," he added bitterly, "I am powerless--I am a cripple." "You are not powerless, sir, for purposes nobler than revenge," exclaimed Audley, with eagerness; "you may shelter and protect the helpless, friendless child of calamity, the story of whose wrongs has so justly fired you with indignation." "Where is she--where?" cried Oliver French, eagerly--"I ought to have asked you long ago." "She is not far away--she even now awaits your decision in the little village hard by," responded Mr. Audley. "Poor child--poor child!" ejaculated Oliver, much agitated. "And did she--could she doubt my willingness to befriend her--good God--could she doubt it?--bring her--bring her here at once--I long to see her--poor bird--poor bird--the world's winter has closed over thee too soon. Alas! poor child--tell her--tell her, Mr. Audley, that I long to see her--that she is most welcome--that all which I command is heartily and entirely at her service. Plead my apology for not going myself to meet her--as God knows I would fain do; you see I am a poor cripple--a very worthless, helpless, good-for-nothing old man. Tell her all better than I can do it now. God bless you, sir--God bless you, for believing that such an ill-conditioned old fellow as I am had yet heart enough to feel rightly sometimes. I had rather die a thousand deaths than that you had not brought the poor outcast child to my roof. Tell her how glad--how very, very happy--how proud it makes me that she should come to her old uncle Oliver--tell her this. God bless you, sir!" With a cordial pressure, he gripped Audley's hand, and the old gentleman, with a heart overflowing with exultation and delight, retraced his steps to the little village, absolutely bursting with impatience to communicate the triumphant result of his visit. CHAPTER LXVI. THE BED-CHAMBER. Black M'Guinness and Mistress Martha had listened in vain to catch the purport of Mr. Audley's communication. Unfortunately for them, their master's chamber was guarded by a double door, and his companion had taken especial pains to close both of them before detailing the subject of his visit. They were, however a good deal astonished by Mr. French's insisting upon rising forthwith, and having himself clothed and shaved. This huge, good-natured lump of gout was, accordingly, arrayed in full suit--one of the handsomest which his wardrobe commanded--his velvet cap replaced by a flowing peruke--his gouty feet smothered in endless flannels, and himself deposited in his great easy chair by the fire, and his lower extremities propped up upon stools and pillows. These preparations, along with a complete re-arrangement of the furniture, and other contents of the room, effectually perplexed and somewhat alarmed his disinterested dependents. Mr. Audley returned ere the preparations were well completed, and handed Mary Ashwoode and her attendant from the chaise. It needs not to say how the old bachelor of Ardgillagh received her--with, perhaps, the more warmth and tenderness that, as he protested, with tears in his eyes, she was so like her poor mother, that he felt as if old times had come again, and that she stood once more before him, clothed in the melancholy beauty of her early and ill-fated youth. It were idle to describe the overflowing kindness of the old man's greeting, and the depth of gratitude with which his affectionate and hearty welcome was accepted by the poor grieved girl. He would scarcely, for the whole evening, allow her to leave him for one moment; and every now and again renewed his pressing invitation to her and to Mr. Audley to take some more wine or some new delicacy; he himself enforcing his solicitations by eating and drinking in almost unbroken continuity during the whole time. All his habits were those of the most unlimited self-indulgence; and his chief, if not his sole recreation for years, had consisted in compounding, during the whole day long, those astounding gastronomic combinations, which embraced every possible variety of wine and liqueur, of vegetable, meat, and confection; so that the fact of his existing at all, under the extraordinary regimen which he had adopted, was a triumph of the genius of digestion over the demon of dyspepsia, such as this miserable world has seldom witnessed. Nevertheless, that he did exist, and that too, apparently, in robust though unwieldy health, with the exception of his one malady, his constitutional gout, was a fact which nobody could look upon and dispute. With an imperiousness which brooked no contradiction, he compelled Mr. Audley to eat and drink very greatly more than he could conveniently contain--browbeating the poor little gentleman into submission, and swearing, in the most impressive manner, that he had not eaten one ounce weight of food of any kind since his entrance into the house; although the unhappy little gentleman felt at that moment like a boa constrictor who has just bolted a buffalo, and pleaded in stifled accents for quarter; but it would not do. Oliver French, Esq., had not had his humour crossed, nor one of his fancies contradicted, for the last forty years, and he was not now to be thwarted or put down by a little "hop-o'-my-thumb," who, though ravenously hungry, pretended, through mere perverseness, to be bursting with repletion. Mr. Audley's labours were every now and again pleasingly relieved by such applications as these from his merciless entertainer. "Now, my good friend--my worthy friend--will you think it too great a liberty, sir, if I ask you to move the pillow a _leetle_ under this foot?" "None in the world, sir--quite the contrary--I shall have the very greatest possible pleasure," would poor Mr. Audley reply, preparing for the task. "You are very good, sir, very kind, sir. Just draw it quietly to the right--a little, a very little--you are very good, indeed, sir. Oh--oh, O--oh, you--you booby--you'll excuse me, sir--gently--there, there--gently, gently. O--oh, you d----d handless idiot--pray pardon me, sir; that will do." Such passages as these were of frequent occurrence; but though Mr. Audley was as choleric as most men at his time of life, yet the incongruous terms of abuse were so obviously the result of inveterate and almost unconscious habit, stimulated by the momentary twinges of acute pain, that he did not suffer this for an instant to disturb the serenity and goodwill with which he regarded his host, spite of all his oddities and self-indulgence. In the course of the evening Oliver French ordered Mistress Martha to have beds prepared for the party, and that lady, with rather a vicious look, withdrew. She soon returned, and asked in her usual low, dulcet tone, whether the young lady could spare her maid to assist in arranging the room, and forthwith Flora Guy consigned herself to the guidance of the sinister-looking Abigail. "This is a fine country, isn't it?" inquired Mistress Martha, softly, when they were quite alone. "A very fine country, indeed, ma'am," rejoined Flora, who had heard enough to inspire her with a certain awe of her conductress, which inclined her as much as possible to assent to whatever proposition she might be inclined to advance, without herself hazarding much original matter. "It's a pity you can't see it in the summer time; this is a very fine place indeed when all the leaves are on the trees," repeated Mistress Martha. "Indeed, so I'd take it to be, ma'am," rejoined the maid. "Just passing through this way--hurried like, you can't notice much about it though," remarked the elderly lady, carelessly. "No, ma'am," replied Flora, becoming more reserved, as she detected in her companion a wish to draw from her all she knew of her mistress's plans. "There are some views that are greatly admired in the neighbourhood--the glen and the falls of Glashangower. If she could stay a week she might see everything." "Oh! indeed, it's a lovely place," observed Flora, evasively. "That old gentleman, that Mr. Audley, your young mistress's father, or--or uncle, or whatever he is"--Mistress Martha here made a considerable pause, but Flora did not enlighten her, and she continued--"whatever he is to her, it's no matter, he seems a very good-humoured nice old gentleman--he's in a great hurry back to Dublin, where he came from, I suppose." "Well, I really don't know," replied the girl. "He looks very comfortable, and everything handsome and nice about him," observed Mistress Martha again. "I suppose he's well off--plenty of money--not in want at all." "Indeed he seems all that," rejoined the maid. "He's cousin, or something or another, to the master, Mr. French; didn't you tell me so?" asked the painted Abigail. "No, ma'am; I didn't tell you; I don't know," replied she. "This is a very damp old house, and full of rats; I wish I had known a week ago that beds would be wanting; but I suppose it was a sudden thing," said the housekeeper. "Indeed, I suppose it just was, ma'am," responded the attendant. "Are you going to stay here long?" asked the old lady, more briskly than she had yet spoken. "Raly, ma'am, I don't know," replied Flora. The old painted termagant shot a glance at her of no pleasant meaning; but for the present checked the impulse in which it had its birth, and repeated softly--"You don't know; why, you are a very innocent, simple little girl." "Pray, ma'am, if it's not making too bold, which is the room, ma'am?" asked Flora. "What's your young lady's name?" asked the matron, directly, and disregarding the question of the girl. Flora Guy hesitated. "Do you hear me--what's your young lady's name?" repeated the woman, softly, but deliberately. "Her name, to be sure; her name is Miss Mary," replied she. "Mary _what_?" asked Martha. "Miss Mary Ashwoode," replied Flora, half afraid as she uttered it. Spite of all her efforts, the woman's face exhibited disagreeable symptoms of emotion at this announcement; she bit her lips and dropped her eyelids lower than usual, to conceal the expression which gleamed to her eyes, while her colour shifted even through her rouge. At length, with a smile infinitely more unpleasant than any expression which her face had yet worn, she observed,-- "Ashwoode, Ashwoode. Oh! dear, to be sure; some of Sir Richard's family; well, I did not expect to see them darken these doors again. Dear me! who'd have thought of the Ashwoodes looking after him again? well, well, but they're a very forgiving family," and she uttered an ill-omened tittering. "Which is the room, ma'am, if you please?" repeated Flora. "That's the room," cried the stalwart dame, with astounding vehemence, and at the same time opening a door and exhibiting a large neglected bed-chamber, with its bed-clothes and other furniture lying about in entire disorder, and no vestige of a fire in the grate; "that's the room, miss, and make the best of it yourself, for you've nothing else to do." In this very uncomfortable predicament Flora Guy applied herself energetically to reduce the room to something like order, and although it was very cold and not a little damp, she succeeded, nevertheless, in giving it an air of tolerable comfort by the time her young mistress was prepared to retire to it. As soon as Mary Ashwoode had entered this chamber her maid proceeded to narrate the occurrences which had just taken place. "Well, Flora," said she, smiling, "I hope the old lady will resume her good temper by to-morrow, for one night I can easily contrive to rest with such appliances as we have. I am more sorry, for your sake, my poor girl, than for mine, however, and wherever I lay me down, my rest will be, I fear me, very nearly alike." "She's the darkest, ill-lookingest old woman, God bless us, that ever I set my two good-looking eyes upon, my lady," said Flora. "I'll put a table to the door; for, to tell God's truth, I'm half afeard of her. She has a nasty look in her, my lady--a bad look entirely." Flora had hardly spoken when the door opened, and the subject of their conversation entered. "Good evening to you, Miss Ashwoode," said she, advancing close to the young lady, and speaking in her usual low soft tone. "I hope you find everything to your liking. I suppose your own maid has settled everything according to your fancy. Of course, she knows best how to please you. I'm very delighted to see you here in Ardgillagh, as I was telling your innocent maid there--very glad, indeed; because, as I said, it shows how forgiving you are, after all the master has said and done, and the way he has always spit on every one of your family that ever came here looking after his money--though, indeed, I'm sure you're a great deal too good and too religious to care about money; and I'm sure and certain it's only for the sake of Christian charity, and out of a forgiving disposition, and to show that there isn't a bit of pride of any sort, or kind, or description in your carcase--that you're come here to make yourself at home in this house, that never belonged to you, and that never will, and to beg favours of the gentleman that hates, and despises, and insults everyone that carries your name--so that the very dogs in the streets would not lick their blood. I like that, Miss Ashwoode--I _do_ like it," she continued, advancing a little nearer; "for it shows you don't care what bad people may say or think, provided you do your Christian duty. They may say you're come here to try and get the old gentleman's money; they may say that you're eaten up to the very backbone with meanness, and that you'd bear to be kicked and spit upon from one year's end to the other for the sake of a few pounds--they'll call you a sycophant and a schemer--but you don't mind that--and I admire you for it--they'll say, miss--for they don't scruple at anything--they'll say you lost your character and fortune in Dublin, and came down here in the hope of finding them again; but I tell you what it is," she continued, giving full vent to her fury, and raising her accents to a tone more resembling the scream of a screech-owl than the voice of a human being, "I know what you're at, and I'll blow your schemes, Miss Innocence. I'll make the house too hot to hold you. Do you think I mind the old bed-ridden cripple, or anyone else within its four walls? Hoo! I'd make no more of them or of you than that old glass there;" and so saying, she hurled the candlestick, with all her force, against the large mirror which depended from the wall, and dashed it to atoms. "Hoo! hoo!" she screamed, "you think I am afraid to do what I threatened; but wait--wait, I say; and now good-night to you, Miss Ashwoode, for the first time, and pleasant dreams to you." So saying, the fiendish hag, actually quivering with fury, quitted the room, drawing the door after her with a stunning crash, and leaving Mary Ashwoode and her servant breathless with astonishment and consternation. CHAPTER LXVII. THE EXPULSION. While this scene was going on in Mary Ashwoode's chamber, our friend Oliver French, having wished Mr. Audley good-night, had summoned to his presence his confidential servant, Mr. M'Guinness. The corpulent invalid sat in his capacious chair by the fireside, with his muffled legs extended upon a pile of pillows, a table loaded with the materials of his protracted and omnigenous repast at his side. Black M'Guinness made his appearance, evidently a little intoxicated, and not a little excited. He proceeded in a serpentine course through the chamber, overturning, of malice prepense, everything in which he came in contact. "What the devil ails you, sir?" ejaculated Mr. French--"what the plague do you mean? D--n you, M'Guinness, you're drunk, sir, or mad." "Ay, to be sure," ejaculated M'Guinness, grimly. "Why not--oh, do--I've no objection; d----n away, sir, pray, do." "What do you mean by talking that way, you scoundrel?" exclaimed old French. "Scoundrel!" repeated M'Guinness, overturning a small table, and all thereupon, with a crash upon the floor, and approaching the old gentleman, while his ugly face grew to a sickly, tallowy white with rage, "you go for to bring a whole lot of beggarly squatters into the house to make away with your substance, and to turn you against your faithful, tried, trusty, and dutiful servants," he continued, shaking his fist in his master's face. "You do, and to leave them, ten to one, in their old days unprovided for. Damn ingratitude!--to the devil with thankless, unnatural vermin! You call me scoundrel. Scoundrel was the word--by this cross it was." While Oliver French, speechless with astonishment and rage, gazed upon the audacious menial, Mistress Martha herself entered the chamber. "Yes, they are, you old dark-hearted hypocrite--they're settled here--fixed in the house--they are," screamed she; "but they _sha'n't_ stay long; or, if they do, I'll not leave a whole bone in their skins. What did _they_ ever do for you, you thankless wretch?" "Ay, what did they ever do for you?" shouted M'Guinness. "Do you think we're fools--do you? and idiots--do you? not to know what you're at, you ungrateful miscreant! Turn them out, bag and baggage--every mother's skin of them, or I'll show them the reason why, turn them out, I say." "You infernal hag, I'd see you in hell or Bedlam first," shouted Oliver, transported with fury. "You have had your way too long, you accursed witch--you have." "Never mind--oh!--you wretch," shrieked she--"never mind--wait a bit--and never fear, you old crippled sinner, I'll be revenged on you, you old devil's limb. Here's your watch for you," screamed she, snatching a massive, chased gold watch from her side, and hurling it at his head. It passed close by his ear, and struck the floor behind him, attesting the force with which it had been thrown, as well as the solidity of its workmanship, by a deep mark ploughed in the floor. Oliver French grasped his crutch and raised it threateningly. "You old wretch, I'll not let you strike the woman," cried M'Guinness, snatching the poker, and preparing to dash it at the old man's head. What might have been the issue of the strife it were hard to say, had not Mr. Audley at that moment entered the room. "Heyday!" cried that gentleman, "I thought it had been robbers--what's all this?" M'Guinness turned upon him, but observing that he carried a pistol in each hand, he contented himself with muttering a curse and lowering the poker which he held in his hand. "Why, what the devil--your own servants--your own man and woman!" exclaimed Mr. Audley. "I beg your pardon, sir--pray excuse me, Mr. French; perhaps I ought not to have intruded upon you." "Pray don't go, Mr. Audley--don't think of going," said Oliver, eagerly, observing that his visitor was drawing to the door. "These beasts will murder me if you leave me; I can't help myself--do stay." "Pray, madam, you are the amiable and remarkably quiet gentlewoman with whom I was to-day honoured by an interview? God bless my body and soul, can it possibly be?" said Mr. Audley, addressing himself to the lady. "You vile old swindling schemer," shrieked she, returning--"you skulking, mean dog--you brandy-faced old reprobate, you--hoo! wait, wait--wait awhile; I'll master you yet--just wait--never mind--hoo!" and with something like an Indian war-whoop she dashed out of the room. "Get out of this apartment, you ruffian, you--M'Guinness, get out of the room," cried old French, addressing the fellow, who still stood grinning and growling there. "No, I'll not till I do my business," retorted the man, doggedly; "I'll put you to bed first. I've a right to do my own business; I'll undress you and put you to bed first--bellows me, but I will." "Mr. Audley, I beg pardon for troubling you," said Oliver, "but will you pull the bell if you please, like the very devil." "Pull away till you are black in the face; _I'll_ not stir," retorted M'Guinness. Mr. Audley pulled the bell with a sustained vehemence which it put Mr. French into a perspiration even to witness. "Pull away, old gentleman--you may pull till you burst--to the devil with you all. I'll not stir a peg till I choose it myself; I'll do my business what I was hired for; there's no treason in that. D---- me, if I stir a peg for you," repeated M'Guinness, doggedly. Meanwhile, two half-dressed, scared-looking servants, alarmed by Mr. Audley's persevering appeals, showed themselves at the door. "Thomas--Martin--come in here, you pair of boobies," exclaimed French, authoritatively; "Martin, do you keep an eye on that scoundrel, and Thomas, run you down and waken the post-boy and tell him to put his horses to, and do you assist him, sir, away!" With unqualified amazement in their faces, the men proceeded to obey their orders. "So, so," said Oliver, still out of breath with anger, "matters are come to a pleasant pass, I'm to be brained with my own poker--by my own servant--in my own house--very pleasant, because forsooth, I dare to do what I please with my own--highly agreeable, truly! Mr. Audley, may I trouble you to give me a glass of noyeau--let me recommend that to you, Mr. Audley, it has the true flavour--nay, nay--I'll hear of no excuse--I'm absolute in my own room at least--come, my dear sir--I implore--I insist--nay, I command; come--come--a bumper; very good health, sir; a pleasant pair of furies!--just give me the legs of that woodcock while we are waiting." Accordingly Mr. Oliver French filled up the brief interval after his usual fashion, by adding slightly to the contents of his stomach, and in a little time the servant whom he had dispatched downward, returned with the post-boy in person. "Are your horses under the coach, my good lad?" inquired old French. "No, but they're to it, and that's better," responded the charioteer. "You'll not have far to go--only to the little village at the end of the avenue," said Mr. French. "Mr. Audley, may I trouble you to fill a large glass of Creme de Portugal; thank you; now, my good lad, take that," continued he, delighted at an opportunity of indulging his passion for ministering to the stomach of a fellow mortal, "take it--take it--every drop--good--now Martin, do you and Thomas find that termagant--fury--Martha Montgomery, and conduct her to the coach--carry her down if necessary--put her into it, and one of you remain with her, to prevent her getting out again, and let the other return, and with my friend the post-boy, do a like good office by my honest comrade Mr. M'Guinness--mind you go along with them to the village, and let them be set down at Moroney's public-house; everything belonging to them shall be sent down to-morrow morning, and if you ever catch either of them about the place--duck them--whip them--set the dogs on them--that's all." Shrieking as though body and soul were parting, Mrs. Martha was half-carried, half-dragged from the scene of her long-abused authority; screaming her threats, curses, and abuse in volleys, she was deposited safely in the vehicle, and guarded by the footman--who in secret rejoiced in common with all the rest of the household at the disgrace of the two insolent favourites--and was forced to sit therein until her companion in misfortune being placed at her side, they were both, under a like escort, safely deposited at the door of the little public-house, scarcely crediting the evidence of their senses for the reality of their situation. Henceforward Ardgillagh was a tranquil place, and day after day old Oliver French grew to love the gentle creature, whom a chance wind had thus carried to his door, more and more fondly. There was an artlessness and a warmth of affection, and a kindliness about her, which all, from the master down to the humblest servant, felt and loved; a grace, and dignity, and a simple beauty in every look and action, which none could see and not admire. The strange old man, whose humour had never brooked contradiction, felt for her, he knew not why, a tenderness and respect such as he never before believed a mortal creature could inspire; her gentle wish was law to him; to see her sweet face was his greatest joy--to please her his first ambition; she grew to be, as it were, his idol. It was her chief delight to ramble unattended through the fine old place. Often, with her faithful follower, Flora Guy, she would visit the humble dwellings of the poor, wherever grief or sickness was, and with gentle words of comfort and bounteous pity, cheer and relieve. But still, from week to week it became too mournfully plain that the sweet, sad face was growing paler and ever paler, and the graceful form more delicately slight. In the silent watches of the night often would Flora Guy hear her loved young mistress weep on for hours, as though her heart were breaking; yet from her lips there never fell at any time one word of murmuring, nor any save those of gentle kindness; and often would she sit by the casement and reverently read the pages of one old volume, and think and read again, while ever and anon the silent tears, gathering on the long, dark lashes, would fall one by one upon the leaf, and then would she rise with such a smile of heavenly comfort breaking through her tears, that peace, and hope, and glory seemed beaming in her pale angelic face. Thus from day to day, in the old mansion of Ardgillagh, did she, whose beauty none, even the most stoical, had ever seen unmoved--whose artless graces and perfections all who had ever beheld her had thought unmatched, fade slowly and uncomplainingly, but with beauty if possible enhanced, before the eyes of those who loved her; yet they hoped on, and strongly hoped--why should they not? She was young--yes, very young, and why should the young die in the glad season of their early bloom? Mr. Audley became a wondrous favourite with his eccentric entertainer, who would not hear of his fixing a time for his departure, but partly by entreaties, partly by bullying, managed to induce him to prolong his stay from week to week. These concessions were not, however, made without corresponding conditions imposed by the consenting party, among the foremost of which was the express stipulation that he should not be expected, nor by cajolery nor menaces induced or compelled, to eat or drink at all more than he himself felt prompted by the cravings of his natural appetite to do. The old gentlemen had much in common upon which to exercise their sympathies; they were both staunch Tories, both admirable judges of claret, and no less both extraordinary proficients in the delectable pastimes of backgammon and draughts, whereat, when other resources failed, they played with uncommon industry and perseverance, and sometimes indulged in slight ebullitions of acrimonious feeling, scarcely exhibited, however, before they were atoned for by fervent apologies and vehement vows of good behaviour for the future. Leaving this little party to the quiet seclusion of Ardgillagh, it becomes now our duty to return for a time to very different scenes and other personages. CHAPTER LXVIII. THE FRAY. It now becomes our duty to return for a short time to Sir Henry Ashwoode and Nicholas Blarden, whom we left in hot pursuit of the trembling fugitives. The night was consumed in vain but restless search, and yet no satisfactory clue to the direction of their flight had been discovered; no evidence, not even a hint, by which to guide their pursuit. Jaded by his fruitless exertions, frantic with rage and disappointment, Nicholas Blarden at peep of light rode up to the hall door of Morley Court. "No news since?" cried he, fixing his bloodshot eyes upon the man who took his horse's bridle, "no news since?" "No, sir," cried the fellow, shaking his head, "not a word." "Is Sir Henry within?" inquired Blarden, throwing himself from the saddle. "No, sir," replied the man. "Not returned yet, eh?" asked Nicholas. "Yes, sir, he did return, and he left again about ten minutes ago," responded the groom. "And left no message for me, eh?" rejoined Blarden. "There's a note, sir, on a scrap of paper, on the table in the hall, I forgot to mention," replied the man--"he wrote it in a hurry, with a pencil, sir." Blarden strode into the hall, and easily discovered the document--a hurried scrawl, scarcely legible; it ran as follows:-- "Nothing yet--no trace--I half suspect they're lurking in the neighbourhood of the house. I must return to town--there are two places which I forgot to try. Meet me, if you can--say in the old Saint Columbkil; it's a deserted place, in the morning about ten or eleven o'clock. "HENRY ASHWOODE." Blarden glanced quickly through this effusion. "A precious piece of paper, that!" muttered he, tearing it across, "worthy of its author--a cursed greenhorn; consume him for a _mouth_, but no matter--no matter yet. Here, you rake-helly squad, some of you," shouted he, addressing himself at random to the servants, one of whom he heard approaching, "here, I say, get me some food and drink, and don't be long about it either, I can scarce stand." So saying, and satisfied that his directions would be promptly attended to, he shambled into one of the sitting-rooms, and flung himself at his full length upon a sofa; his disordered and bespattered dress and mud-stained boots contrasted agreeably with the rich crimson damask and gilded backs and arms of the couch on which he lay. As he applied himself voraciously to the solid fare and the wines with which he was speedily supplied, a thousand incoherent schemes, and none of them of the most amiable kind, busily engaged his thoughts. After many wandering speculations, he returned again to a subject which had more than once already presented itself. "And then for the brother, the fellow that laid his blows on me before a whole play-house full of people, the vile spawn of insolent beggary, that struck me till his arm was fairly tired with striking--I'm no fool to forget such things--the rascally forging ruffian--the mean, swaggering, lying bully--no matter--he must be served out in style, and so he shall. I'll not hang him though, I may turn him to account yet, some way or other--no, I'll not hang him, keep the halter in my hand--the best trump for the last card--hold the gallows over him, and make him lead a pleasant sort of life of it, one way or other. I'll not leave a spark of pride in his body I'll not thrash out of him. I'll make him meeker and sleeker and humbler than a spaniel; he shall, before the face of all the world, just bear what I give him, and do what I bid him, like a trained dog--sink me, but he shall." Somewhat comforted by these ruminations, Nicholas Blarden arose from a substantial meal, and a reverie, which had occupied some hours; and without caring to remove from his person the traces of his toilsome exertions of the night past, nor otherwise to render himself one whit a less slovenly and neglected-looking figure than when he had that morning dismounted at the hall door, he called for a fresh horse, threw himself into the saddle, and spurred away for Dublin city. He reached the doorway of the old Saint Columbkil, and, under the shadow of its ancient sign-board, dismounted. He entered the tavern, but Ashwoode was not there; and, in answer to his inquiries, Mr. Blarden was informed that Sir Henry Ashwoode had gone over to the "Cock and Anchor," to have his horse cared for, and that he was momentarily expected back. Blarden consulted his huge gold watch. "It's eleven o'clock now, every minute of it, and he's not come--hoity toity rather, I should say, all things considered. I thought he was better up to his game by this time--but no matter--I'll give him a lesson just now." As if for the express purpose of further irritating Mr. Blarden's already by no means angelic temper, several parties, composed of second-rate sporting characters, all laughing, swearing, joking, betting, whistling, and by every device, contriving together to produce as much clatter and uproar as it was possible to do, successively entered the place. "Well, Nicky, boy, how does the world wag with you?" inquired a dapper little fellow, approaching Blarden with a kind of brisk, hopping gait, and coaxingly digging that gentleman's ribs with the butt of his silver-mounted whip. "What the devil brings all these chaps here at this hour?" inquired Blarden. "Soft is your horn, old boy," rejoined his acquaintance, in the same arch strain of pleasantry; "two regular good mains to be fought to-day--tough ones, I promise you--Fermanagh Dick against Long White--fifty birds each--splendid fowls, I'm told--great betting--it will come off in little more than an hour." "I don't care if it never comes off," rejoined Blarden; "I'm waiting for a chap that ought to have been here half an hour ago. Rot him, I'm sick waiting." "Well, come, I'll tell you how we'll pass the time. I'll toss you for guineas, as many tosses as you like," rejoined the small gentleman, accommodatingly. "What do you say--is it a go?" "Sit down, then," replied Blarden; "sit down, can't you? and begin." Accordingly the two friends proceeded to recreate themselves thus pleasantly. Mr. Blarden's luck was decidedly bad, and he had been already "physicked," as his companion playfully remarked, to the amount of some five-and-twenty guineas, and his temper had become in a corresponding degree affected, when he observed Sir Henry Ashwoode, jaded, haggard, and with dress disordered, approaching the place where he sat. "Blarden, we had better leave this place," said Ashwoode, glancing round at the crowded benches; "there's too much noise here. What say you?" "What do I say?" rejoined Blarden, in his very loudest and most insolent tone--"I say you have made an appointment and broke it, so stand there till it's my convenience to talk to you--that's all." Ashwoode felt his blood tingling in his veins with fury as he observed the sneering significant faces of those who, attracted by the loud tones of Nicholas Blarden, watched the effect of his insolence upon its object. He heard conversations subside into whispers and titters among the low scoundrels who enjoyed his humiliation; yet he dared not answer Blarden as he would have given worlds at that moment to have done, and with the extremest difficulty restrained himself from rushing among the vile rabble who exulted in his degradation, and compelling _them_ at least to respect and fear him. While he stood thus with compressed lips and a face pale as ashes with rage, irresolute what course to take, one of the coins for which Blarden played rolled along the table, and thence along the floor for some distance. "Go, fetch that guinea--jump, will you?" cried Blarden, in the same boisterous and intentionally insolent tone. "What are you standing there for, like a stick? Pick it up, sir." Ashwoode did not move, and an universal titter ran round the spectators, whose attention was now effectually enlisted. "Do what I order you--do it this moment. D---- your audacity, you had better do it," said Blarden, dashing his clenched fist on the table so as to make the coin thereon jump and jingle. Still Ashwoode remained resolutely fixed, trembling in every joint with very passion; prudence told him that he ought to leave the place instantly, but pride and obstinacy, or his evil angel, held him there. The sneering whispers of the crowd, who now pressed more nearly round them in the hope of some amusement, became more and more loud and distinct, and the words, "white feather," "white liver," "muff," "cur," and other terms of a like import reached Ashwoode's ear. Furious at the contumacy of his wretched slave, and determined to overbear and humble him, Blarden exclaimed in a tone of ferocious menace,-- "Do as I bid you, you cursed, insolent upstart--pick up that coin, and give it to me--or by the laws, you'll shake for it." Still Ashwoode moved not. "Do as I bid you, you robbing swindler," shouted he, with an oath too appalling for our pages, and again rising, and stamping on the floor, "or I'll give you to the crows." The titter which followed this menace was unexpectedly interrupted. The young man's aspect changed; the blood rushed in livid streams to his face; his dark eyes blazed with deadly fire; and, like the bursting of a storm, all the gathering rage and vengeance of weeks in one tremendous moment found vent. With a spring like that of a tiger, he rushed upon his persecutor, and before the astonished spectators could interfere, he had planted his clenched fists dozens of times, with furious strength, in Blarden's face. Utterly destitute of personal courage, the wretch, though incomparably a more powerful man than his light-limbed antagonist, shrank back, stunned and affrighted, under the shower of blows, and stumbled and fell over a wooden stool. With murderous resolution, Ashwoode instantly drew his sword, and another moment would have witnessed the last of Blarden's life, had not several persons thrown themselves between that person and his frantic assailant. "Hold back," cried one. "The man's down--don't murder him." "Down with him--he's mad!" cried another; "brain him with the stool." "Hold his arm, some of you, or he'll murder the man!" shouted a third, "hold him, will you?" Overpowered by numbers, with his face lacerated and his clothes torn, and his naked sword still in his hand, Ashwoode struggled and foamed, and actually howled, to reach his abhorred enemy--glaring like a baffled beast upon his prey. "Send for constables, quick--_quick_, I say," shouted Blarden, with a frantic imprecation, his face all bleeding under his recent discipline. "Let me go--let me go, I tell you, or by the father that made me, I'll send my sword through half-a-dozen of you," almost shrieked Ashwoode. "Hold him--hold him fast--consume you, hold him back!" shouted Blarden; "he's a forger!--run for constables!" Several did run in various directions for peace officers. "Wring the sword from his hand, why don't you?" cried one; "cut it out of his hand with a knife!" "Knock him down!--down with him! Hold on!" Amid such exclamations, Ashwoode at length succeeded, by several desperate efforts, in extricating himself from those who held him; and without hat, and with clothes rent to fragments in the scuffle, and his face and hands all torn and bleeding, still carrying his naked sword in his hand, he rushed from the room, and, followed at a respectable distance by several of those who had witnessed the scuffle, and by his distracted appearance attracting the wondering gaze of those who traversed the streets, he ran recklessly onward to the "Cock and Anchor." CHAPTER LXIX. THE BOLTED WINDOW. Followed at some distance by a wondering crowd, he entered the inn-yard, where, for the first time, he checked his flight, and returned his sword to the scabbard. "Here, ostler, groom--quickly, here!" cried Ashwoode. "In the devil's name, where are you?" The ostler presented himself, gazing in unfeigned astonishment at the distracted, pale, and bleeding figure before him. "Where have you put my horse?" said Ashwoode. "The boy's whisping him down in the back stable, your honour," replied he. "Have him saddled and bridled in three seconds," said Ashwoode, striding before the man towards the place indicated. "I'll make it worth your while. My life--my _life_ depends on it!" "Never fear," said the fellow, quickening his pace, "may I never buckle a strap if I don't." With these words, they entered the stable together, but the horse was not there. "Confound them, they brought him to the dark stable, I suppose," said the groom, impatiently. "Come along, sir." "'Sdeath! it will be too late! Quick!--quick, man!--in the fiend's name, be quick!" said Ashwoode, glaring fearfully towards the entrance to the inn-yard. Their visit to the second stable was not more satisfactory. "Where the devil's Sir Henry Ashwoode's horse?" inquired the groom, addressing a fellow who was seated on an oat-bin, drumming listlessly with his heels upon its sides, and smoking a pipe the while--"where's the horse?" repeated he. The man first satisfied his curiosity by a leisurely view of Ashwoode's disordered dress and person, and then removed his pipe deliberately from his mouth, and spat upon the ground. "Where's Sir Henry's horse?" he repeated. "Why, Jim took him out a quarter of an hour ago, walking down towards the Poddle there. I'm thinking he'll be back soon now." "Saddle a horse--any horse--only let him be sure and fleet," cried Ashwoode, "and I'll pay you his price thrice over!" "Well, it's a bargain," replied the groom, promptly; "I don't like to see a gentleman caught in a hobble, if I can help him out of it. Take my advice, though, and duck your head under the water in the trough there; your face is full of blood and dust, and couldn't but be noticed wherever you went." While the groom was with marvellous celerity preparing the horse which he selected for the young man's service, Ashwoode, seeing the reasonableness of his advice, ran to the large trough full of water which stood before the pump in the inn-yard; but as he reached it, he perceived the entrance of some four or five persons into the little quadrangle whom, at a glance, he discovered to be constables. "That's him--he's our bird! After him!--there he goes!" cried several voices. Ashwoode sprang up the stairs of the gallery which, as in most old inns, overhung the yard. He ran along it, and rushed into the first passage which opened from it. This he traversed with his utmost speed, and reached a chamber door. It was fastened; but hurling himself against it with his whole weight, he burst it open, the hoarse voices of his pursuers, and their heavy tread, ringing in his ears. He ran directly to the casement; it looked out upon a narrow by-lane. He strove to open it, that he might leap down upon the pavement, but it resisted his efforts; and, driven to bay, and hearing the steps at the very door of the chamber, he turned about and drew his sword. [Illustration: "Driven to bay ... he drew his sword." _To face page 338._] "Come, no sparring," cried the foremost, a huge fellow in a great coat, and with a bludgeon in his hand; "give in quietly; you're regularly caged." As the fellow advanced, Ashwoode met him with a thrust of his sword. The constable partly threw it up with his hand, but it entered the fleshy part of his arm, and came out near his shoulder blade. "Murder! murder!--help! help!" shouted the man, staggering back, while two or three more of his companions thrust themselves in at the door. Ashwoode had hardly disengaged his sword, when a tremendous blow upon the knuckles with a bludgeon dashed it from his grasp, and almost at the same instant, he received a second blow upon the head, which felled him to the ground, insensible, and weltering in blood, the execrations and uproar of his assailants still ringing in his ears. "Lift him on the bed. Pull off his cravat. By the hoky, he's done for. Devil a kick in him. Open his vest. Are you hurted, Crotty? Get some water and spirits, some of yees, an' a towel. Begorra, we just nicked him. He's an active chap. See, he's opening his mouth and his eyes. Hould him, Teague, for he's the devil's bird. Never mind it, Crotty. Devil a fear of you. Tear open the shirt. Bedad, it was close shaving. Give him a drop iv the brandy. Never a fear of you, old bulldog." These and such broken sentences from fifty voices filled the little chamber where Ashwoode lay in dull and ghastly insensibility after his recent deadly struggle, while some stuped the wounds of the combatants with spirits and water, and others applied the same medicaments to their own interiors, and all talked loud and fast together, as men are apt to do after scenes of excitement. We need not follow Ashwoode through the dreadful preliminaries which terminated in his trial. In vain did he implore an interview with Nicholas Blarden, his relentless prosecutor. It were needless to enter into the evidence for the prosecution, and that for the defence, together with the points made arguments, and advanced by the opposing counsel; it is enough to know that the case was conducted with much ability on both sides, and that the jury, having deliberated for more than an hour, at length found the verdict which we shall just now state. A baronet in the dock was too novel an exhibition to fail in drawing a full attendance, and the consequence was, that never was known such a crowd of human beings in a compass so small as that which packed the court-house upon this memorable occasion. Throughout the whole proceedings, Sir Henry Ashwoode, though deadly pale, conducted himself with singular coolness and self-possession, frequently suggesting questions to his counsel, and watching the proceedings apparently with a mind as disengaged from every agitating consciousness of personal danger as that of any of the indifferent but curious bystanders who looked on. He was handsomely dressed, and in his degraded and awful situation preserved, nevertheless, in his outward mien and attire, the dignity of his rank and former pretensions. As is invariably the case in Ireland, popular sympathy moved strongly in favour of the prisoner, a feeling of interest which the grace, beauty, and evident youth of the accused, as well as his high rank--for the Irish have ever been an aristocratic race--served much to enhance; and when the case closed, and the jury retired after an adverse charge from the learned judge, to consider their verdict, perhaps Ashwoode himself would have seemed, to the careless observer, the least interested in the result of all who were assembled in that densely crowded place, to hear the final adjudication of the law. Those, however, who watched him more narrowly could observe, in this dreadful interval, that he raised his handkerchief often to his face, keeping it almost constantly at his mouth to conceal the nervous twitching of the muscles which he could not control. The eyes of the eager multitude wandered from the prisoner to the jury-box, and thence to the impassive parchment countenance of the old ermined effigy who presided at the harrowing scene, and not one ventured to speak above his breath. At length, a sound was heard at the door of the jury-box--the jury was returning. A buzz ran through the court, and then the prolonged "hish," enjoining silence, while one by one the jurors entered and resumed their places in the box. The verdict was--Guilty. In reply to the usual interrogatory from the officer of the court, Sir Henry Ashwoode spoke, and though many there were moved, even to sobs and tears, yet his manner had recovered its grace and collectedness, and his voice was unbroken and musical as when it was wont to charm all hearers in the gay saloons of fashion, and splendour, and heedless folly, in other times--when he, blasted and ruined as he stood there, was the admired and courted favourite of the great and gay. "My lord," said he, "I have nothing to urge which, in the strict requirements of the law, avails to abate the solemn sentence which you are about to pronounce--for my life I care not--something is, however, due to my character and the name I bear--a name, my lord, never, never except on this day, never clouded by the shadow of dishonour--a name which will yet, after I am dead and gone, be surely and entirely vindicated; vindicated, my lord, in the entire dispersion of the foul imputations and fatal contrivances under which my fame is darkened and my life is taken. Far am I from impeaching the verdict that I have just heard. I will not arraign the jurymen, nor lay to _their_ charge that I am this day wrongfully condemned, but to the charge of those who, on that witness table, have sworn my life away--perjurers procured for money, whose exposure I leave to time, and whose punishment to God. Knowing that although my body shall ignominiously perish, and though my fame be tarnished for an hour, yet shall truth and years, with irresistible power, bring my innocence to light--rescue my character and restore the name I bear. He who stands in the shadow of death, as I do, has little to fear in human censure, and little to gather from the applause of men. My life is forfeited, and I must soon go into the presence of my Creator, to receive my everlasting doom; and in presence of that almighty and terrible God before whom I must soon stand, and as I look for mercy when He shall judge me, I declare, that of this crime, of which I am pronounced guilty, I am altogether innocent. I am a victim of a conspiracy, the motives of which my defence hath truly showed you. I never committed the crime for which I am to suffer. I repeat that I am innocent, and in witness of the truth of what I say, I appeal to my Maker and my Judge, the Eternal and Almighty God." Having thus spoken, Ashwoode received his sentence, and was forthwith removed to the condemned cell. Ashwoode had many and influential friends, and it required but a small exercise of their good offices to procure a reprieve. He would not suffer himself to despond--no, nor for one moment to doubt his final escape from the fangs of justice. He was first reprieved for a fortnight, and before that term expired again for six weeks. In the course of the latter term, however, an event occurred which fearfully altered his chances of escape, and filled his mind with the justest and most dreadful apprehensions. This was the recall of Wharton from the viceroyalty of Ireland. The new lord-lieutenant could not see, in the case of the young Whig baronet, the same extenuating circumstances which had wrought so effectually upon his predecessor, Wharton. The judge who had tried the case refused to recommend the prisoner to the mercy of the Crown; and the viceroy accordingly, in his turn, refused to entertain any application for the commutation or further suspension of his sentence; and now, for the first time, Sir Henry Ashwoode felt the tremendous reality of his situation. The term for which he was reprieved had nearly expired, and he felt that the hours which separated him from the deadly offices of the hangman were numbered. Still, in this dreadful consciousness, there mingled some faint and flickering ray of hope--by its uncertain mockery rendering the terrors of his situation but the more intolerable, and by the sleepless agonies of suspense, unnerving the resolution which he might have otherwise summoned to his aid. CHAPTER LXX. THE BARONET'S ROOM. Desperately wounded, O'Connor lay between life and death for many weeks in the dim and secluded apartment whither O'Hanlon had borne him after his combat with Sir Henry Ashwoode. There, fearing lest his own encounter with Wharton, and its startling result, should mark them for pursuit and search, he placed O'Connor under the charge of trusty creatures of his own--for some time not daring to visit him except under cover of the night. This alarm, however, soon subsided; and consequently less precaution was adopted. O'Connor's wounds were, as we have said, most dangerous, and for fully two months he lay upon the fiery couch of fever, alternately raving in delirium, and locked in the dull stupor of entire apathy and exhaustion. Through this season of pain and peril he was sustained, however, by the energies of a young and vigorous constitution. The fever, at length, abated, and the unclouded light of reason returned; still, however, in body he was weak, so weak that, sorely against his will, he was perforce obliged to continue the occupant of his narrow bed, in the dingy and secluded lodgings in which he lay. Impatient to learn something of her who entirely filled his thoughts, and of the truth of whose love for him he now felt the revival of more than hope, he chafed and fretted in the narrow limits of his dark and gloomy chamber. Spite of all the remonstrances of the old crone who attended him, backed by the more awful fulminations of his apothecary, O'Connor would not submit any longer to the confinement of his bed; and, but for the firm and effectual resistance of O'Hanlon, would have succeeded, weak as he was, in making his escape from the house, and resuming his ordinary occupations and pursuits, as though his health had not suffered, nor his strength become impaired, so as to leave him scarcely the power of walking a hundred steps, without the extremest exhaustion and lassitude. To O'Hanlon's expostulations he was forced to yield, and even pledged his word to him not to attempt a removal from his hated lodgings, without his consent and approbation. In reply to a message to his friend Audley, he learned, much to his mortification, that that gentleman had left town, and as thus full of disquiet and anxiety, one day O'Connor was seated, pale and languid, in his usual place by the window, the door of his apartment opened, and O'Hanlon entered. He took the hand of the invalid and said,-- "I commend your patience, young man, you have been my _parole_ prisoner for many days. When is this durance to end?" "I'faith, I believe with my life," rejoined O'Connor, "I never knew before what weariness and vexation in perfection are--this dusky room is hateful to me, it grows narrower and narrower every day--and those old houses opposite--every pane of glass in their windows, and every brick in their walls I have learned by rote--I am tired to death. But, seriously, I have other and very different reasons for wishing to be at liberty again--reasons so urgent as to leave me no rest by night or day. I chafe and fret here like a caged bird. I have been too long shut up--my strength will never come again unless I am allowed to breathe the fresh air--you are all literally killing me with kindness." "And yet," rejoined O'Hanlon, "I have never been thought an over-careful leech, and truth to say, had I suffered you to have your own way, you would not now have been a living man. I know, as well as any of them, how to tend a wound, and this I will say, that in all my practice it never yet has been my lot to meet with so ill-conditioned and cross-grained a patient as yourself. Why, nothing short of downright force has kept you in your room--your life is saved in spite of yourself." "If you keep me here much longer," replied O'Connor, "it will prove but indifferent economy as regards my bodily health, for I shall undoubtedly cut my throat before another week." "There shall be no need, my friend, to find such an escape," replied O'Hanlon, "for I now absolve you of your promise, hitherto so well observed; nay, more, _I_ advise you to leave the house to-day. I think your strength sufficient, and the occasion, moreover, demands that you should visit an acquaintance immediately." "Who is it?" inquired O'Connor, starting to his feet with alacrity, "thank God I am at length again my own master." "When I this day entered the yard of the 'Cock and Anchor'," answered O'Hanlon, "the inn where you and I first encountered, I found a fellow inquiring after you most earnestly; he had a letter with which he was charged. It is from Sir Henry Ashwoode, who lies now in prison, and under sentence of death. You start, and no wonder--his old associates have convicted him of forgery." "Gracious Heaven, is it possible?" exclaimed O'Connor. "Nay, _certain_," continued O'Hanlon, "nor has he any longer a chance of escape. He has been twice reprieved--but his friend Wharton is recalled--his reprieve expires in three days' time, and then he will be inevitably executed." "Good God, is this--can it be reality?" exclaimed O'Connor, trembling with the violence of his agitation, "give me the letter." He broke the seal, and read as follows:-- "EDMOND O'CONNOR,--I know I have wronged you sorely. I have destroyed your peace and endangered your life. You are more than avenged. I write this in the condemned cell of the gaol. If you can bring yourself to confer with me for a few minutes, come here. I stand on no ceremony, and time presses. Do not fail. If you be living I shall expect you. "HENRY ASHWOODE." O'Connor's preparations were speedily made, and leaning upon the arm of his elder friend, he, with slow and feeble steps, and a head giddy with his long confinement, and the agitating anticipation of the scene in which he was just about to be engaged, traversed the streets which separated his lodging from the old city gaol--a sombre, stern, and melancholy-looking building, surrounded by crowded and dilapidated houses, with decayed plaster and patched windows, and a certain desolate and sickly aspect, as though scared and blasted by the contagious proximity of that dark receptacle of crime and desperation which loomed above them. At the gate O'Hanlon parted from him, appointing to meet him again in the "Cock and Anchor," whither he repaired. After some questions, O'Connor was admitted. The clanging of bolts, and bars, and door-chains, smote heavily on his heart--he heard no other sounds but these and the echoing tread of their own feet, as they traversed the long, dark, stone-paved passages which led to the dungeon in which he whom he had last seen in the pride of fashion, and youth, and strength, was now a condemned felon, and within a few hours of a public and ignominious death. The turnkey paused at one of the narrow doors opening from the dusky corridor, and unclosing it, said,-- "A gentleman, sir, to see you." "Request him to come in," replied a voice, which, though feebler than it used to be, O'Connor had no difficulty in recognizing. In compliance with this invitation, he with a throbbing heart entered the prison-room. It was dimly lighted by a single small window set high in the wall, and darkened by iron bars. A small deal table, with a few books carelessly laid upon it, occupied the centre of the cell, and two heavy stools were placed beside it, on one of which was seated a figure, with his back to the light, to conceal, with a desperate tenacity of pride, the ravages which the terrific mental fever of weeks had wrought in his once bold and handsome face. By the wall was stretched a wretched pallet; and upon the plaster were written and scratched, according to the various moods of the miserable and guilty tenants of the place, a hundred records, some of slang philosophy, some of desperate drunken defiance, and some again of terror, but all bearing reference to the dreadful scene to which this was but the ante-chamber and the passage. Many hieroglyphical emblems of unmistakable significance had also been traced upon the walls by the successive occupants of the place, such as coffins, gallows-trees, skulls and cross-bones; the most striking among which symbols was a large figure of death upon a horse, sketched with much spirit, by some moralizing convict, with a piece of burned stick, and to which some waggish successor had appropriately added, in red chalk, a gigantic pair of spurs. As soon as O'Connor entered, the turnkey closed the door, and he and Sir Henry Ashwoode were left alone. A silence of some minutes, which neither party dared to break, ensued. CHAPTER LXXI. THE FAREWELL. O'Connor was the first to speak. In a low voice, which trembled with agitation, he said,-- "Sir Henry Ashwoode, I have come here in answer to a note which reached me but a few minutes since. You desired a conference with me; is there any commission with which you would wish to charge me?--if so, let me know it, and it shall be done." "None, none, Mr. O'Connor, thank you," rejoined Ashwoode, recovering his characteristic self-possession, and continuing proudly, "if you add to your visit a patient audience of a few minutes, you will have conferred upon me the only favour I desire. Pray, sit down; it is rather a hard and a homely seat," he added, with a haggard, joyless smile--"but the only one this place supplies." Another silence followed, during which Sir Henry Ashwoode restlessly shifted his attitude every moment, in evident and uncontrollable nervous excitement. At length he arose, and walked twice or thrice up and down the narrow chamber, exhibiting without any longer care for concealment his pale, wasted face in the full light which streamed in through the grated window, his sunken eyes and unshorn chin, and worn and attenuated figure. "You hear that sound," said he, abruptly stopping short, and looking with the same strange smile upon O'Connor; "the clank upon the flags as I walk up and down--the jingle of the fetters--isn't it strange--isn't it odd--like a dream--eh?" Another silence followed, which Ashwoode again abruptly interrupted. "You know all this story?--of course you do--everybody does--how the wretches have trapped me--isn't it terrible--isn't it dreadful? Oh! you cannot know what it is to mope about this place alone, when it is growing dark, as I do every evening, and in the night time. If I had been another man, I'd have been raving mad by this time. I said _alone_--did I?" he continued, with increasing excitement; "oh! that it were!--oh! that it were! He comes there--_there_," he screamed, pointing to the foot of the bed, "with all those infernal cloths and fringes about his face, morning and evening. Ah, God! such a thing--half idiot, half fiend; and still the same, though I curse him till I'm hoarse, he won't leave it. Can't they wait--can't they wait? for-ever is a long day. As I'm a living man, he's with me every night--there--there is the body, gaping and nodding--_there_--_there_--_there_!" As he shouted this with frantic and despairing horror, shaking his clenched hands toward the place of his dreaded nightly visitant, O'Connor felt a thrill of horror such as he had never known before, and hardly recovered from this painful feeling, when Sir Henry Ashwoode turned to the little table on which, among many things, a vessel of water was placed, and filling some out into a cracked cup, he added to it drops from a phial, and hastily swallowed the mixture. "Laudanum is all the philosophy or religion I can boast; it's well to have even so much," said he, returning the bottle to his pocket. "It's a dead secret, though, that I have got any; this is a present from the doctor they allow me to see, and I'm on honour not--to poison myself--isn't it comical?--for fear he should get into a scrape; but I've another game to play--no fear of that--no, no." Another silence followed, and Sir Henry Ashwoode said quickly,-- "What do the people say about it? Do they think I forged that accursed bond? Do they think me guilty?" O'Connor declared his entire ignorance of public rumour, alleging his own illness, and consequent close confinement, as the cause of it. "They sha'n't believe me guilty, no, they sha'n't. Look ye, sir, I have one good feeling left," he resumed, vehemently; "I will not let my name suffer. If the most resolute firmness to the very last, and the most solemn renunciation of the charges preferred against me, reiterated at the foot of the gallows, with the halter about my neck--if these can beget a belief of my innocence, my name shall be clear--my name shall not suffer; this last outrage I will avert; but oh, my God! is there no chance yet--must I--_must_ I perish? Will no one save me--will no one help me? Oh, God! oh, God! is there no pity--no succour; must it come?" Thus crying, he threw himself forward upon the table, while every joint and muscle quivered and heaved with fierce hysterical sobs which, more like a succession of short convulsive shrieks than actual weeping, betrayed his agony, while O'Connor looked on with a mixture of horror and pity, which all that was past could not suppress. At length the paroxysm subsided. The wretched man filled out some more water, and mingling some drops of laudanum in it, he drank it off, and became comparatively composed. "Not a word of this to any living being, I charge you," said he, clutching O'Connor's arm in his attenuated hand, and fixing his sunken fiery eyes upon his; "I would not have my folly known; I'm not always so weak as you have seen me. It _must_ be, that's all--no help for it. It's rather a novel thing, though, to hang a baronet--ha! ha! You look scared--you think my wits are unsettled; but you're wrong. I don't sleep; I hav'n't for some time; and want of rest, you know, makes a man's manner odd; makes him excitable--nervous. I'm more myself now." After a short pause, Sir Henry Ashwoode resumed,-- "When we had that affray together, in which would to God you had run me through the heart, you put a question to me about my sister--poor Mary; I will answer that now, and more than answer it. That girl loves you with her whole heart; loves you alone; never loved another. It matters not to tell how I and my father--the great and accursed first cause of all our misfortunes and miseries--effected your estrangement. The Italian miscreant told you truth. The girl is gone I know not whither, to seek an asylum from me--ay, from _me_. To save my life and honour. I would have constrained her to marry the wretch who has destroyed me. It was he--_he_ who urged it, who cajoled me. I joined him, to save my life and honour! and now--oh! God, where are they?" O'Connor rose, and said somewhat sternly,-- "May God pardon you, Sir Henry Ashwoode, for all you have done against the peace of that most noble and generous being, your sister. What I have suffered at your hands I heartily forgive." "I ask forgiveness nowhere," rejoined Ashwoode, stoically; "what's done is done. It has been a wild and fitful life, and is now over. What forgiveness can you give me or she that's worth a thought?--folly, folly!" "One word of earnest hope before I leave you; one word of solemn warning," said O'Connor; "the vanities of this world are fading fast and for ever from your view; you are going where the applause of men can reach you no more! I conjure you, then, for the sake of your eternal peace, if your sentence be a just one, do not insult your Creator by denying your guilt, and pass into His awful presence with a lie upon your lips." Ashwoode paused for a moment, and then walked suddenly up to O'Connor, and almost in a whisper said,-- "Not a word of that, my course is chosen; not one word more. Observe, what has passed between us is private; now leave me." So saying, Ashwoode turned from him, and walked toward the narrow window of his cell. "Farewell, Sir Henry Ashwoode, farewell for ever; and may God have mercy upon you," said O'Connor, passing out upon the dark and narrow corridor. The turnkey closed the door with a heavy crash upon his prisoner, and locked it once more, and thus the two young men, who had so often and so variously encountered in the unequal path of life, were parted never again to meet in the wayward scenes of this chequered and changeful existence. Tired and agitated, O'Connor threw himself into the first coach he met, and was deposited safely in the "Cock and Anchor." It were vain to attempt to describe the ecstasies and transports of honest Larry Toole at the unexpected recovery of his long-lost master; we shall not attempt to do so. It is enough for our purpose to state that at the "Cock and Anchor" O'Connor received two letters from his old friend, Mr. Audley, and one conveying a pressing invitation from Oliver French of Ardgillagh, in compliance with which, early on the next morning, he mounted his horse, and set forth, followed by his trusty squire, upon the high road to Naas, resolved to task his strength to the uttermost, although he knew that even thus he must necessarily divide his journey into many more stages than his impatience would have allowed, had more rapid travelling in his weak condition been possible. CHAPTER LXXII. THE ROPE AND THE RIOT IN GALLOWS GREEN--AND THE WOODS OF ARDGILLAGH BY MOONLIGHT. At length came that day, that dreadful day, whose evening Sir Henry Ashwoode was never to see. Noon was the time fixed for the fatal ceremonial; and long before that hour, the mob, in one dense mass of thousands, had thronged and choked the streets leading to the old gaol. Upon this awful day the wretched man acquired, by a strange revulsion, a kind of stoical composure, which sustained him throughout the dreadful preparations. With hands cold as clay, and a face white as ashes, and from which every vestige of animation had vanished, he proceeded, nevertheless, with a calm and collected demeanour to make all his predetermined arrangements for the fearful scene. With a minute elaborateness he finished his toilet, and dressed himself in a grave, but particularly handsome suit. Could this shrunken, torpid, ghastly spectre, in reality be the same creature who, a few months since, was the admiration and envy of half the beaux of Dublin? There was little or none of the fitful excitability about him which had heretofore marked his demeanour during his confinement; on the contrary, a kind of stupor and apathy had supervened, partly occasioned by the laudanum which he had taken in unusually large quantities, and partly by the overwhelming horror of his situation. He seemed to observe and hear nothing. When the gaoler entered to remove his irons, shortly before the time of his removal had arrived, he seemed a little startled, and observing the physician who had attended him among those who stood at the door of his cell, he beckoned him toward him. "Doctor, doctor," said he in a dusky voice, "how much laudanum may I safely take? I want my head clear to say a few words, to speak to the people. Don't give me too much; but let me, with that condition, have whatever I can safely swallow. You know--you understand me; don't oblige me to speak any more just now." The physician felt his pulse, and looked in his face, and then mingled a little laudanum and water, which he applied to the young man's pale, dry lips. This dose was hardly swallowed, when one of the gaol officials entered, and stated that the ordinary was anxious to know whether the prisoner wished to pray or confer with him in private before his departure. The question had to be twice repeated ere it reached Sir Henry. He replied, however, quickly, and in a low tone,-- "No, no, not for the world. I can't bear it; don't disturb me--don't, don't." It was now intimated to the prisoner that he must proceed. His arms were pinioned, and he was conducted along the passages leading to the entrance of the gaol, where he was received by the sheriff. For a moment, as he passed out into the broad light and the keen fresh air, he beheld the vast and eager mob pressing and heaving like a great dark sea around him, and the mounted escort of dragoons with drawn swords and gay uniforms; and without attaching any clear or definite meaning to the spectacle, he beheld the plumes of a hearse, and two or three fellows engaged in sliding the long black coffin into its place. These sights, and the strange, gaping faces of the crowd, and the sheriff's carriage, and the gay liveries, and the crowded fronts and roofs of the crazy old houses opposite, for one moment danced like the fragment of a dream across his vision, and in the next he sat in the old-fashioned coach which was to convey him to the place of execution. "Only twenty-seven years, only twenty-seven years, only twenty-seven years," he muttered, vacantly and mechanically repeating the words which had reached his ear from those who were curiously reading the plate upon the coffin as he entered the coach--"only twenty-seven, twenty-seven." The awful procession moved on to the place of its final destination; the enormous mob rushing along with it--crowding, jostling, swearing, laughing, whistling, quarrelling, and hustling, as they forced their way onward, and staring with coarse and eager curiosity whenever they could into the vehicle in which Ashwoode sat. All the sights--the haggard, smirched, and eager faces, the prancing horses of the troopers, the well-known shops and streets, and the crowded windows--all sailed by his eyes like some unintelligible and heart-sickening dream. The place of public execution for criminals was then, and continued to be for long after, a spot significantly denominated "Gallows Hill," situated in the neighbourhood of St. Stephen's Green, and not far from the line at present traversed by Baggot Street. There a permanent gallows was erected, and thither, at length, amid thousands of crowding spectators, the melancholy procession came, and proceeded to the centre of area, where the gallows stood, with the long new rope swinging in the wind, and the cart and the hangman, with the guard of soldiers, prepared for their reception. The vehicles drew up, and those who had to play a part in the dreadful scene descended. The guard took their place, preserving a narrow circle around the fatal spot, free from the pressure of the crowd. The carriages were driven a little away, and the coffin was placed close under the gallows, while Ashwoode, leaning upon the chaplain and upon one of the sheriffs, proceeded toward the cart, which made the rude platform on which he was to stand. "Sir Henry Ashwoode," observes a contemporary authority, the _Dublin Journal_, "showed a great deal of calmness and dignity, insomuch that a great many of the mob, especially among the women, were weeping. His figure and features were handsome, and he was finely dressed. He prayed a short time with the ordinary, and then, with little assistance, mounted the hurdle, whence he spoke to the people, declaring his innocence with great solemnity. Then the hangman loosened his cravat, and opened his shirt at the neck, and Sir Henry turning to him, bid him, as it was understood, to take a ring from his finger, for a token of forgiveness, which he did, and then the man drew the cap over his eyes; but he made a sign, and the hangman lifted it up again, and Sir Henry, looking round at all the multitude, said again, three times, 'In the presence of God Almighty, I stand here innocent;' and then, a minute after, 'I forgive all my enemies, and I die innocent;' then he spoke a word to the hangman, and the cap being pulled down, and the rope quickly adjusted, the hurdle was moved away, and he swung off, the people with one consent crying out the while. He struggled for a long time, and very hard; and not for more than an hour was the body cut down, and laid in the coffin. He was buried in the night-time. His last dying words have begot among most people a great opinion of his innocence, though the lawyers still hold to it that he was guilty. It was said that Mr. Blarden, the prosecutor, was in a house in Stephen's Green, to see the hanging, and as soon as the mob heard it, they went and broke the windows, and, but for the soldiers, would have forced their way in, and done more violence." Thus speaks the _Dublin Journal_, and the extract needs no addition from us. Gladly do we leave this hateful scene, and turn from the dreadful fate of him whose follies and vices had wrought so much misery to others, and ended in such fearful ignominy and destruction to himself. We leave the smoky town, with all its fashion, vice, and villainy; its princely equipages; its prodigals; its paupers; its great men and its sycophants; its mountebanks and mendicants; its riches and its wretchedness. We leave that old city of strange compounds, where the sublime and the ridiculous, deep tragedies and most whimsical farces are ever mingling--where magnificence and squalor rub shoulders day by day, and beggars sit upon the steps of palaces. How much of what is wonderful, wild, and awful, has not thy secret history known! How much of the romance of human act and passion, vicissitude, joy and sorrow, grandeur and despair, has there not lived, and moved, and perished, age after age, under thy perennial curtain of solemn smoke! Far, far behind, we leave the sickly smoky town--and over the far blue hills and wooded country--through rocky glens, and by sonorous streams, and over broad undulating plains, and through the quiet villages, with their humble thatched roofs from which curls up the light blue smoke among the sheltering bushes and tall hedge-rows--through ever-changing scenes of softest rural beauty, in day time and at even-tide, and by the wan, misty moonlight, we follow the two travellers who ride toward the old domain of Ardgillagh. The fourth day's journey brought them to the little village which formed one of the boundaries of that old place. But, long ere they reached it, the sun had gone down behind the distant hills, under his dusky canopy of crimson clouds, and the pale moon had thrown its broad light and shadows over the misty landscape. Under the soft splendour of the moon, chequered by the moving shadows of the tall and ancient trees, they rode into the humble village--no sound arose to greet them but the desultory baying of the village dogs, and the soft sighing of the light breeze through the spreading boughs--and no signal of waking life was seen, except, few and far between, the red level beam of some still glowing turf fire, shining through the rude and narrow aperture that served the simple rustic instead of casement. At one of these humble dwellings Larry Toole applied for information, and with ready courtesy the "man of the house," in person, walked with them to the entrance of the place, and shoved open one of the valves of the crazy old gate, and O'Connor rode slowly in, following, with his best caution, the directions of his guide. His honest squire, Larry, meanwhile, loitered a little behind, in conference with the courteous peasant, and with the laudable intention of procuring some trifling refection, which, however, he determined to swallow without dismounting, and with all convenient dispatch, bearing in mind a wholesome remembrance of the disasters which followed his convivial indulgence in the little town of Chapelizod. While Larry thus loitered, O'Connor followed the wild winding avenue which formed the only approach to the old mansion. This rude track led him a devious way over slopes, and through hollows, and by the broad grey rocks, white as sheeted phantoms in the moonlight, and the thick weeds and brushwood glittering with the heavy dew of night, and through the beautiful misty vistas of the ancient wild wood, now still and solemn as old cathedral aisles. Thus, under the serene and cloudless light of the sailing moon, he had reached the bank of the broad and shallow brook whose shadowy nooks and gleaming eddies were canopied under the gnarled and arching boughs of the hoary thorn and oak--and here tradition tells a marvellous tale. It is narrated that when O'Connor reached this point, his jaded horse stopped short, refusing to cross the stream, and when urged by voice and spur, reared, snorted, and by every indication exhibited the extremest terror and an obstinate reluctance to pass the brook. The rider dismounted--took his steed by the head, patted and caressed him, and by every art endeavoured to induce him to traverse the little stream, but in vain; while thus fruitlessly employed, his attention was arrested by the sounds of a female voice, in low and singularly sweet and plaintive lamentation, and looking across the water, for the first time he beheld the object which so affrighted his steed. It was a female figure arrayed in a mantle of dusky red, the hood of which hung forward so as to hide the face and head: she was seated upon a broad grey rock by the brook's side, and her head leaned forward so as to rest upon her knees; her bare arm hung by her side, and the white fingers played listlessly in the clear waters of the brook, while with a wild and piteous chaunt, which grew louder and clearer as he gazed, she still sang on her strange mournful song. Spellbound and entranced, he knew not why, O'Connor gazed on in speechless and breathless awe, until at length the tall form arose and disappeared among the old trees, and the sounds melted away and were lost among the soft chiming of the brook, and heard no more. He dared not say whether it was reality or illusion, he felt like one suddenly recalled from a dream, and a certain awe, and horror, and dismay still hung upon him, for which he scarcely could account. Without further resistance, the horse now crossed the brook; O'Connor remounted, and followed the shadowy track; but again he was destined to meet with interruption; the pathway which he followed, embowered among the branching trees and bushes, at one point wound beneath a low, ivy-mantled rock; he was turning this point, when his horse, snorting loudly, checked his pace with a recoil so sudden that he threw himself back upon his haunches, and remained, except for his violent trembling, fixed and motionless. O'Connor raised his eyes, and standing upon the rock which overhung the avenue, he beheld, for a moment, a tall female form clothed in an ample cloak of dusky red. The arms with the hands clasped, as if in the extremity of woe, firmly together, were extended above her head, the face white as the foam of the river, and the eyes preternaturally large and wild, were raised fixedly toward the broad bright moon; this phantom, for such it was, for a moment occupied his gaze, and in the next, with a scream so piercing and appalling that his very marrow seemed to freeze at the sound, she threw herself forward as though she would cast herself upon the horse and rider--and, was gone. [Illustration: "His horse, snorting loudly, checked his pace." _To face page 354._] The horse started wildly off and galloped at headlong speed up the broken ascent, and for some time O'Connor had not collectedness to check his frantic course, or even to think; at length, however, he succeeded in calming the terrified animal--and, uttering a fervent prayer, he proceeded, without further adventure, till the tall gable of the old mansion in the spectral light of the moon among its thick embowering trees and rich ivy-mantles, with all its tall white chimney stacks and narrow windows with their thousand glittering panes, arose before his anxious gaze. CHAPTER LXXIII. THE LAST LOOK. Time had flowed on smoothly in the quiet old place, with an even current unbroken and unmarred, except by one event. Sir Henry Ashwoode's danger was known to old French and Mr. Audley; but with anxious and effectual care they kept all knowledge of his peril and disgrace from poor Mary: this pang was spared her. The months that passed had wrought in her a change so great and so melancholy, that none could look upon her without sorrowful forebodings, without misgivings against which they vainly strove. Sore grief had done its worst: the light and graceful step grew languid and feeble--the young face wan and wasted--the beautiful eyes grew dim; and now in her sad and early decline, as in other times, when her smile was sunshine, and her very step light music, was still with her the same warm and gentle spirit; and even amid the waste and desolation of decay, still prevailed the ineffaceable lines of that matchless and touching beauty, which in other times had wrought such magic. It was upon that day, the night of which saw O'Connor's long-deferred arrival at Ardgillagh, that Flora Guy, vainly striving to restrain her tears, knocked at Mr. Audley's chamber door. The old gentleman quickly answered the summons. "Ah, sir," said the girl, "she's very bad, sir, if you wish to see her, come at once." "I _do_, indeed, wish to see her, the dear child," said he, while the tears started to his eyes; "bring me to the room." He followed the kind girl to the door, and she first went in, and in a low voice told her that Mr. Audley wished much to see her, and she, with her own sweet, sad smile, bade her bring him to her bedside. Twice the old man essayed to enter, and twice he stayed to weep bitterly as a child. At length he commanded composure enough to enter, and stood by the bedside, and silently and reverently held the hand of her that was dying. "My dear child! my darling!" said he, vainly striving to suppress his sobs, while the tears fell fast upon the thin small hand he held in his--"I have sought this interview, to tell you what I would fain have told you often before now but knew not how to speak of it, I want to speak to you of one who loved you, and loves you still, as mortal has seldom loved; of--of my good young friend O'Connor." As he said this, he saw, or was it fancy, the faintest flush imaginable for one moment tinge her pale cheek. He had touched a chord to which the pulses of her heart, until they had ceased to beat, must tremble; and silently and slow the tears gathered upon her long dark lashes, and followed one another down her wan face, unheeded. Thus she listened while he related how truly O'Connor had loved her, and when the tale was ended she wept on long and silently. "Flora," she said at length, "cut off a lock of my hair." The girl did as she was desired, and in her thin and feeble hand her young mistress took it. "Whenever you see him, sir," said she, "will you give him this, and say that I sent it for a token that to the last I loved him, and to help him to remember me when I am gone: this is my last message--and poor Flora, won't you take care of her?" "Won't I, won't I!" sobbed the old man, vehemently. "While I have a shilling in the world she shall never know want--faithful creature"--and he grasped the honest girl's hand, and shook it, and sobbed and wept like a child. He took the long dark ringlet, which he had promised to give to O'Connor; and seeing that his presence agitated her, he took a long last look at the young face he was never more to see in life, and kissing the small hand again and again, he turned and went out, crying bitterly. Soon after this she grew much fainter, and twice or thrice she spoke as though her mind was busy with other scenes. "Let us go down to the well side," she said, "the primroses and cowslips are always there the earliest;" and then she said again, "He's coming, Flora; he'll be here very soon, so come and dress my hair; he likes to see my hair dressed with flowers--wild flowers." Shortly after this she sank into a soft and gentle sleep, and while she lay thus calmly, there came over her pale face a smile of such a pure and heavenly light, that angelic hope, and peace, and glory, shone in its beauty. The smile changed not; but she was dead! The sorrowful struggle was over--the weary bosom was at rest--the true and gentle heart was cold for ever--the brief but sorrowful trial was over--the desolate mourner was gone to the land where the pangs of grief, the tumults of passion, regrets, and cold neglect are felt no more. Her favourite bird, with gay wings, flutters to the casement; the flowers she planted are sweet upon the evening air; and by their hearths the poor still talk of her and bless her; but the silvery voice that spoke, and the gentle hand that tended, and the beautiful smile that gave an angelic grace to the offices of charity, where are they? The tapers are lighted in the silent chamber, and Flora Guy has laid early spring flowers on the still cold form that sleeps there in its serene sad beauty tranquilly and for ever; when in the court-yard are heard the tramp and clatter of a horse's hoofs--it is he--O'Connor,--he comes for her--the long lost--the dearly loved--the true-hearted--the found again. 'Twere vain to tell of frantic grief--words cannot tell, nor imagination conceive, the depth--the wildness--the desolation of that woe. CONCLUSION. Some fifteen years ago there was still to be seen in the little ruined church which occupies a corner in what yet remains of the once magnificent domain of Ardgillagh, side by side among the tangled weeds, two gravestones; one recording the death of Mary Ashwoode, at the early age of twenty-two, in the year of grace 1710; the other, that of Edmond O'Connor, who fell at Denain, in the year of our Lord 1712. Thus they were, who in life were separated, laid side by side in death. It is a still and sequestered spot, and the little ruin clothed in rich ivy, and sheltered by the great old trees with its solemn and holy quiet, in such a resting-place as most mortals would fain repose in when their race is done. For the rest our task is quickly done. Mr. Audley and Oliver French had so much gotten into one another's way of going on, that the former gentleman from week to week, and from month to month, continued to prolong his visit, until after a residence of eight years, he died at length in the mansion of Ardgillagh, at a very advanced age, and without more than two days' illness, having never experienced before, in all his life, one hour's sickness of any kind. Honest Oliver French outlived his boon companion by the space of two years, having just eaten an omelette and actually called for some woodcock-pie; he departed suddenly while the servant was raising the crust. Old Audley left Flora Guy well provided for at his death, but somehow or other considerably before that event Larry Toole succeeded in prevailing on the honest handmaiden to marry him, and although, questionless, there was some disparity in point of years, yet tradition says, and we believe it, that there never lived a fonder or a happier couple, and it is a genealogical fact, that half the Tooles who are now to be found in that quarter of the country, derive their descent from the very alliance in question. Of Major O'Leary we have only to say that the rumour which hinted at his having united his fortunes with those of the house of Rumble, were but too well founded. He retired with his buxom bride to a small property, remote from the dissipation of the capital, and except in the matter of an occasional cock-fight, whenever it happened to be within reach, or a tough encounter with the squire, when a new pipe of claret was to be tasted, one or two occasional indiscretions, he became, as he himself declared, in all respects an ornament to society. Lady Stukely, within a few months after the explosion with young Ashwoode, vented her indignation by actually marrying young Pigwiggynne. It was said, indeed, that they were not happy; of this, however, we cannot be sure; but it is undoubtedly certain that they used to beat, scratch, and pinch each other in private--whether in play merely, or with the serious intention of correcting one another's infirmities of temper, we know not. Several weeks before Lady Stukely's marriage, Emily Copland succeeded in her long-cherished schemes against the celibacy of poor Lord Aspenly. His lordship, however, lived on with a perseverance perfectly spiteful, and his lady, alas and alack-a-day, tired out, at length committed a _faux pas_--the trial is on record, and eventuated, it is sufficient to say, in a verdict for the plaintiff. Of Chancey, we have only to say that his fate was as miserable as his life had been abject and guilty. When he arose after the tremendous fall which he had received at the hands of his employer, Nicholas Blarden, upon the memorable night which defeated all their schemes, for he _did_ arise with life--intellect and remembrance were alike quenched--he was thenceforward a drivelling idiot. Though none cared to inquire into the cause and circumstances of his miserable privation, long was he well known and pointed out in the streets of Dublin, where he subsisted upon the scanty alms of superstitious charity, until at length, during the great frost in the year 1739, he was found dead one morning, in a corner under St. Audoen's Arch, stark and cold, cowering in his accustomed attitude. Nicholas Blarden died upon his feather bed, and if every luxury which imagination can devise, or prodigal wealth procure, can avail to soothe the racking torments of the body, and the terrors of the appalled spirit, he died happy. Of the other actors in this drama--with the exception of M'Quirk, who was publicly whipped for stealing four pounds of sausages from an eating house in Bride Street, and the Italian, who, we believe, was seen as groom-porter in Mr. Blarden's hell, for many years after--tradition is silent. [Illustration: The End.] GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LD., ST. JOHN'S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL. 
18000	----	PHINEAS FINN The Irish Member by ANTHONY TROLLOPE First published in serial form in _St. Paul's Magazine_ beginning in 1867 and in book form in 1869 CONTENTS VOLUME I I. Phineas Finn Proposes to Stand for Loughshane II. Phineas Finn Is Elected for Loughshane III. Phineas Finn Takes His Seat IV. Lady Laura Standish V. Mr. and Mrs. Low VI. Lord Brentford's Dinner VII. Mr. and Mrs. Bunce VIII. The News about Mr. Mildmay and Sir Everard IX. The New Government X. Violet Effingham XI. Lord Chiltern XII. Autumnal Prospects XIII. Saulsby Wood XIV. Loughlinter XV. Donald Bean's Pony XVI. Phineas Finn Returns to Killaloe XVII. Phineas Finn Returns to London XVIII. Mr. Turnbull XIX. Lord Chiltern Rides His Horse Bonebreaker XX. The Debate on the Ballot XXI. "Do be punctual" XXII. Lady Baldock at Home XXIII. Sunday in Grosvenor Place XXIV. The Willingford Bull XXV. Mr. Turnbull's Carriage Stops the Way XXVI. "The First Speech" XXVII. Phineas Discussed XXVIII. The Second Reading Is Carried XXIX. A Cabinet Meeting XXX. Mr. Kennedy's Luck XXXI. Finn for Loughton XXXII. Lady Laura Kennedy's Headache XXXIII. Mr. Slide's Grievance XXXIV. Was He Honest? XXXV. Mr. Monk upon Reform XXXVI. Phineas Finn Makes Progress XXXVII. A Rough Encounter VOLUME II XXXVIII. The Duel XXXIX. Lady Laura Is Told XL. Madame Max Goesler XLI. Lord Fawn XLII. Lady Baldock Does Not Send a Card to Phineas Finn XLIII. Promotion XLIV. Phineas and His Friends XLV. Miss Effingham's Four Lovers XLVI. The Mousetrap XLVII. Mr. Mildmay's Bill XLVIII. "The Duke" XLIX. The Duellists Meet L. Again Successful LI. Troubles at Loughlinter LII. The First Blow LIII. Showing How Phineas Bore the Blow LIV. Consolation LV. Lord Chiltern at Saulsby LVI. What the People in Marylebone Thought LVII. The Top Brick of the Chimney LVIII. Rara Avis in Terris LIX. The Earl's Wrath LX. Madame Goesler's Politics LXI. Another Duel LXII. The Letter That Was Sent to Brighton LXIII. Showing How the Duke Stood His Ground LXIV. The Horns LXV. The Cabinet Minister at Killaloe LXVI. Victrix LXVII. Job's Comforters LXVIII. The Joint Attack LXIX. The Temptress LXX. The Prime Minister's House LXXI. Comparing Notes LXXII. Madame Goesler's Generosity LXXIII. Amantium Iræ LXXIV. The Beginning of the End LXXV. P. P. C. LXXVI. Conclusion VOLUME I CHAPTER I Phineas Finn Proposes to Stand for Loughshane Dr. Finn, of Killaloe, in county Clare, was as well known in those parts,--the confines, that is, of the counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway,--as was the bishop himself who lived in the same town, and was as much respected. Many said that the doctor was the richer man of the two, and the practice of his profession was extended over almost as wide a district. Indeed the bishop whom he was privileged to attend, although a Roman Catholic, always spoke of their dioceses being conterminate. It will therefore be understood that Dr. Finn,--Malachi Finn was his full name,--had obtained a wide reputation as a country practitioner in the west of Ireland. And he was a man sufficiently well to do, though that boast made by his friends, that he was as warm a man as the bishop, had but little truth to support it. Bishops in Ireland, if they live at home, even in these days, are very warm men; and Dr. Finn had not a penny in the world for which he had not worked hard. He had, moreover, a costly family, five daughters and one son, and, at the time of which we are speaking, no provision in the way of marriage or profession had been made for any of them. Of the one son, Phineas, the hero of the following pages, the mother and five sisters were very proud. The doctor was accustomed to say that his goose was as good as any other man's goose, as far as he could see as yet; but that he should like some very strong evidence before he allowed himself to express an opinion that the young bird partook, in any degree, of the qualities of a swan. From which it may be gathered that Dr. Finn was a man of common-sense. Phineas had come to be a swan in the estimation of his mother and sisters by reason of certain early successes at college. His father, whose religion was not of that bitter kind in which we in England are apt to suppose that all the Irish Roman Catholics indulge, had sent his son to Trinity; and there were some in the neighbourhood of Killaloe,--patients, probably, of Dr. Duggin, of Castle Connell, a learned physician who had spent a fruitless life in endeavouring to make head against Dr. Finn,--who declared that old Finn would not be sorry if his son were to turn Protestant and go in for a fellowship. Mrs. Finn was a Protestant, and the five Miss Finns were Protestants, and the doctor himself was very much given to dining out among his Protestant friends on a Friday. Our Phineas, however, did not turn Protestant up in Dublin, whatever his father's secret wishes on that subject may have been. He did join a debating society, to success in which his religion was no bar; and he there achieved a sort of distinction which was both easy and pleasant, and which, making its way down to Killaloe, assisted in engendering those ideas as to swanhood of which maternal and sisterly minds are so sweetly susceptible. "I know half a dozen old windbags at the present moment," said the doctor, "who were great fellows at debating clubs when they were boys." "Phineas is not a boy any longer," said Mrs. Finn. "And windbags don't get college scholarships," said Matilda Finn, the second daughter. "But papa always snubs Phinny," said Barbara, the youngest. "I'll snub you, if you don't take care," said the doctor, taking Barbara tenderly by the ear;--for his youngest daughter was the doctor's pet. The doctor certainly did not snub his son, for he allowed him to go over to London when he was twenty-two years of age, in order that he might read with an English barrister. It was the doctor's wish that his son might be called to the Irish Bar, and the young man's desire that he might go to the English Bar. The doctor so far gave way, under the influence of Phineas himself, and of all the young women of the family, as to pay the usual fee to a very competent and learned gentleman in the Middle Temple, and to allow his son one hundred and fifty pounds per annum for three years. Dr. Finn, however, was still firm in his intention that his son should settle in Dublin, and take the Munster Circuit,--believing that Phineas might come to want home influences and home connections, in spite of the swanhood which was attributed to him. Phineas sat his terms for three years, and was duly called to the Bar; but no evidence came home as to the acquirement of any considerable amount of law lore, or even as to much law study, on the part of the young aspirant. The learned pundit at whose feet he had been sitting was not especially loud in praise of his pupil's industry, though he did say a pleasant word or two as to his pupil's intelligence. Phineas himself did not boast much of his own hard work when at home during the long vacation. No rumours of expected successes,--of expected professional successes,--reached the ears of any of the Finn family at Killaloe. But, nevertheless, there came tidings which maintained those high ideas in the maternal bosom of which mention has been made, and which were of sufficient strength to induce the doctor, in opposition to his own judgment, to consent to the continued residence of his son in London. Phineas belonged to an excellent club,--the Reform Club,--and went into very good society. He was hand in glove with the Hon. Laurence Fitzgibbon, the youngest son of Lord Claddagh. He was intimate with Barrington Erle, who had been private secretary,--one of the private secretaries,--to the great Whig Prime Minister who was lately in but was now out. He had dined three or four times with that great Whig nobleman, the Earl of Brentford. And he had been assured that if he stuck to the English Bar he would certainly do well. Though he might fail to succeed in court or in chambers, he would doubtless have given to him some one of those numerous appointments for which none but clever young barristers are supposed to be fitting candidates. The old doctor yielded for another year, although at the end of the second year he was called upon to pay a sum of three hundred pounds, which was then due by Phineas to creditors in London. When the doctor's male friends in and about Killaloe heard that he had done so, they said that he was doting. Not one of the Miss Finns was as yet married; and, after all that had been said about the doctor's wealth, it was supposed that there would not be above five hundred pounds a year among them all, were he to give up his profession. But the doctor, when he paid that three hundred pounds for his son, buckled to his work again, though he had for twelve months talked of giving up the midwifery. He buckled to again, to the great disgust of Dr. Duggin, who at this time said very ill-natured things about young Phineas. At the end of the three years Phineas was called to the Bar, and immediately received a letter from his father asking minutely as to his professional intentions. His father recommended him to settle in Dublin, and promised the one hundred and fifty pounds for three more years, on condition that this advice was followed. He did not absolutely say that the allowance would be stopped if the advice were not followed, but that was plainly to be implied. That letter came at the moment of a dissolution of Parliament. Lord de Terrier, the Conservative Prime Minister, who had now been in office for the almost unprecedentedly long period of fifteen months, had found that he could not face continued majorities against him in the House of Commons, and had dissolved the House. Rumour declared that he would have much preferred to resign, and betake himself once again to the easy glories of opposition; but his party had naturally been obdurate with him, and he had resolved to appeal to the country. When Phineas received his father's letter, it had just been suggested to him at the Reform Club that he should stand for the Irish borough of Loughshane. This proposition had taken Phineas Finn so much by surprise that when first made to him by Barrington Erle it took his breath away. What! he stand for Parliament, twenty-four years old, with no vestige of property belonging to him, without a penny in his purse, as completely dependent on his father as he was when he first went to school at eleven years of age! And for Loughshane, a little borough in the county Galway, for which a brother of that fine old Irish peer, the Earl of Tulla, had been sitting for the last twenty years,--a fine, high-minded representative of the thorough-going Orange Protestant feeling of Ireland! And the Earl of Tulla, to whom almost all Loughshane belonged,--or at any rate the land about Loughshane,--was one of his father's staunchest friends! Loughshane is in county Galway, but the Earl of Tulla usually lived at his seat in county Clare, not more than ten miles from Killaloe, and always confided his gouty feet, and the weak nerves of the old countess, and the stomachs of all his domestics, to the care of Dr. Finn. How was it possible that Phineas should stand for Loughshane? From whence was the money to come for such a contest? It was a beautiful dream, a grand idea, lifting Phineas almost off the earth by its glory. When the proposition was first made to him in the smoking-room at the Reform Club by his friend Erle, he was aware that he blushed like a girl, and that he was unable at the moment to express himself plainly,--so great was his astonishment and so great his gratification. But before ten minutes had passed by, while Barrington Erle was still sitting over his shoulder on the club sofa, and before the blushes had altogether vanished, he had seen the improbability of the scheme, and had explained to his friend that the thing could not be done. But to his increased astonishment, his friend made nothing of the difficulties. Loughshane, according to Barrington Erle, was so small a place, that the expense would be very little. There were altogether no more than 307 registered electors. The inhabitants were so far removed from the world, and were so ignorant of the world's good things, that they knew nothing about bribery. The Hon. George Morris, who had sat for the last twenty years, was very unpopular. He had not been near the borough since the last election, he had hardly done more than show himself in Parliament, and had neither given a shilling in the town nor got a place under Government for a single son of Loughshane. "And he has quarrelled with his brother," said Barrington Erle. "The devil he has!" said Phineas. "I thought they always swore by each other." "It's at each other they swear now," said Barrington; "George has asked the Earl for more money, and the Earl has cut up rusty." Then the negotiator went on to explain that the expenses of the election would be defrayed out of a certain fund collected for such purposes, that Loughshane had been chosen as a cheap place, and that Phineas Finn had been chosen as a safe and promising young man. As for qualification, if any question were raised, that should be made all right. An Irish candidate was wanted, and a Roman Catholic. So much the Loughshaners would require on their own account when instigated to dismiss from their service that thorough-going Protestant, the Hon. George Morris. Then "the party,"--by which Barrington Erle probably meant the great man in whose service he himself had become a politician,--required that the candidate should be a safe man, one who would support "the party,"--not a cantankerous, red-hot semi-Fenian, running about to meetings at the Rotunda, and such-like, with views of his own about tenant-right and the Irish Church. "But I have views of my own," said Phineas, blushing again. "Of course you have, my dear boy," said Barrington, clapping him on the back. "I shouldn't come to you unless you had views. But your views and ours are the same, and you're just the lad for Galway. You mightn't have such an opening again in your life, and of course you'll stand for Loughshane." Then the conversation was over, the private secretary went away to arrange some other little matter of the kind, and Phineas Finn was left alone to consider the proposition that had been made to him. To become a member of the British Parliament! In all those hot contests at the two debating clubs to which he had belonged, this had been the ambition which had moved him. For, after all, to what purpose of their own had those empty debates ever tended? He and three or four others who had called themselves Liberals had been pitted against four or five who had called themselves Conservatives, and night after night they had discussed some ponderous subject without any idea that one would ever persuade another, or that their talking would ever conduce to any action or to any result. But each of these combatants had felt,--without daring to announce a hope on the subject among themselves,--that the present arena was only a trial-ground for some possible greater amphitheatre, for some future debating club in which debates would lead to action, and in which eloquence would have power, even though persuasion might be out of the question. Phineas certainly had never dared to speak, even to himself, of such a hope. The labours of the Bar had to be encountered before the dawn of such a hope could come to him. And he had gradually learned to feel that his prospects at the Bar were not as yet very promising. As regarded professional work he had been idle, and how then could he have a hope? And now this thing, which he regarded as being of all things in the world the most honourable, had come to him all at once, and was possibly within his reach! If he could believe Barrington Erle, he had only to lift up his hand, and he might be in Parliament within two months. And who was to be believed on such a subject if not Barrington Erle? This was Erle's special business, and such a man would not have come to him on such a subject had he not been in earnest, and had he not himself believed in success. There was an opening ready, an opening to this great glory,--if only it might be possible for him to fill it! What would his father say? His father would of course oppose the plan. And if he opposed his father, his father would of course stop his income. And such an income as it was! Could it be that a man should sit in Parliament and live upon a hundred and fifty pounds a year? Since that payment of his debts he had become again embarrassed,--to a slight amount. He owed a tailor a trifle, and a bootmaker a trifle,--and something to the man who sold gloves and shirts; and yet he had done his best to keep out of debt with more than Irish pertinacity, living very closely, breakfasting upon tea and a roll, and dining frequently for a shilling at a luncheon-house up a court near Lincoln's Inn. Where should he dine if the Loughshaners elected him to Parliament? And then he painted to himself a not untrue picture of the probable miseries of a man who begins life too high up on the ladder,--who succeeds in mounting before he has learned how to hold on when he is aloft. For our Phineas Finn was a young man not without sense,--not entirely a windbag. If he did this thing the probability was that he might become utterly a castaway, and go entirely to the dogs before he was thirty. He had heard of penniless men who had got into Parliament, and to whom had come such a fate. He was able to name to himself a man or two whose barks, carrying more sail than they could bear, had gone to pieces among early breakers in this way. But then, would it not be better to go to pieces early than never to carry any sail at all? And there was, at any rate, the chance of success. He was already a barrister, and there were so many things open to a barrister with a seat in Parliament! And as he knew of men who had been utterly ruined by such early mounting, so also did he know of others whose fortunes had been made by happy audacity when they were young. He almost thought that he could die happy if he had once taken his seat in Parliament,--if he had received one letter with those grand initials written after his name on the address. Young men in battle are called upon to lead forlorn hopes. Three fall, perhaps, to one who gets through; but the one who gets through will have the Victoria Cross to carry for the rest of his life. This was his forlorn hope; and as he had been invited to undertake the work, he would not turn from the danger. On the following morning he again saw Barrington Erle by appointment, and then wrote the following letter to his father:-- Reform Club, Feb., 186--. MY DEAR FATHER, I am afraid that the purport of this letter will startle you, but I hope that when you have finished it you will think that I am right in my decision as to what I am going to do. You are no doubt aware that the dissolution of Parliament will take place at once, and that we shall be in all the turmoil of a general election by the middle of March. I have been invited to stand for Loughshane, and have consented. The proposition has been made to me by my friend Barrington Erle, Mr. Mildmay's private secretary, and has been made on behalf of the Political Committee of the Reform Club. I need hardly say that I should not have thought of such a thing with a less thorough promise of support than this gives me, nor should I think of it now had I not been assured that none of the expense of the election would fall upon me. Of course I could not have asked you to pay for it. But to such a proposition, so made, I have felt that it would be cowardly to give a refusal. I cannot but regard such a selection as a great honour. I own that I am fond of politics, and have taken great delight in their study --("Stupid young fool!" his father said to himself as he read this)--and it has been my dream for years past to have a seat in Parliament at some future time. ("Dream! yes; I wonder whether he has ever dreamed what he is to live upon.") The chance has now come to me much earlier than I have looked for it, but I do not think that it should on that account be thrown away. Looking to my profession, I find that many things are open to a barrister with a seat in Parliament, and that the House need not interfere much with a man's practice. ("Not if he has got to the top of his tree," said the doctor.) My chief doubt arose from the fact of your old friendship with Lord Tulla, whose brother has filled the seat for I don't know how many years. But it seems that George Morris must go; or, at least, that he must be opposed by a Liberal candidate. If I do not stand, some one else will, and I should think that Lord Tulla will be too much of a man to make any personal quarrel on such a subject. If he is to lose the borough, why should not I have it as well as another? I can fancy, my dear father, all that you will say as to my imprudence, and I quite confess that I have not a word to answer. I have told myself more than once, since last night, that I shall probably ruin myself. ("I wonder whether he has ever told himself that he will probably ruin me also," said the doctor.) But I am prepared to ruin myself in such a cause. I have no one dependent on me; and, as long as I do nothing to disgrace my name, I may dispose of myself as I please. If you decide on stopping my allowance, I shall have no feeling of anger against you. ("How very considerate!" said the doctor.) And in that case I shall endeavour to support myself by my pen. I have already done a little for the magazines. Give my best love to my mother and sisters. If you will receive me during the time of the election, I shall see them soon. Perhaps it will be best for me to say that I have positively decided on making the attempt; that is to say, if the Club Committee is as good as its promise. I have weighed the matter all round, and I regard the prize as being so great, that I am prepared to run any risk to obtain it. Indeed, to me, with my views about politics, the running of such a risk is no more than a duty. I cannot keep my hand from the work now that the work has come in the way of my hand. I shall be most anxious to get a line from you in answer to this. Your most affectionate son, PHINEAS FINN. I question whether Dr. Finn, when he read this letter, did not feel more of pride than of anger,--whether he was not rather gratified than displeased, in spite of all that his common-sense told him on the subject. His wife and daughters, when they heard the news, were clearly on the side of the young man. Mrs. Finn immediately expressed an opinion that Parliament would be the making of her son, and that everybody would be sure to employ so distinguished a barrister. The girls declared that Phineas ought, at any rate, to have his chance, and almost asserted that it would be brutal in their father to stand in their brother's way. It was in vain that the doctor tried to explain that going into Parliament could not help a young barrister, whatever it might do for one thoroughly established in his profession; that Phineas, if successful at Loughshane, would at once abandon all idea of earning any income,--that the proposition, coming from so poor a man, was a monstrosity,--that such an opposition to the Morris family, coming from a son of his, would be gross ingratitude to Lord Tulla. Mrs. Finn and the girls talked him down, and the doctor himself was almost carried away by something like vanity in regard to his son's future position. Nevertheless he wrote a letter strongly advising Phineas to abandon the project. But he himself was aware that the letter which he wrote was not one from which any success could be expected. He advised his son, but did not command him. He made no threats as to stopping his income. He did not tell Phineas, in so many words, that he was proposing to make an ass of himself. He argued very prudently against the plan, and Phineas, when he received his father's letter, of course felt that it was tantamount to a paternal permission to proceed with the matter. On the next day he got a letter from his mother full of affection, full of pride,--not exactly telling him to stand for Loughshane by all means, for Mrs. Finn was not the woman to run openly counter to her husband in any advice given by her to their son,--but giving him every encouragement which motherly affection and motherly pride could bestow. "Of course you will come to us," she said, "if you do make up your mind to be member for Loughshane. We shall all of us be so delighted to have you!" Phineas, who had fallen into a sea of doubt after writing to his father, and who had demanded a week from Barrington Erle to consider the matter, was elated to positive certainty by the joint effect of the two letters from home. He understood it all. His mother and sisters were altogether in favour of his audacity, and even his father was not disposed to quarrel with him on the subject. "I shall take you at your word," he said to Barrington Erle at the club that evening. "What word?" said Erle, who had too many irons in the fire to be thinking always of Loughshane and Phineas Finn,--or who at any rate did not choose to let his anxiety on the subject be seen. "About Loughshane." "All right, old fellow; we shall be sure to carry you through. The Irish writs will be out on the third of March, and the sooner you're there the better." CHAPTER II Phineas Finn Is Elected for Loughshane One great difficulty about the borough vanished in a very wonderful way at the first touch. Dr. Finn, who was a man stout at heart, and by no means afraid of his great friends, drove himself over to Castlemorris to tell his news to the Earl, as soon as he got a second letter from his son declaring his intention of proceeding with the business, let the results be what they might. Lord Tulla was a passionate old man, and the doctor expected that there would be a quarrel;--but he was prepared to face that. He was under no special debt of gratitude to the lord, having given as much as he had taken in the long intercourse which had existed between them;--and he agreed with his son in thinking that if there was to be a Liberal candidate at Loughshane, no consideration of old pill-boxes and gallipots should deter his son Phineas from standing. Other considerations might very probably deter him, but not that. The Earl probably would be of a different opinion, and the doctor felt it to be incumbent on him to break the news to Lord Tulla. "The devil he is!" said the Earl, when the doctor had told his story. "Then I'll tell you what, Finn, I'll support him." "You support him, Lord Tulla!" "Yes;--why shouldn't I support him? I suppose it's not so bad with me in the country that my support will rob him of his chance! I'll tell you one thing for certain, I won't support George Morris." "But, my lord--" "Well; go on." "I've never taken much part in politics myself, as you know; but my boy Phineas is on the other side." "I don't care a ---- for sides. What has my party done for me? Look at my cousin, Dick Morris. There's not a clergyman in Ireland stauncher to them than he has been, and now they've given the deanery of Kilfenora to a man that never had a father, though I condescended to ask for it for my cousin. Let them wait till I ask for anything again." Dr. Finn, who knew all about Dick Morris's debts, and who had heard of his modes of preaching, was not surprised at the decision of the Conservative bestower of Irish Church patronage; but on this subject he said nothing. "And as for George," continued the Earl, "I will never lift my hand again for him. His standing for Loughshane would be quite out of the question. My own tenants wouldn't vote for him if I were to ask them myself. Peter Blake"--Mr. Peter Blake was the lord's agent--"told me only a week ago that it would be useless. The whole thing is gone, and for my part I wish they'd disenfranchise the borough. I wish they'd disenfranchise the whole country, and send us a military governor. What's the use of such members as we send? There isn't one gentleman among ten of them. Your son is welcome for me. What support I can give him he shall have, but it isn't much. I suppose he had better come and see me." The doctor promised that his son should ride over to Castlemorris, and then took his leave,--not specially flattered, as he felt that were his son to be returned, the Earl would not regard him as the one gentleman among ten whom the county might send to leaven the remainder of its members,--but aware that the greatest impediment in his son's way was already removed. He certainly had not gone to Castlemorris with any idea of canvassing for his son, and yet he had canvassed for him most satisfactorily. When he got home he did not know how to speak of the matter otherwise than triumphantly to his wife and daughters. Though he desired to curse, his mouth would speak blessings. Before that evening was over the prospects of Phineas at Loughshane were spoken of with open enthusiasm before the doctor, and by the next day's post a letter was written to him by Matilda, informing him that the Earl was prepared to receive him with open arms. "Papa has been over there and managed it all," said Matilda. "I'm told George Morris isn't going to stand," said Barrington Erle to Phineas the night before his departure. "His brother won't support him. His brother means to support me," said Phineas. "That can hardly be so." "But I tell you it is. My father has known the Earl these twenty years, and has managed it." "I say, Finn, you're not going to play us a trick, are you?" said Mr. Erle, with something like dismay in his voice. "What sort of trick?" "You're not coming out on the other side?" "Not if I know it," said Phineas, proudly. "Let me assure you I wouldn't change my views in politics either for you or for the Earl, though each of you carried seats in your breeches pockets. If I go into Parliament, I shall go there as a sound Liberal,--not to support a party, but to do the best I can for the country. I tell you so, and I shall tell the Earl the same." Barrington Erle turned away in disgust. Such language was to him simply disgusting. It fell upon his ears as false maudlin sentiment falls on the ears of the ordinary honest man of the world. Barrington Erle was a man ordinarily honest. He would not have been untrue to his mother's brother, William Mildmay, the great Whig Minister of the day, for any earthly consideration. He was ready to work with wages or without wages. He was really zealous in the cause, not asking very much for himself. He had some undefined belief that it was much better for the country that Mr. Mildmay should be in power than that Lord de Terrier should be there. He was convinced that Liberal politics were good for Englishmen, and that Liberal politics and the Mildmay party were one and the same thing. It would be unfair to Barrington Erle to deny to him some praise for patriotism. But he hated the very name of independence in Parliament, and when he was told of any man, that that man intended to look to measures and not to men, he regarded that man as being both unstable as water and dishonest as the wind. No good could possibly come from such a one, and much evil might and probably would come. Such a politician was a Greek to Barrington Erle, from whose hands he feared to accept even the gift of a vote. Parliamentary hermits were distasteful to him, and dwellers in political caves were regarded by him with aversion as being either knavish or impractical. With a good Conservative opponent he could shake hands almost as readily as with a good Whig ally; but the man who was neither flesh nor fowl was odious to him. According to his theory of parliamentary government, the House of Commons should be divided by a marked line, and every member should be required to stand on one side of it or on the other. "If not with me, at any rate be against me," he would have said to every representative of the people in the name of the great leader whom he followed. He thought that debates were good, because of the people outside,--because they served to create that public opinion which was hereafter to be used in creating some future House of Commons; but he did not think it possible that any vote should be given on a great question, either this way or that, as the result of a debate; and he was certainly assured in his own opinion that any such changing of votes would be dangerous, revolutionary, and almost unparliamentary. A member's vote,--except on some small crotchety open question thrown out for the amusement of crotchety members,--was due to the leader of that member's party. Such was Mr. Erle's idea of the English system of Parliament, and, lending semi-official assistance as he did frequently to the introduction of candidates into the House, he was naturally anxious that his candidates should be candidates after his own heart. When, therefore, Phineas Finn talked of measures and not men, Barrington Erle turned away in open disgust. But he remembered the youth and extreme rawness of the lad, and he remembered also the careers of other men. Barrington Erle was forty, and experience had taught him something. After a few seconds, he brought himself to think mildly of the young man's vanity,--as of the vanity of a plunging colt who resents the liberty even of a touch. "By the end of the first session the thong will be cracked over his head, as he patiently assists in pulling the coach up hill, without producing from him even a flick of his tail," said Barrington Erle to an old parliamentary friend. "If he were to come out after all on the wrong side," said the parliamentary friend. Erle admitted that such a trick as that would be unpleasant, but he thought that old Lord Tulla was hardly equal to so clever a stratagem. Phineas went to Ireland, and walked over the course at Loughshane. He called upon Lord Tulla, and heard that venerable nobleman talk a great deal of nonsense. To tell the truth of Phineas, I must confess that he wished to talk the nonsense himself; but the Earl would not hear him, and put him down very quickly. "We won't discuss politics, if you please, Mr. Finn; because, as I have already said, I am throwing aside all political considerations." Phineas, therefore, was not allowed to express his views on the government of the country in the Earl's sitting-room at Castlemorris. There was, however, a good time coming; and so, for the present, he allowed the Earl to ramble on about the sins of his brother George, and the want of all proper pedigree on the part of the new Dean of Kilfenora. The conference ended with an assurance on the part of Lord Tulla that if the Loughshaners chose to elect Mr. Phineas Finn he would not be in the least offended. The electors did elect Mr. Phineas Finn,--perhaps for the reason given by one of the Dublin Conservative papers, which declared that it was all the fault of the Carlton Club in not sending a proper candidate. There was a great deal said about the matter, both in London and Dublin, and the blame was supposed to fall on the joint shoulders of George Morris and his elder brother. In the meantime, our hero, Phineas Finn, had been duly elected member of Parliament for the borough of Loughshane. The Finn family could not restrain their triumphings at Killaloe, and I do not know that it would have been natural had they done so. A gosling from such a flock does become something of a real swan by getting into Parliament. The doctor had his misgivings,--had great misgivings, fearful forebodings; but there was the young man elected, and he could not help it. He could not refuse his right hand to his son or withdraw his paternal assistance because that son had been specially honoured among the young men of his country. So he pulled out of his hoard what sufficed to pay off outstanding debts,--they were not heavy,--and undertook to allow Phineas two hundred and fifty pounds a year as long as the session should last. There was a widow lady living at Killaloe who was named Mrs. Flood Jones, and she had a daughter. She had a son also, born to inherit the property of the late Floscabel Flood Jones of Floodborough, as soon as that property should have disembarrassed itself; but with him, now serving with his regiment in India, we shall have no concern. Mrs. Flood Jones was living modestly at Killaloe on her widow's jointure,--Floodborough having, to tell the truth, pretty nearly fallen into absolute ruin,--and with her one daughter, Mary. Now on the evening before the return of Phineas Finn, Esq., M.P., to London, Mrs. and Miss Flood Jones drank tea at the doctor's house. "It won't make a bit of change in him," Barbara Finn said to her friend Mary, up in some bedroom privacy before the tea-drinking ceremonies had altogether commenced. "Oh, it must," said Mary. "I tell you it won't, my dear; he is so good and so true." "I know he is good, Barbara; and as for truth, there is no question about it, because he has never said a word to me that he might not say to any girl." "That's nonsense, Mary." "He never has, then, as sure as the blessed Virgin watches over us;--only you don't believe she does." "Never mind about the Virgin now, Mary." "But he never has. Your brother is nothing to me, Barbara." "Then I hope he will be before the evening is over. He was walking with you all yesterday and the day before." "Why shouldn't he,--and we that have known each other all our lives? But, Barbara, pray, pray never say a word of this to any one!" "Is it I? Wouldn't I cut out my tongue first?" "I don't know why I let you talk to me in this way. There has never been anything between me and Phineas,--your brother I mean." "I know whom you mean very well." "And I feel quite sure that there never will be. Why should there? He'll go out among great people and be a great man; and I've already found out that there's a certain Lady Laura Standish whom he admires very much." "Lady Laura Fiddlestick!" "A man in Parliament, you know, may look up to anybody," said Miss Mary Flood Jones. "I want Phin to look up to you, my dear." "That wouldn't be looking up. Placed as he is now, that would be looking down; and he is so proud that he'll never do that. But come down, dear, else they'll wonder where we are." Mary Flood Jones was a little girl about twenty years of age, with the softest hair in the world, of a colour varying between brown and auburn,--for sometimes you would swear it was the one and sometimes the other; and she was as pretty as ever she could be. She was one of those girls, so common in Ireland, whom men, with tastes that way given, feel inclined to take up and devour on the spur of the moment; and when she liked her lion, she had a look about her which seemed to ask to be devoured. There are girls so cold-looking,--pretty girls, too, ladylike, discreet, and armed with all accomplishments,--whom to attack seems to require the same sort of courage, and the same sort of preparation, as a journey in quest of the north-west passage. One thinks of a pedestal near the Athenaeum as the most appropriate and most honourable reward of such courage. But, again, there are other girls to abstain from attacking whom is, to a man of any warmth of temperament, quite impossible. They are like water when one is athirst, like plovers' eggs in March, like cigars when one is out in the autumn. No one ever dreams of denying himself when such temptation comes in the way. It often happens, however, that in spite of appearances, the water will not come from the well, nor the egg from its shell, nor will the cigar allow itself to be lit. A girl of such appearance, so charming, was Mary Flood Jones of Killaloe, and our hero Phineas was not allowed to thirst in vain for a drop from the cool spring. When the girls went down into the drawing-room Mary was careful to go to a part of the room quite remote from Phineas, so as to seat herself between Mrs. Finn and Dr. Finn's young partner, Mr. Elias Bodkin, from Ballinasloe. But Mrs. Finn and the Miss Finns and all Killaloe knew that Mary had no love for Mr. Bodkin, and when Mr. Bodkin handed her the hot cake she hardly so much as smiled at him. But in two minutes Phineas was behind her chair, and then she smiled; and in five minutes more she had got herself so twisted round that she was sitting in a corner with Phineas and his sister Barbara; and in two more minutes Barbara had returned to Mr. Elias Bodkin, so that Phineas and Mary were uninterrupted. They manage these things very quickly and very cleverly in Killaloe. "I shall be off to-morrow morning by the early train," said Phineas. "So soon;--and when will you have to begin,--in Parliament, I mean?" "I shall have to take my seat on Friday. I'm going back just in time." "But when shall we hear of your saying something?" "Never, probably. Not one in ten who go into Parliament ever do say anything." "But you will; won't you? I hope you will. I do so hope you will distinguish yourself;--because of your sister, and for the sake of the town, you know." "And is that all, Mary?" "Isn't that enough?" "You don't care a bit about myself, then?" "You know that I do. Haven't we been friends ever since we were children? Of course it will be a great pride to me that a person whom I have known so intimately should come to be talked about as a great man." "I shall never be talked about as a great man." "You're a great man to me already, being in Parliament. Only think;--I never saw a member of Parliament in my life before." "You've seen the bishop scores of times." "Is he in Parliament? Ah, but not like you. He couldn't come to be a Cabinet Minister, and one never reads anything about him in the newspapers. I shall expect to see your name, very often, and I shall always look for it. 'Mr. Phineas Finn paired off with Mr. Mildmay.' What is the meaning of pairing off?" "I'll explain it all to you when I come back, after learning my lesson." "Mind you do come back. But I don't suppose you ever will. You will be going somewhere to see Lady Laura Standish when you are not wanted in Parliament." "Lady Laura Standish!" "And why shouldn't you? Of course, with your prospects, you should go as much as possible among people of that sort. Is Lady Laura very pretty?" "She's about six feet high." "Nonsense. I don't believe that." "She would look as though she were, standing by you." "Because I am so insignificant and small." "Because your figure is perfect, and because she is straggling. She is as unlike you as possible in everything. She has thick lumpy red hair, while yours is all silk and softness. She has large hands and feet, and--" "Why, Phineas, you are making her out to be an ogress, and yet I know that you admire her." "So I do, because she possesses such an appearance of power. And after all, in spite of the lumpy hair, and in spite of large hands and straggling figure, she is handsome. One can't tell what it is. One can see that she is quite contented with herself, and intends to make others contented with her. And so she does." "I see you are in love with her, Phineas." "No; not in love,--not with her at least. Of all men in the world, I suppose that I am the last that has a right to be in love. I daresay I shall marry some day." "I'm sure I hope you will." "But not till I'm forty or perhaps fifty years old. If I was not fool enough to have what men call a high ambition I might venture to be in love now." "I'm sure I'm very glad that you've got a high ambition. It is what every man ought to have; and I've no doubt that we shall hear of your marriage soon,--very soon. And then,--if she can help you in your ambition, we--shall--all--be so--glad." Phineas did not say a word further then. Perhaps some commotion among the party broke up the little private conversation in the corner. And he was not alone with Mary again till there came a moment for him to put her cloak over her shoulders in the back parlour, while Mrs. Flood Jones was finishing some important narrative to his mother. It was Barbara, I think, who stood in some doorway, and prevented people from passing, and so gave him the opportunity which he abused. "Mary," said he, taking her in his arms, without a single word of love-making beyond what the reader has heard,--"one kiss before we part." "No, Phineas, no!" But the kiss had been taken and given before she had even answered him. "Oh, Phineas, you shouldn't!" "I should. Why shouldn't I? And, Mary, I will have one morsel of your hair." "You shall not; indeed you shall not!" But the scissors were at hand, and the ringlet was cut and in his pocket before she was ready with her resistance. There was nothing further;--not a word more, and Mary went away with her veil down, under her mother's wing, weeping sweet silent tears which no one saw. "You do love her; don't you, Phineas?" asked Barbara. "Bother! Do you go to bed, and don't trouble yourself about such trifles. But mind you're up, old girl, to see me off in the morning." Everybody was up to see him off in the morning, to give him coffee and good advice, and kisses, and to throw all manner of old shoes after him as he started on his great expedition to Parliament. His father gave him an extra twenty-pound note, and begged him for God's sake to be careful about his money. His mother told him always to have an orange in his pocket when he intended to speak longer than usual. And Barbara in a last whisper begged him never to forget dear Mary Flood Jones. CHAPTER III Phineas Finn Takes His Seat Phineas had many serious, almost solemn thoughts on his journey towards London. I am sorry I must assure my female readers that very few of them had reference to Mary Flood Jones. He had, however, very carefully packed up the tress, and could bring that out for proper acts of erotic worship at seasons in which his mind might be less engaged with affairs of state than it was at present. Would he make a failure of this great matter which he had taken in hand? He could not but tell himself that the chances were twenty to one against him. Now that he looked nearer at it all, the difficulties loomed larger than ever, and the rewards seemed to be less, more difficult of approach, and more evanescent. How many members were there who could never get a hearing! How many who only spoke to fail! How many, who spoke well, who could speak to no effect as far as their own worldly prospects were concerned! He had already known many members of Parliament to whom no outward respect or sign of honour was ever given by any one; and it seemed to him, as he thought over it, that Irish members of Parliament were generally treated with more indifference than any others. There were O'B---- and O'C---- and O'D----, for whom no one cared a straw, who could hardly get men to dine with them at the club, and yet they were genuine members of Parliament. Why should he ever be better than O'B----, or O'C----, or O'D----? And in what way should he begin to be better? He had an idea of the fashion after which it would be his duty to strive that he might excel those gentlemen. He did not give any of them credit for much earnestness in their country's behalf, and he was minded to be very earnest. He would go to his work honestly and conscientiously, determined to do his duty as best he might, let the results to himself be what they would. This was a noble resolution, and might have been pleasant to him,--had he not remembered that smile of derision which had come over his friend Erle's face when he declared his intention of doing his duty to his country as a Liberal, and not of supporting a party. O'B---- and O'C---- and O'D---- were keen enough to support their party, only they were sometimes a little astray at knowing which was their party for the nonce. He knew that Erle and such men would despise him if he did not fall into the regular groove,--and if the Barrington Erles despised him, what would then be left for him? His moody thoughts were somewhat dissipated when he found one Laurence Fitzgibbon,--the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon,--a special friend of his own, and a very clever fellow, on board the boat as it steamed out of Kingston harbour. Laurence Fitzgibbon had also just been over about his election, and had been returned as a matter of course for his father's county. Laurence Fitzgibbon had sat in the House for the last fifteen years, and was yet well-nigh as young a man as any in it. And he was a man altogether different from the O'B----s, O'C----s, and O'D----s. Laurence Fitzgibbon could always get the ear of the House if he chose to speak, and his friends declared that he might have been high up in office long since if he would have taken the trouble to work. He was a welcome guest at the houses of the very best people, and was a friend of whom any one might be proud. It had for two years been a feather in the cap of Phineas that he knew Laurence Fitzgibbon. And yet people said that Laurence Fitzgibbon had nothing of his own, and men wondered how he lived. He was the youngest son of Lord Claddagh, an Irish peer with a large family, who could do nothing for Laurence, his favourite child, beyond finding him a seat in Parliament. "Well, Finn, my boy," said Laurence, shaking hands with the young member on board the steamer, "so you've made it all right at Loughshane." Then Phineas was beginning to tell all the story, the wonderful story, of George Morris and the Earl of Tulla,--how the men of Loughshane had elected him without opposition; how he had been supported by Conservatives as well as Liberals;--how unanimous Loughshane had been in electing him, Phineas Finn, as its representative. But Mr. Fitzgibbon seemed to care very little about all this, and went so far as to declare that those things were accidents which fell out sometimes one way and sometimes another, and were altogether independent of any merit or demerit on the part of the candidate himself. And it was marvellous and almost painful to Phineas that his friend Fitzgibbon should accept the fact of his membership with so little of congratulation,--with absolutely no blowing of trumpets whatever. Had he been elected a member of the municipal corporation of Loughshane, instead of its representative in the British Parliament, Laurence Fitzgibbon could not have made less fuss about it. Phineas was disappointed, but he took the cue from his friend too quickly to show his disappointment. And when, half an hour after their meeting, Fitzgibbon had to be reminded that his companion was not in the House during the last session, Phineas was able to make the remark as though he thought as little about the House as did the old-accustomed member himself. "As far as I can see as yet," said Fitzgibbon, "we are sure to have seventeen." "Seventeen?" said Phineas, not quite understanding the meaning of the number quoted. "A majority of seventeen. There are four Irish counties and three Scotch which haven't returned as yet; but we know pretty well what they'll do. There's a doubt about Tipperary, of course, but whichever gets in of the seven who are standing, it will be a vote on our side. Now the Government can't live against that. The uphill strain is too much for them." "According to my idea, nothing can justify them in trying to live against a majority." "That's gammon. When the thing is so equal, anything is fair. But you see they don't like it. Of course there are some among them as hungry as we are; and Dubby would give his toes and fingers to remain in." Dubby was the ordinary name by which, among friends and foes, Mr. Daubeny was known: Mr. Daubeny, who at that time was the leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons. "But most of them," continued Mr. Fitzgibbon, "prefer the other game, and if you don't care about money, upon my word it's the pleasanter game of the two." "But the country gets nothing done by a Tory Government." "As to that, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. I never knew a government yet that wanted to do anything. Give a government a real strong majority, as the Tories used to have half a century since, and as a matter of course it will do nothing. Why should it? Doing things, as you call it, is only bidding for power,--for patronage and pay." "And is the country to have no service done?" "The country gets quite as much service as it pays for,--and perhaps a little more. The clerks in the offices work for the country. And the Ministers work too, if they've got anything to manage. There is plenty of work done;--but of work in Parliament, the less the better, according to my ideas. It's very little that ever is done, and that little is generally too much." "But the people--" "Come down and have a glass of brandy-and-water, and leave the people alone for the present. The people can take care of themselves a great deal better than we can take care of them." Mr. Fitzgibbon's doctrine as to the commonwealth was very different from that of Barrington Erle, and was still less to the taste of the new member. Barrington Erle considered that his leader, Mr. Mildmay, should be intrusted to make all necessary changes in the laws, and that an obedient House of Commons should implicitly obey that leader in authorising all changes proposed by him;--but according to Barrington Erle, such changes should be numerous and of great importance, and would, if duly passed into law at his lord's behest, gradually produce such a Whig Utopia in England as has never yet been seen on the face of the earth. Now, according to Mr. Fitzgibbon, the present Utopia would be good enough,--if only he himself might be once more put into possession of a certain semi-political place about the Court, from which he had heretofore drawn £1,000 per annum, without any work, much to his comfort. He made no secret of his ambition, and was chagrined simply at the prospect of having to return to his electors before he could enjoy those good things which he expected to receive from the undoubted majority of seventeen, which had been, or would be, achieved. "I hate all change as a rule," said Fitzgibbon; "but, upon my word, we ought to alter that. When a fellow has got a crumb of comfort, after waiting for it years and years, and perhaps spending thousands in elections, he has to go back and try his hand again at the last moment, merely in obedience to some antiquated prejudice. Look at poor Jack Bond,--the best friend I ever had in the world. He was wrecked upon that rock for ever. He spent every shilling he had in contesting Romford three times running,--and three times running he got in. Then they made him Vice-Comptroller of the Granaries, and I'm shot if he didn't get spilt at Romford on standing for his re-election!" "And what became of him?" "God knows. I think I heard that he married an old woman and settled down somewhere. I know he never came up again. Now, I call that a confounded shame. I suppose I'm safe down in Mayo, but there's no knowing what may happen in these days." As they parted at Euston Square, Phineas asked his friend some little nervous question as to the best mode of making a first entrance into the House. Would Laurence Fitzgibbon see him through the difficulties of the oath-taking? But Laurence Fitzgibbon made very little of the difficulty. "Oh;--you just come down, and there'll be a rush of fellows, and you'll know everybody. You'll have to hang about for an hour or so, and then you'll get pushed through. There isn't time for much ceremony after a general election." Phineas reached London early in the morning, and went home to bed for an hour or so. The House was to meet on that very day, and he intended to begin his parliamentary duties at once if he should find it possible to get some one to accompany him; He felt that he should lack courage to go down to Westminster Hall alone, and explain to the policeman and door-keepers that he was the man who had just been elected member for Loughshane. So about noon he went into the Reform Club, and there he found a great crowd of men, among whom there was a plentiful sprinkling of members. Erle saw him in a moment, and came to him with congratulations. "So you're all right, Finn," said he. "Yes; I'm all right,--I didn't have much doubt about it when I went over." "I never heard of a fellow with such a run of luck," said Erle. "It's just one of those flukes that occur once in a dozen elections. Any one on earth might have got in without spending a shilling." Phineas didn't at all like this. "I don't think any one could have got in," said he, "without knowing Lord Tulla." "Lord Tulla was nowhere, my dear boy, and could have nothing to say to it. But never mind that. You meet me in the lobby at two. There'll be a lot of us there, and we'll go in together. Have you seen Fitzgibbon?" Then Barrington Erle went off to other business, and Finn was congratulated by other men. But it seemed to him that the congratulations of his friends were not hearty. He spoke to some men, of whom he thought that he knew they would have given their eyes to be in Parliament;--and yet they spoke of his success as being a very ordinary thing. "Well, my boy, I hope you like it," said one middle-aged gentleman whom he had known ever since he came up to London. "The difference is between working for nothing and working for money. You'll have to work for nothing now." "That's about it, I suppose," said Phineas. "They say the House is a comfortable club," said the middle-aged friend, "but I confess that I shouldn't like being rung away from my dinner myself." At two punctually Phineas was in the lobby at Westminster, and then he found himself taken into the House with a crowd of other men. The old and young, and they who were neither old nor young, were mingled together, and there seemed to be very little respect of persons. On three or four occasions there was some cheering when a popular man or a great leader came in; but the work of the day left but little clear impression on the mind of the young member. He was confused, half elated, half disappointed, and had not his wits about him. He found himself constantly regretting that he was there; and as constantly telling himself that he, hardly yet twenty-five, without a shilling of his own, had achieved an entrance into that assembly which by the consent of all men is the greatest in the world, and which many of the rich magnates of the country had in vain spent heaps of treasure in their endeavours to open to their own footsteps. He tried hard to realise what he had gained, but the dust and the noise and the crowds and the want of something august to the eye were almost too strong for him. He managed, however, to take the oath early among those who took it, and heard the Queen's speech read and the Address moved and seconded. He was seated very uncomfortably, high up on a back seat, between two men whom he did not know; and he found the speeches to be very long. He had been in the habit of seeing such speeches reported in about a column, and he thought that these speeches must take at least four columns each. He sat out the debate on the Address till the House was adjourned, and then he went away to dine at his club. He did go into the dining-room of the House, but there was a crowd there, and he found himself alone,--and to tell the truth, he was afraid to order his dinner. The nearest approach to a triumph which he had in London came to him from the glory which his election reflected upon his landlady. She was a kindly good motherly soul, whose husband was a journeyman law-stationer, and who kept a very decent house in Great Marlborough Street. Here Phineas had lodged since he had been in London, and was a great favourite. "God bless my soul, Mr. Phineas," said she, "only think of your being a member of Parliament!" "Yes, I'm a member of Parliament, Mrs. Bunce." "And you'll go on with the rooms the same as ever? Well, I never thought to have a member of Parliament in 'em." Mrs. Bunce really had realised the magnitude of the step which her lodger had taken, and Phineas was grateful to her. CHAPTER IV Lady Laura Standish Phineas, in describing Lady Laura Standish to Mary Flood Jones at Killaloe, had not painted her in very glowing colours. Nevertheless he admired Lady Laura very much, and she was worthy of admiration. It was probably the greatest pride of our hero's life that Lady Laura Standish was his friend, and that she had instigated him to undertake the risk of parliamentary life. Lady Laura was intimate also with Barrington Erle, who was, in some distant degree, her cousin; and Phineas was not without a suspicion that his selection for Loughshane, from out of all the young liberal candidates, may have been in some degree owing to Lady Laura's influence with Barrington Erle. He was not unwilling that it should be so; for though, as he had repeatedly told himself, he was by no means in love with Lady Laura,--who was, as he imagined, somewhat older than himself,--nevertheless, he would feel gratified at accepting anything from her hands, and he felt a keen desire for some increase to those ties of friendship which bound them together. No;--he was not in love with Lady Laura Standish. He had not the remotest idea of asking her to be his wife. So he told himself, both before he went over for his election, and after his return. When he had found himself in a corner with poor little Mary Flood Jones, he had kissed her as a matter of course; but he did not think that he could, in any circumstances, be tempted to kiss Lady Laura. He supposed that he was in love with his darling little Mary,--after a fashion. Of course, it could never come to anything, because of the circumstances of his life, which were so imperious to him. He was not in love with Lady Laura, and yet he hoped that his intimacy with her might come to much. He had more than once asked himself how he would feel when somebody else came to be really in love with Lady Laura,--for she was by no means a woman to lack lovers,--when some one else should be in love with her, and be received by her as a lover; but this question he had never been able to answer. There were many questions about himself which he usually answered by telling himself that it was his fate to walk over volcanoes. "Of course, I shall be blown into atoms some fine day," he would say; "but after all, that is better than being slowly boiled down into pulp." The House had met on a Friday, again on the Saturday morning, and the debate on the Address had been adjourned till the Monday. On the Sunday, Phineas determined that he would see Lady Laura. She professed to be always at home on Sunday, and from three to four in the afternoon her drawing-room would probably be half full of people. There would, at any rate, be comers and goers, who would prevent anything like real conversation between himself and her. But for a few minutes before that he might probably find her alone, and he was most anxious to see whether her reception of him, as a member of Parliament, would be in any degree warmer than that of his other friends. Hitherto he had found no such warmth since he came to London, excepting that which had glowed in the bosom of Mrs. Bunce. Lady Laura Standish was the daughter of the Earl of Brentford, and was the only remaining lady of the Earl's family. The Countess had been long dead; and Lady Emily, the younger daughter, who had been the great beauty of her day, was now the wife of a Russian nobleman whom she had persisted in preferring to any of her English suitors, and lived at St. Petersburg. There was an aunt, old Lady Laura, who came up to town about the middle of May; but she was always in the country except for some six weeks in the season. There was a certain Lord Chiltern, the Earl's son and heir, who did indeed live at the family town house in Portman Square; but Lord Chiltern was a man of whom Lady Laura's set did not often speak, and Phineas, frequently as he had been at the house, had never seen Lord Chiltern there. He was a young nobleman of whom various accounts were given by various people; but I fear that the account most readily accepted in London attributed to him a great intimacy with the affairs at Newmarket, and a partiality for convivial pleasures. Respecting Lord Chiltern Phineas had never as yet exchanged a word with Lady Laura. With her father he was acquainted, as he had dined perhaps half a dozen times at the house. The point in Lord Brentford's character which had more than any other struck our hero, was the unlimited confidence which he seemed to place in his daughter. Lady Laura seemed to have perfect power of doing what she pleased. She was much more mistress of herself than if she had been the wife instead of the daughter of the Earl of Brentford,--and she seemed to be quite as much mistress of the house. Phineas had declared at Killaloe that Lady Laura was six feet high, that she had red hair, that her figure was straggling, and that her hands and feet were large. She was in fact about five feet seven in height, and she carried her height well. There was something of nobility in her gait, and she seemed thus to be taller than her inches. Her hair was in truth red,--of a deep thorough redness. Her brother's hair was the same; and so had been that of her father, before it had become sandy with age. Her sister's had been of a soft auburn hue, and hers had been said to be the prettiest head of hair in Europe at the time of her marriage. But in these days we have got to like red hair, and Lady Laura's was not supposed to stand in the way of her being considered a beauty. Her face was very fair, though it lacked that softness which we all love in women. Her eyes, which were large and bright, and very clear, never seemed to quail, never rose and sunk or showed themselves to be afraid of their own power. Indeed, Lady Laura Standish had nothing of fear about her. Her nose was perfectly cut, but was rather large, having the slightest possible tendency to be aquiline. Her mouth also was large, but was full of expression, and her teeth were perfect. Her complexion was very bright, but in spite of its brightness she never blushed. The shades of her complexion were set and steady. Those who knew her said that her heart was so fully under command that nothing could stir her blood to any sudden motion. As to that accusation of straggling which had been made against her, it had sprung from ill-natured observation of her modes of sitting. She never straggled when she stood or walked; but she would lean forward when sitting, as a man does, and would use her arms in talking, and would put her hand over her face, and pass her fingers through her hair,--after the fashion of men rather than of women;--and she seemed to despise that soft quiescence of her sex in which are generally found so many charms. Her hands and feet were large,--as was her whole frame. Such was Lady Laura Standish; and Phineas Finn had been untrue to himself and to his own appreciation of the lady when he had described her in disparaging terms to Mary Flood Jones. But, though he had spoken of Lady Laura in disparaging terms, he had so spoken of her as to make Miss Flood Jones quite understand that he thought a great deal about Lady Laura. And now, early on the Sunday, he made his way to Portman Square in order that he might learn whether there might be any sympathy for him there. Hitherto he had found none. Everything had been terribly dry and hard, and he had gathered as yet none of the fruit which he had expected that his good fortune would bear for him. It is true that he had not as yet gone among any friends, except those of his club, and men who were in the House along with him;--and at the club it might be that there were some who envied him his good fortune, and others who thought nothing of it because it had been theirs for years. Now he would try a friend who, he hoped, could sympathise; and therefore he called in Portman Square at about half-past two on the Sunday morning. Yes,--Lady Laura was in the drawing-room. The hall-porter admitted as much, but evidently seemed to think that he had been disturbed from his dinner before his time. Phineas did not care a straw for the hall-porter. If Lady Laura were not kind to him, he would never trouble that hall-porter again. He was especially sore at this moment because a valued friend, the barrister with whom he had been reading for the last three years, had spent the best part of an hour that Sunday morning in proving to him that he had as good as ruined himself. "When I first heard it, of course I thought you had inherited a fortune," said Mr. Low. "I have inherited nothing," Phineas replied;--"not a penny; and I never shall." Then Mr. Low had opened his eyes very wide, and shaken his head very sadly, and had whistled. "I am so glad you have come, Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura, meeting Phineas half-way across the large room. "Thanks," said he, as he took her hand. "I thought that perhaps you would manage to see me before any one else was here." "Well;--to tell the truth, I have wished it; though I can hardly tell why." "I can tell you why, Mr. Finn. But never mind;--come and sit down. I am so very glad that you have been successful;--so very glad. You know I told you that I should never think much of you if you did not at least try it." "And therefore I did try." "And have succeeded. Faint heart, you know, never did any good. I think it is a man's duty to make his way into the House;--that is, if he ever means to be anybody. Of course it is not every man who can get there by the time that he is five-and-twenty." "Every friend that I have in the world says that I have ruined myself." "No;--I don't say so," said Lady Laura. "And you are worth all the others put together. It is such a comfort to have some one to say a cheery word to one." "You shall hear nothing but cheery words here. Papa shall say cheery words to you that shall be better than mine, because they shall be weighted with the wisdom of age. I have heard him say twenty times that the earlier a man goes into the House the better. There is much to learn." "But your father was thinking of men of fortune." "Not at all;--of younger brothers, and barristers, and of men who have their way to make, as you have. Let me see,--can you dine here on Wednesday? There will be no party, of course, but papa will want to shake hands with you; and you legislators of the Lower House are more easily reached on Wednesdays than on any other day." "I shall be delighted," said Phineas, feeling, however, that he did not expect much sympathy from Lord Brentford. "Mr. Kennedy dines here;--you know Mr. Kennedy, of Loughlinter; and we will ask your friend Mr. Fitzgibbon. There will be nobody else. As for catching Barrington Erle, that is out of the question at such a time as this." "But going back to my being ruined--" said Phineas, after a pause. "Don't think of anything so disagreeable." "You must not suppose that I am afraid of it. I was going to say that there are worse things than ruin,--or, at any rate, than the chance of ruin. Supposing that I have to emigrate and skin sheep, what does it matter? I myself, being unencumbered, have myself as my own property to do what I like with. With Nelson it was Westminster Abbey or a peerage. With me it is parliamentary success or sheep-skinning." "There shall be no sheep-skinning, Mr. Finn. I will guarantee you." "Then I shall be safe." At that moment the door of the room was opened, and a man entered with quick steps, came a few yards in, and then retreated, slamming the door after him. He was a man with thick short red hair, and an abundance of very red beard. And his face was red,--and, as it seemed to Phineas, his very eyes. There was something in the countenance of the man which struck him almost with dread,--something approaching to ferocity. There was a pause a moment after the door was closed, and then Lady Laura spoke. "It was my brother Chiltern. I do not think that you have ever met him." CHAPTER V Mr. and Mrs. Low That terrible apparition of the red Lord Chiltern had disturbed Phineas in the moment of his happiness as he sat listening to the kind flatteries of Lady Laura; and though Lord Chiltern had vanished as quickly as he had appeared, there had come no return of his joy. Lady Laura had said some word about her brother, and Phineas had replied that he had never chanced to see Lord Chiltern. Then there had been an awkward silence, and almost immediately other persons had come in. After greeting one or two old acquaintances, among whom an elder sister of Laurence Fitzgibbon was one, he took his leave and escaped out into the square. "Miss Fitzgibbon is going to dine with us on Wednesday," said Lady Laura. "She says she won't answer for her brother, but she will bring him if she can." "And you're a member of Parliament now too, they tell me," said Miss Fitzgibbon, holding up her hands. "I think everybody will be in Parliament before long. I wish I knew some man who wasn't, that I might think of changing my condition." But Phineas cared very little what Miss Fitzgibbon said to him. Everybody knew Aspasia Fitzgibbon, and all who knew her were accustomed to put up with the violence of her jokes and the bitterness of her remarks. She was an old maid, over forty, very plain, who, having reconciled herself to the fact that she was an old maid, chose to take advantage of such poor privileges as the position gave her. Within the last few years a considerable fortune had fallen into her hands, some twenty-five thousand pounds, which had come to her unexpectedly,--a wonderful windfall. And now she was the only one of her family who had money at command. She lived in a small house by herself, in one of the smallest streets of May Fair, and walked about sturdily by herself, and spoke her mind about everything. She was greatly devoted to her brother Laurence,--so devoted that there was nothing she would not do for him, short of lending him money. But Phineas when he found himself out in the square thought nothing of Aspasia Fitzgibbon. He had gone to Lady Laura Standish for sympathy, and she had given it to him in full measure. She understood him and his aspirations if no one else did so on the face of the earth. She rejoiced in his triumph, and was not too hard to tell him that she looked forward to his success. And in what delightful language she had done so! "Faint heart never won fair lady." It was thus, or almost thus, that she had encouraged him. He knew well that she had in truth meant nothing more than her words had seemed to signify. He did not for a moment attribute to her aught else. But might not he get another lesson from them? He had often told himself that he was not in love with Laura Standish;--but why should he not how tell himself that he was in love with her? Of course there would be difficulty. But was it not the business of his life to overcome difficulties? Had he not already overcome one difficulty almost as great; and why should he be afraid of this other? Faint heart never won fair lady! And this fair lady,--for at this moment he was ready to swear that she was very fair,--was already half won. She could not have taken him by the hand so warmly, and looked into his face so keenly, had she not felt for him something stronger than common friendship. He had turned down Baker Street from the square, and was now walking towards the Regent's Park. He would go and see the beasts in the Zoological Gardens, and make up his mind as to his future mode of life in that delightful Sunday solitude. There was very much as to which it was necessary that he should make up his mind. If he resolved that he would ask Lady Laura Standish to be his wife, when should he ask her, and in what manner might he propose to her that they should live? It would hardly suit him to postpone his courtship indefinitely, knowing, as he did know, that he would be one among many suitors. He could not expect her to wait for him if he did not declare himself. And yet he could hardly ask her to come and share with him the allowance made to him by his father! Whether she had much fortune of her own, or little, or none at all, he did not in the least know. He did know that the Earl had been distressed by his son's extravagance, and that there had been some money difficulties arising from this source. But his great desire would be to support his own wife by his own labour. At present he was hardly in a fair way to do that, unless he could get paid for his parliamentary work. Those fortunate gentlemen who form "The Government" are so paid. Yes;--there was the Treasury Bench open to him, and he must resolve that he would seat himself there. He would make Lady Laura understand this, and then he would ask his question. It was true that at present his political opponents had possession of the Treasury Bench;--but all governments are mortal, and Conservative governments in this country are especially prone to die. It was true that he could not hold even a Treasury lordship with a poor thousand a year for his salary without having to face the electors of Loughshane again before he entered upon the enjoyment of his place;--but if he could only do something to give a grace to his name, to show that he was a rising man, the electors of Loughshane, who had once been so easy with him, would surely not be cruel to him when he showed himself a second time among them. Lord Tulla was his friend, and he had those points of law in his favour which possession bestows. And then he remembered that Lady Laura was related to almost everybody who was anybody among the high Whigs. She was, he knew, second cousin to Mr. Mildmay, who for years had been the leader of the Whigs, and was third cousin to Barrington Erle. The late President of the Council, the Duke of St. Bungay, and Lord Brentford had married sisters, and the St. Bungay people, and the Mildmay people, and the Brentford people had all some sort of connection with the Palliser people, of whom the heir and coming chief, Plantagenet Palliser, would certainly be Chancellor of the Exchequer in the next Government. Simply as an introduction into official life nothing could be more conducive to chances of success than a matrimonial alliance with Lady Laura. Not that he would have thought of such a thing on that account! No;--he thought of it because he loved her; honestly because he loved her. He swore to that half a dozen times, for his own satisfaction. But, loving her as he did, and resolving that in spite of all difficulties she should become his wife, there could be no reason why he should not,--on her account as well as on his own,--take advantage of any circumstances that there might be in his favour. As he wandered among the unsavoury beasts, elbowed on every side by the Sunday visitors to the garden, he made up his mind that he would first let Lady Laura understand what were his intentions with regard to his future career, and then he would ask her to join her lot to his. At every turn the chances would of course be very much against him;--ten to one against him, perhaps, on every point; but it was his lot in life to have to face such odds. Twelve months since it had been much more than ten to one against his getting into Parliament; and yet he was there. He expected to be blown into fragments,--to sheep-skinning in Australia, or packing preserved meats on the plains of Paraguay; but when the blowing into atoms should come, he was resolved that courage to bear the ruin should not be wanting. Then he quoted a line or two of a Latin poet, and felt himself to be comfortable. "So, here you are again, Mr. Finn," said a voice in his ear. "Yes, Miss Fitzgibbon; here I am again." "I fancied you members of Parliament had something else to do besides looking at wild beasts. I thought you always spent Sunday in arranging how you might most effectually badger each other on Monday." "We got through all that early this morning, Miss Fitzgibbon, while you were saying your prayers." "Here is Mr. Kennedy too;--you know him I daresay. He also is a member; but then he can afford to be idle." But it so happened that Phineas did not know Mr. Kennedy, and consequently there was some slight form of introduction. "I believe I am to meet you at dinner on Wednesday,"--said Phineas,--"at Lord Brentford's." "And me too," said Miss Fitzgibbon. "Which will be the greatest possible addition to our pleasure," said Phineas. Mr. Kennedy, who seemed to be afflicted with some difficulty in speaking, and whose bow to our hero had hardly done more than produce the slightest possible motion to the top of his hat, hereupon muttered something which was taken to mean an assent to the proposition as to Wednesday's dinner. Then he stood perfectly still, with his two hands fixed on the top of his umbrella, and gazed at the great monkeys' cage. But it was clear that he was not looking at any special monkey, for his eyes never wandered. "Did you ever see such a contrast in your life?" said Miss Fitzgibbon to Phineas,--hardly in a whisper. "Between what?" said Phineas. "Between Mr. Kennedy and a monkey. The monkey has so much to say for himself, and is so delightfully wicked! I don't suppose that Mr. Kennedy ever did anything wrong in his life." Mr. Kennedy was a man who had very little temptation to do anything wrong. He was possessed of over a million and a half of money, which he was mistaken enough to suppose he had made himself; whereas it may be doubted whether he had ever earned a penny. His father and his uncle had created a business in Glasgow, and that business now belonged to him. But his father and his uncle, who had toiled through their long lives, had left behind them servants who understood the work, and the business now went on prospering almost by its own momentum. The Mr. Kennedy of the present day, the sole owner of the business, though he did occasionally go to Glasgow, certainly did nothing towards maintaining it. He had a magnificent place in Perthshire, called Loughlinter, and he sat for a Scotch group of boroughs, and he had a house in London, and a stud of horses in Leicestershire, which he rarely visited, and was unmarried. He never spoke much to any one, although he was constantly in society. He rarely did anything, although he had the means of doing everything. He had very seldom been on his legs in the House of Commons, though he had sat there for ten years. He was seen about everywhere, sometimes with one acquaintance and sometimes with another;--but it may be doubted whether he had any friend. It may be doubted whether he had ever talked enough to any man to make that man his friend. Laurence Fitzgibbon tried him for one season, and after a month or two asked for a loan of a few hundred pounds. "I never lend money to any one under any circumstances," said Mr. Kennedy, and it was the longest speech which had ever fallen from his mouth in the hearing of Laurence Fitzgibbon. But though he would not lend money, he gave a great deal,--and he would give it for almost every object. "Mr. Robert Kennedy, M.P., Loughlinter, £105," appeared on almost every charitable list that was advertised. No one ever spoke to him as to this expenditure, nor did he ever speak to any one. Circulars came to him and the cheques were returned. The duty was a very easy one to him, and he performed it willingly. Had any amount of inquiry been necessary, it is possible that the labour would have been too much for him. Such was Mr. Robert Kennedy, as to whom Phineas had heard that he had during the last winter entertained Lord Brentford and Lady Laura, with very many other people of note, at his place in Perthshire. "I very much prefer the monkey," said Phineas to Miss Fitzgibbon. "I thought you would," said she. "Like to like, you know. You have both of you the same aptitude for climbing. But the monkeys never fall, they tell me." Phineas, knowing that he could gain nothing by sparring with Miss Fitzgibbon, raised his hat and took his leave. Going out of a narrow gate he found himself again brought into contact with Mr. Kennedy. "What a crowd there is here," he said, finding himself bound to say something. Mr. Kennedy, who was behind him, answered him not a word. Then Phineas made up his mind that Mr. Kennedy was insolent with the insolence of riches, and that he would hate Mr. Kennedy. He was engaged to dine on this Sunday with Mr. Low, the barrister, with whom he had been reading for the last three years. Mr. Low had taken a strong liking to Phineas, as had also Mrs. Low, and the tutor had more than once told his pupil that success in his profession was certainly open to him if he would only stick to his work. Mr. Low was himself an ambitious man, looking forward to entering Parliament at some future time, when the exigencies of his life of labour might enable him to do so; but he was prudent, given to close calculation, and resolved to make the ground sure beneath his feet in every step that he took forward. When he first heard that Finn intended to stand for Loughshane he was stricken with dismay, and strongly dissuaded him. "The electors may probably reject him. That's his only chance now," Mr. Low had said to his wife, when he found that Phineas was, as he thought, foolhardy. But the electors of Loughshane had not rejected Mr. Low's pupil, and Mr. Low was now called upon to advise what Phineas should do in his present circumstances. There is nothing to prevent the work of a Chancery barrister being done by a member of Parliament. Indeed, the most successful barristers are members of Parliament. But Phineas Finn was beginning at the wrong end, and Mr. Low knew that no good would come of it. "Only think of your being in Parliament, Mr. Finn," said Mrs. Low. "It is wonderful, isn't it?" said Phineas. "It took us so much by surprise!" said Mrs. Low. "As a rule one never hears of a barrister going into Parliament till after he's forty." "And I'm only twenty-five. I do feel that I've disgraced myself. I do, indeed, Mrs. Low." "No;--you've not disgraced yourself, Mr. Finn. The only question is, whether it's prudent. I hope it will all turn out for the best, most heartily." Mrs. Low was a very matter-of-fact lady, four or five years older than her husband, who had had a little money of her own, and was possessed of every virtue under the sun. Nevertheless she did not quite like the idea of her husband's pupil having got into Parliament. If her husband and Phineas Finn were dining anywhere together, Phineas, who had come to them quite a boy, would walk out of the room before her husband. This could hardly be right! Nevertheless she helped Phineas to the nicest bit of fish she could find, and had he been ill, would have nursed him with the greatest care. After dinner, when Mrs. Low had gone up-stairs, there came the great discussion between the tutor and the pupil, for the sake of which this little dinner had been given. When Phineas had last been with Mr. Low,--on the occasion of his showing himself at his tutor's chambers after his return from Ireland,--he had not made up his mind so thoroughly on certain points as he had done since he had seen Lady Laura. The discussion could hardly be of any avail now,--but it could not be avoided. "Well, Phineas, and what do you mean to do?" said Mr. Low. Everybody who knew our hero, or nearly everybody, called him by his Christian name. There are men who seem to be so treated by general consent in all societies. Even Mrs. Low, who was very prosaic, and unlikely to be familiar in her mode of address, had fallen into the way of doing it before the election. But she had dropped it, when the Phineas whom she used to know became a member of Parliament. "That's the question;--isn't it?" said Phineas. "Of course you'll stick to your work?" "What;--to the Bar?" "Yes;--to the Bar." "I am not thinking of giving it up permanently." "Giving it up," said Mr. Low, raising his hands in surprise. "If you give it up, how do you intend to live? Men are not paid for being members of Parliament." "Not exactly. But, as I said before, I am not thinking of giving it up,--permanently." "You mustn't give it up at all,--not for a day; that is, if you ever mean to do any good." "There I think that perhaps you may be wrong, Low!" "How can I be wrong? Did a period of idleness ever help a man in any profession? And is it not acknowledged by all who know anything about it, that continuous labour is more necessary in our profession than in any other?" "I do not mean to be idle." "What is it you do mean, Phineas?" "Why simply this. Here I am in Parliament. We must take that as a fact." "I don't doubt the fact." "And if it be a misfortune, we must make the best of it. Even you wouldn't advise me to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds at once." "I would;--to-morrow. My dear fellow, though I do not like to give you pain, if you come to me I can only tell you what I think. My advice to you is to give it up to-morrow. Men would laugh at you for a few weeks, but that is better than being ruined for life." "I can't do that," said Phineas, sadly. "Very well;--then let us go on," said Mr. Low. "If you won't give up your seat, the next best thing will be to take care that it shall interfere as little as possible with your work. I suppose you must sit upon some Committees." "My idea is this,--that I will give up one year to learning the practices of the House." "And do nothing?" "Nothing but that. Why, the thing is a study in itself. As for learning it in a year, that is out of the question. But I am convinced that if a man intends to be a useful member of Parliament, he should make a study of it." "And how do you mean to live in the meantime?" Mr. Low, who was an energetic man, had assumed almost an angry tone of voice. Phineas for awhile sat silent;--not that he felt himself to be without words for a reply, but that he was thinking in what fewest words he might best convey his ideas. "You have a very modest allowance from your father, on which you have never been able to keep yourself free from debt," continued Mr. Low. "He has increased it." "And will it satisfy you to live here, in what will turn out to be parliamentary club idleness, on the savings of his industrious life? I think you will find yourself unhappy if you do that. Phineas, my dear fellow, as far as I have as yet been able to see the world, men don't begin either very good or very bad. They have generally good aspirations with infirm purposes;--or, as we may say, strong bodies with weak legs to carry them. Then, because their legs are weak, they drift into idleness and ruin. During all this drifting they are wretched, and when they have thoroughly drifted they are still wretched. The agony of their old disappointment still clings to them. In nine cases out of ten it is some one small unfortunate event that puts a man astray at first. He sees some woman and loses himself with her;--or he is taken to a racecourse and unluckily wins money;--or some devil in the shape of a friend lures him to tobacco and brandy. Your temptation has come in the shape of this accursed seat in Parliament." Mr. Low had never said a soft word in his life to any woman but the wife of his bosom, had never seen a racehorse, always confined himself to two glasses of port after dinner, and looked upon smoking as the darkest of all the vices. "You have made up your mind, then, that I mean to be idle?" "I have made up my mind that your time will be wholly unprofitable,--if you do as you say you intend to do." "But you do not know my plan;--just listen to me." Then Mr. Low did listen, and Phineas explained his plan,--saying, of course, nothing of his love for Lady Laura, but giving Mr. Low to understand that he intended to assist in turning out the existing Government and to mount up to some seat,--a humble seat at first,--on the Treasury bench, by the help of his exalted friends and by the use of his own gifts of eloquence. Mr. Low heard him without a word. "Of course," said Phineas, "after the first year my time will not be fully employed, unless I succeed. And if I fail totally,--for, of course, I may fail altogether--" "It is possible," said Mr. Low. "If you are resolved to turn yourself against me, I must not say another word," said Phineas, with anger. "Turn myself against you! I would turn myself any way so that I might save you from the sort of life which you are preparing for yourself. I see nothing in it that can satisfy any manly heart. Even if you are successful, what are you to become? You will be the creature of some minister, not his colleague. You are to make your way up the ladder by pretending to agree whenever agreement is demanded from you, and by voting whether you agree or do not. And what is to be your reward? Some few precarious hundreds a year, lasting just so long as a party may remain in power and you can retain a seat in Parliament! It is at the best slavery and degradation,--even if you are lucky enough to achieve the slavery." "You yourself hope to go into Parliament and join a ministry some day," said Phineas. Mr. Low was not quick to answer, but he did answer at last. "That is true, though I have never told you so. Indeed, it is hardly true to say that I hope it. I have my dreams, and sometimes dare to tell myself that they may possibly become waking facts. But if ever I sit on a Treasury bench I shall sit there by special invitation, having been summoned to take a high place because of my professional success. It is but a dream after all, and I would not have you repeat what I have said to any one. I had no intention to talk about myself." "I am sure that you will succeed," said Phineas. "Yes;--I shall succeed. I am succeeding. I live upon what I earn, like a gentleman, and can already afford to be indifferent to work that I dislike. After all, the other part of it,--that of which I dream,--is but an unnecessary adjunct; the gilding on the gingerbread. I am inclined to think that the cake is more wholesome without it." Phineas did not go up-stairs into Mrs. Low's drawing-room on that evening, nor did he stay very late with Mr. Low. He had heard enough of counsel to make him very unhappy,--to shake from him much of the audacity which he had acquired for himself during his morning's walk,--and to make him almost doubt whether, after all, the Chiltern Hundreds would not be for him the safest escape from his difficulties. But in that case he must never venture to see Lady Laura Standish again. CHAPTER VI Lord Brentford's Dinner No;--in such case as that,--should he resolve upon taking the advice of his old friend Mr. Low, Phineas Finn must make up his mind never to see Lady Laura Standish again! And he was in love with Lady Laura Standish;--and, for aught he knew, Lady Laura Standish might be in love with him. As he walked home from Mr. Low's house in Bedford Square, he was by no means a triumphant man. There had been much more said between him and Mr. Low than could be laid before the reader in the last chapter. Mr. Low had urged him again and again, and had prevailed so far that Phineas, before he left the house, had promised to consider that suicidal expedient of the Chiltern Hundreds. What a by-word he would become if he were to give up Parliament, having sat there for about a week! But such immediate giving up was one of the necessities of Mr. Low's programme. According to Mr. Low's teaching, a single year passed amidst the miasma of the House of Commons would be altogether fatal to any chance of professional success. And Mr. Low had at any rate succeeded in making Phineas believe that he was right in this lesson. There was his profession, as to which Mr. Low assured him that success was within his reach; and there was Parliament on the other side, as to which he knew that the chances were all against him, in spite of his advantage of a seat. That he could not combine the two, beginning with Parliament, he did believe. Which should it be? That was the question which he tried to decide as he walked home from Bedford Square to Great Marlborough Street. He could not answer the question satisfactorily, and went to bed an unhappy man. He must at any rate go to Lord Brentford's dinner on Wednesday, and, to enable him to join in the conversation there, must attend the debates on Monday and Tuesday. The reader may perhaps be best made to understand how terrible was our hero's state of doubt by being told that for awhile he thought of absenting himself from these debates, as being likely to weaken his purpose of withdrawing altogether from the House. It is not very often that so strong a fury rages between party and party at the commencement of the session that a division is taken upon the Address. It is customary for the leader of the opposition on such occasions to express his opinion in the most courteous language, that his right honourable friend, sitting opposite to him on the Treasury bench, has been, is, and will be wrong in everything that he thinks, says, or does in public life; but that, as anything like factious opposition is never adopted on that side of the House, the Address to the Queen, in answer to that most fatuous speech which has been put into her Majesty's gracious mouth, shall be allowed to pass unquestioned. Then the leader of the House thanks his adversary for his consideration, explains to all men how happy the country ought to be that the Government has not fallen into the disgracefully incapable hands of his right honourable friend opposite; and after that the Address is carried amidst universal serenity. But such was not the order of the day on the present occasion. Mr. Mildmay, the veteran leader of the liberal side of the House, had moved an amendment to the Address, and had urged upon the House, in very strong language, the expediency of showing, at the very commencement of the session, that the country had returned to Parliament a strong majority determined not to put up with Conservative inactivity. "I conceive it to be my duty," Mr. Mildmay had said, "at once to assume that the country is unwilling that the right honourable gentlemen opposite should keep their seats on the bench upon which they sit, and in the performance of that duty I am called upon to divide the House upon the Address to her Majesty." And if Mr. Mildmay used strong language, the reader may be sure that Mr. Mildmay's followers used language much stronger. And Mr. Daubeny, who was the present leader of the House, and representative there of the Ministry,--Lord de Terrier, the Premier, sitting in the House of Lords,--was not the man to allow these amenities to pass by without adequate replies. He and his friends were very strong in sarcasm, if they failed in argument, and lacked nothing for words, though it might perhaps be proved that they were short in numbers. It was considered that the speech in which Mr. Daubeny reviewed the long political life of Mr. Mildmay, and showed that Mr. Mildmay had been at one time a bugbear, and then a nightmare, and latterly simply a fungus, was one of the severest attacks, if not the most severe, that had been heard in that House since the Reform Bill. Mr. Mildmay, the while, was sitting with his hat low down over his eyes, and many men said that he did not like it. But this speech was not made till after that dinner at Lord Brentford's, of which a short account must be given. Had it not been for the overwhelming interest of the doings in Parliament at the commencement of the session, Phineas might have perhaps abstained from attending, in spite of the charm of novelty. For, in truth, Mr. Low's words had moved him much. But if it was to be his fate to be a member of Parliament only for ten days, surely it would be well that he should take advantage of the time to hear such a debate as this. It would be a thing to talk of to his children in twenty years' time, or to his grandchildren in fifty;--and it would be essentially necessary that he should be able to talk of it to Lady Laura Standish. He did, therefore, sit in the House till one on the Monday night, and till two on the Tuesday night, and heard the debate adjourned till the Thursday. On the Thursday Mr. Daubeny was to make his great speech, and then the division would come. When Phineas entered Lady Laura's drawing-room on the Wednesday before dinner, he found the other guests all assembled. Why men should have been earlier in keeping their dinner engagements on that day than on any other he did not understand; but it was the fact, probably, that the great anxiety of the time made those who were at all concerned in the matter very keen to hear and to be heard. During these days everybody was in a hurry,--everybody was eager; and there was a common feeling that not a minute was to be lost. There were three ladies in the room,--Lady Laura, Miss Fitzgibbon, and Mrs. Bonteen. The latter was the wife of a gentleman who had been a junior Lord of the Admiralty in the late Government, and who lived in the expectation of filling, perhaps, some higher office in the Government which, as he hoped, was soon to be called into existence. There were five gentlemen besides Phineas Finn himself,--Mr. Bonteen, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Fitzgibbon, Barrington Erle, who had been caught in spite of all that Lady Laura had said as to the difficulty of such an operation, and Lord Brentford. Phineas was quick to observe that every male guest was in Parliament, and to tell himself that he would not have been there unless he also had had a seat. "We are all here now," said the Earl, ringing the bell. "I hope I've not kept you waiting," said Phineas. "Not at all," said Lady Laura. "I do not know why we are in such a hurry. And how many do you say it will be, Mr. Finn?" "Seventeen, I suppose," said Phineas. "More likely twenty-two," said Mr. Bonteen. "There is Colcleugh so ill they can't possibly bring him up, and young Rochester is at Vienna, and Gunning is sulking about something, and Moody has lost his eldest son. By George! they pressed him to come up, although Frank Moody won't be buried till Friday." "I don't believe it," said Lord Brentford. "You ask some of the Carlton fellows, and they'll own it." "If I'd lost every relation I had in the world," said Fitzgibbon, "I'd vote on such a question as this. Staying away won't bring poor Frank Moody back to life." "But there's a decency in these matters, is there not, Mr. Fitzgibbon?" said Lady Laura. "I thought they had thrown all that kind of thing overboard long ago," said Miss Fitzgibbon. "It would be better that they should have no veil, than squabble about the thickness of it." Then dinner was announced. The Earl walked off with Miss Fitzgibbon, Barrington Erle took Mrs. Bonteen, and Mr. Fitzgibbon took Lady Laura. "I'll bet four pounds to two it's over nineteen," said Mr. Bonteen, as he passed through the drawing-room door. The remark seemed to have been addressed to Mr. Kennedy, and Phineas therefore made no reply. "I daresay it will," said Kennedy, "but I never bet." "But you vote--sometimes, I hope," said Bonteen. "Sometimes," said Mr. Kennedy. "I think he is the most odious man that ever I set my eyes on," said Phineas to himself as he followed Mr. Kennedy into the dining-room. He had observed that Mr. Kennedy had been standing very near to Lady Laura in the drawing-room, and that Lady Laura had said a few words to him. He was more determined than ever that he would hate Mr. Kennedy, and would probably have been moody and unhappy throughout the whole dinner had not Lady Laura called him to a chair at her left hand. It was very generous of her; and the more so, as Mr. Kennedy had, in a half-hesitating manner, prepared to seat himself in that very place. As it was, Phineas and Mr. Kennedy were neighbours, but Phineas had the place of honour. "I suppose you will not speak during the debate?" said Lady Laura. "Who? I? Certainly not. In the first place, I could not get a hearing, and, in the next place, I should not think of commencing on such an occasion. I do not know that I shall ever speak at all." "Indeed you will. You are just the sort of man who will succeed with the House. What I doubt is, whether you will do as well in office." "I wish I might have the chance." "Of course you can have the chance if you try for it. Beginning so early, and being on the right side,--and, if you will allow me to say so, among the right set,--there can be no doubt that you may take office if you will. But I am not sure that you will be tractable. You cannot begin, you know, by being Prime Minister." "I have seen enough to realise that already," said Phineas. "If you will only keep that little fact steadily before your eyes, there is nothing you may not reach in official life. But Pitt was Prime Minister at four-and-twenty, and that precedent has ruined half our young politicians." "It has not affected me, Lady Laura." "As far as I can see, there is no great difficulty in government. A man must learn to have words at command when he is on his legs in the House of Commons, in the same way as he would if he were talking to his own servants. He must keep his temper; and he must be very patient. As far as I have seen Cabinet Ministers, they are not more clever than other people." "I think there are generally one or two men of ability in the Cabinet." "Yes, of fair ability. Mr. Mildmay is a good specimen. There is not, and never was, anything brilliant in him. He is not eloquent, nor, as far as I am aware, did he ever create anything. But he has always been a steady, honest, persevering man, and circumstances have made politics come easy to him." "Think of the momentous questions which he has been called upon to decide," said Phineas. "Every question so handled by him has been decided rightly according to his own party, and wrongly according to the party opposite. A political leader is so sure of support and so sure of attack, that it is hardly necessary for him to be even anxious to be right. For the country's sake, he should have officials under him who know the routine of business." "You think very badly then of politics as a profession." "No; I think of them very highly. It must be better to deal with the repeal of laws than the defending of criminals. But all this is papa's wisdom, not mine. Papa has never been in the Cabinet yet, and therefore of course he is a little caustic." "I think he was quite right," said Barrington Erle stoutly. He spoke so stoutly that everybody at the table listened to him. "I don't exactly see the necessity for such internecine war just at present," said Lord Brentford. "I must say I do," said the other. "Lord de Terrier took office knowing that he was in a minority. We had a fair majority of nearly thirty when he came in." "Then how very soft you must have been to go out," said Miss Fitzgibbon. "Not in the least soft," continued Barrington Erle. "We could not command our men, and were bound to go out. For aught we knew, some score of them might have chosen to support Lord de Terrier, and then we should have owned ourselves beaten for the time." "You were beaten,--hollow," said Miss Fitzgibbon. "Then why did Lord de Terrier dissolve?" "A Prime Minister is quite right to dissolve in such a position," said Lord Brentford. "He must do so for the Queen's sake. It is his only chance." "Just so. It is, as you say, his only chance, and it is his right. His very possession of power will give him near a score of votes, and if he thinks that he has a chance, let him try it. We maintain that he had no chance, and that he must have known that he had none;--that if he could not get on with the late House, he certainly could not get on with a new House. We let him have his own way as far as we could in February. We had failed last summer, and if he could get along he was welcome. But he could not get along." "I must say I think he was right to dissolve," said Lady Laura. "And we are right to force the consequences upon him as quickly as we can. He practically lost nine seats by his dissolution. Look at Loughshane." "Yes; look at Loughshane," said Miss Fitzgibbon. "The country at any rate has gained something there." "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, Mr. Finn," said the Earl. "What on earth is to become of poor George?" said Mr. Fitzgibbon. "I wonder whether any one knows where he is. George wasn't a bad sort of fellow." "Roby used to think that he was a very bad fellow," said Mr. Bonteen. "Roby used to swear that it was hopeless trying to catch him." It may be as well to explain that Mr. Roby was a Conservative gentleman of great fame who had for years acted as Whip under Mr. Daubeny, and who now filled the high office of Patronage Secretary to the Treasury. "I believe in my heart," continued Mr. Bonteen, "that Roby is rejoiced that poor George Morris should be out in the cold." "If seats were halveable, he should share mine, for the sake of auld lang syne," said Laurence Fitzgibbon. "But not to-morrow night," said Barrington Erle; "the division to-morrow will be a thing not to be joked with. Upon my word I think they're right about old Moody. All private considerations should give way. And as for Gunning, I'd have him up or I'd know the reason why." "And shall we have no defaulters, Barrington?" asked Lady Laura. "I'm not going to boast, but I don't know of one for whom we need blush. Sir Everard Powell is so bad with gout that he can't even bear any one to look at him, but Ratler says that he'll bring him up." Mr. Ratler was in those days the Whip on the liberal side of the House. "Unfortunate wretch!" said Miss Fitzgibbon. "The worst of it is that he screams in his paroxysms," said Mr. Bonteen. "And you mean to say that you'll take him into the lobby," said Lady Laura. "Undoubtedly," said Barrington Erle. "Why not? He has no business with a seat if he can't vote. But Sir Everard is a good man, and he'll be there if laudanum and bath-chair make it possible." The same kind of conversation went on during the whole of dinner, and became, if anything, more animated when the three ladies had left the room. Mr. Kennedy made but one remark, and then he observed that as far as he could see a majority of nineteen would be as serviceable as a majority of twenty. This he said in a very mild voice, and in a tone that was intended to be expressive of doubt; but in spite of his humility Barrington Erle flew at him almost savagely,--as though a liberal member of the House of Commons was disgraced by so mean a spirit; and Phineas found himself despising the man for his want of zeal. "If we are to beat them, let us beat them well," said Phineas. "Let there be no doubt about it," said Barrington Erle. "I should like to see every man with a seat polled," said Bonteen. "Poor Sir Everard!" said Lord Brentford. "It will kill him, no doubt, but I suppose the seat is safe." "Oh, yes; Llanwrwsth is quite safe," said Barrington, in his eagerness omitting to catch Lord Brentford's grim joke. Phineas went up into the drawing-room for a few minutes after dinner, and was eagerly desirous of saying a few more words,--he knew not what words,--to Lady Laura. Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bonteen had left the dining-room first, and Phineas again found Mr. Kennedy standing close to Lady Laura's shoulder. Could it be possible that there was anything in it? Mr. Kennedy was an unmarried man, with an immense fortune, a magnificent place, a seat in Parliament, and was not perhaps above forty years of age. There could be no reason why he should not ask Lady Laura to be his wife,--except, indeed, that he did not seem to have sufficient words at command to ask anybody for anything. But could it be that such a woman as Lady Laura could accept such a man as Mr. Kennedy because of his wealth, and because of his fine place,--a man who had not a word to throw to a dog, who did not seem to be possessed of an idea, who hardly looked like a gentleman;--so Phineas told himself. But in truth Mr. Kennedy, though he was a plain, unattractive man, with nothing in his personal appearance to call for remark, was not unlike a gentleman in his usual demeanour. Phineas himself, it may be here said, was six feet high, and very handsome, with bright blue eyes, and brown wavy hair, and light silken beard. Mrs. Low had told her husband more than once that he was much too handsome to do any good. Mr. Low, however, had replied that young Finn had never shown himself to be conscious of his own personal advantages. "He'll learn it soon enough," said Mrs. Low. "Some woman will tell him, and then he'll be spoilt." I do not think that Phineas depended much as yet on his own good looks, but he felt that Mr. Kennedy ought to be despised by such a one as Lady Laura Standish, because his looks were not good. And she must despise him! It could not be that a woman so full of life should be willing to put up with a man who absolutely seemed to have no life within him. And yet why was he there, and why was he allowed to hang about just over her shoulders? Phineas Finn began to feel himself to be an injured man. But Lady Laura had the power of dispelling instantly this sense of injury. She had done it effectually in the dining-room by calling him to the seat by her side, to the express exclusion of the millionaire, and she did it again now by walking away from Mr. Kennedy to the spot on which Phineas had placed himself somewhat sulkily. "Of course you'll be at the club on Friday morning after the division," she said. "No doubt." "When you leave it, come and tell me what are your impressions, and what you think of Mr. Daubeny's speech. There'll be nothing done in the House before four, and you'll be able to run up to me." "Certainly I will." "I have asked Mr. Kennedy to come, and Mr. Fitzgibbon. I am so anxious about it, that I want to hear what different people say. You know, perhaps, that papa is to be in the Cabinet if there's a change." "Is he indeed?" "Oh yes;--and you'll come up?" "Of course I will. Do you expect to hear much of an opinion from Mr. Kennedy?" "Yes, I do. You don't quite know Mr. Kennedy yet. And you must remember that he will say more to me than he will to you. He's not quick, you know, as you are, and he has no enthusiasm on any subject;--but he has opinions, and sound opinions too." Phineas felt that Lady Laura was in a slight degree scolding him for the disrespectful manner in which he had spoken of Mr. Kennedy; and he felt also that he had committed himself,--that he had shown himself to be sore, and that she had seen and understood his soreness. "The truth is I do not know him," said he, trying to correct his blunder. "No;--not as yet. But I hope that you may some day, as he is one of those men who are both useful and estimable." "I do not know that I can use him," said Phineas; "but if you wish it, I will endeavour to esteem him." "I wish you to do both;--but that will all come in due time. I think it probable that in the early autumn there will be a great gathering of the real Whig Liberals at Loughlinter;--of those, I mean, who have their heart in it, and are at the same time gentlemen. If it is so, I should be sorry that you should not be there. You need not mention it, but Mr. Kennedy has just said a word about it to papa, and a word from him always means so much! Well;--good-night; and mind you come up on Friday. You are going to the club, now, of course. I envy you men your clubs more than I do the House;--though I feel that a woman's life is only half a life, as she cannot have a seat in Parliament." Then Phineas went away, and walked down to Pall Mall with Laurence Fitzgibbon. He would have preferred to take his walk alone, but he could not get rid of his affectionate countryman. He wanted to think over what had taken place during the evening; and, indeed, he did so in spite of his friend's conversation. Lady Laura, when she first saw him after his return to London, had told him how anxious her father was to congratulate him on his seat, but the Earl had not spoken a word to him on the subject. The Earl had been courteous, as hosts customarily are, but had been in no way specially kind to him. And then Mr. Kennedy! As to going to Loughlinter, he would not do such a thing,--not though the success of the liberal party were to depend on it. He declared to himself that there were some things which a man could not do. But although he was not altogether satisfied with what had occurred in Portman Square, he felt as he walked down arm-in-arm with Fitzgibbon that Mr. Low and Mr. Low's counsels must be scattered to the winds. He had thrown the die in consenting to stand for Loughshane, and must stand the hazard of the cast. "Bedad, Phin, my boy, I don't think you're listening to me at all," said Laurence Fitzgibbon. "I'm listening to every word you say," said Phineas. "And if I have to go down to the ould country again this session, you'll go with me?" "If I can I will." "That's my boy! And it's I that hope you'll have the chance. What's the good of turning these fellows out if one isn't to get something for one's trouble?" CHAPTER VII Mr. and Mrs. Bunce It was three o'clock on the Thursday night before Mr. Daubeny's speech was finished. I do not think that there was any truth in the allegation made at the time, that he continued on his legs an hour longer than the necessities of his speech required, in order that five or six very ancient Whigs might be wearied out and shrink to their beds. Let a Whig have been ever so ancient and ever so weary, he would not have been allowed to depart from Westminster Hall that night. Sir Everard Powell was there in his bath-chair at twelve, with a doctor on one side of him and a friend on the other, in some purlieu of the House, and did his duty like a fine old Briton as he was. That speech of Mr. Daubeny's will never be forgotten by any one who heard it. Its studied bitterness had perhaps never been equalled, and yet not a word was uttered for the saying of which he could be accused of going beyond the limits of parliamentary antagonism. It is true that personalities could not have been closer, that accusations of political dishonesty and of almost worse than political cowardice and falsehood could not have been clearer, that no words in the language could have attributed meaner motives or more unscrupulous conduct. But, nevertheless, Mr. Daubeny in all that he said was parliamentary, and showed himself to be a gladiator thoroughly well trained for the arena in which he had descended to the combat. His arrows were poisoned, and his lance was barbed, and his shot was heated red,--because such things are allowed. He did not poison his enemies' wells or use Greek fire, because those things are not allowed. He knew exactly the rules of the combat. Mr. Mildmay sat and heard him without once raising his hat from his brow, or speaking a word to his neighbour. Men on both sides of the House said that Mr. Mildmay suffered terribly; but as Mr. Mildmay uttered no word of complaint to any one, and was quite ready to take Mr. Daubeny by the hand the next time they met in company, I do not know that any one was able to form a true idea of Mr. Mildmay's feelings. Mr. Mildmay was an impassive man who rarely spoke of his own feelings, and no doubt sat with his hat low down over his eyes in order that no man might judge of them on that occasion by the impression on his features. "If he could have left off half an hour earlier it would have been perfect as an attack," said Barrington Erle in criticising Mr. Daubeny's speech, "but he allowed himself to sink into comparative weakness, and the glory of it was over before the end."--Then came the division. The Liberals had 333 votes to 314 for the Conservatives, and therefore counted a majority of 19. It was said that so large a number of members had never before voted at any division. "I own I'm disappointed," said Barrington Erle to Mr. Ratler. "I thought there would be twenty," said Mr. Ratler. "I never went beyond that. I knew they would have old Moody up, but I thought Gunning would have been too hard for them." "They say they've promised them both peerages." "Yes;--if they remain in. But they know they're going out." "They must go, with such a majority against them," said Barrington Erle. "Of course they must," said Mr. Ratler. "Lord de Terrier wants nothing better, but it is rather hard upon poor Daubeny. I never saw such an unfortunate old Tantalus." "He gets a good drop of real water now and again, and I don't pity him in the least. He's clever of course, and has made his own way, but I've always a feeling that he has no business where he is. I suppose we shall know all about it at Brooks's by one o'clock to-morrow." Phineas, though it had been past five before he went to bed,--for there had been much triumphant talking to be done among liberal members after the division,--was up at his breakfast at Mrs. Bunce's lodgings by nine. There was a matter which he was called upon to settle immediately in which Mrs. Bunce herself was much interested, and respecting which he had promised to give an answer on this very morning. A set of very dingy chambers up two pairs of stairs at No. 9, Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, to which Mr. Low had recommended him to transfer himself and all his belongings, were waiting his occupation, should he resolve upon occupying them. If he intended to commence operations as a barrister, it would be necessary that he should have chambers and a clerk; and before he had left Mr. Low's house on Sunday evening he had almost given that gentleman authority to secure for him these rooms at No. 9. "Whether you remain in Parliament or no, you must make a beginning," Mr. Low had said; "and how are you even to pretend to begin if you don't have chambers?" Mr. Low hoped that he might be able to wean Phineas away from his Parliament bauble;--that he might induce the young barrister to give up his madness, if not this session or the next, at any rate before a third year had commenced. Mr. Low was a persistent man, liking very much when he did like, and loving very strongly when he did love. He would have many a tug for Phineas Finn before he would allow that false Westminster Satan to carry off the prey as altogether his own. If he could only get Phineas into the dingy chambers he might do much! But Phineas had now become so imbued with the atmosphere of politics, had been so breathed upon by Lady Laura and Barrington Erle, that he could no longer endure the thought of any other life than that of a life spent among the lobbies. A desire to help to beat the Conservatives had fastened on his very soul, and almost made Mr. Low odious in his eyes. He was afraid of Mr. Low, and for the nonce would not go to him any more;--but he must see the porter at Lincoln's Inn, he must write a line to Mr. Low, and he must tell Mrs. Bunce that for the present he would still keep on her rooms. His letter to Mr. Low was as follows:-- Great Marlborough Street, May, 186--. MY DEAR LOW, I have made up my mind against taking the chambers, and am now off to the Inn to say that I shall not want them. Of course, I know what you will think of me, and it is very grievous to me to have to bear the hard judgment of a man whose opinion I value so highly; but, in the teeth of your terribly strong arguments, I think that there is something to be said on my side of the question. This seat in Parliament has come in my way by chance, and I think it would be pusillanimous in me to reject it, feeling, as I do, that a seat in Parliament confers very great honour. I am, too, very fond of politics, and regard legislation as the finest profession going. Had I any one dependent on me, I probably might not be justified in following the bent of my inclination. But I am all alone in the world, and therefore have a right to make the attempt. If, after a trial of one or two sessions, I should fail in that which I am attempting, it will not even then be too late to go back to the better way. I can assure you that at any rate it is not my intention to be idle. I know very well how you will fret and fume over what I say, and how utterly I shall fail in bringing you round to my way of thinking; but as I must write to tell you of my decision, I cannot refrain from defending myself to the best of my ability. Yours always faithfully, PHINEAS FINN. Mr. Low received this letter at his chambers, and when he had read it, he simply pressed his lips closely together, placed the sheet of paper back in its envelope, and put it into a drawer at his left hand. Having done this, he went on with what work he had before him, as though his friend's decision were a matter of no consequence to him. As far as he was concerned the thing was done, and there should be an end of it. So he told himself; but nevertheless his mind was full of it all day; and, though he wrote not a word of answer to Phineas, he made a reply within his own mind to every one of the arguments used in the letter. "Great honour! How can there be honour in what comes, as he says, by chance? He hasn't sense enough to understand that the honour comes from the mode of winning it, and from the mode of wearing it; and that the very fact of his being member for Loughshane at this instant simply proves that Loughshane should have had no privilege to return a member! No one dependent on him! Are not his father and his mother and his sisters dependent on him as long as he must eat their bread till he can earn bread of his own? He will never earn bread of his own. He will always be eating bread that others have earned." In this way, before the day was over, Mr. Low became very angry, and swore to himself that he would have nothing more to say to Phineas Finn. But yet he found himself creating plans for encountering and conquering the parliamentary fiend who was at present so cruelly potent with his pupil. It was not till the third evening that he told his wife that Finn had made up his mind not to take chambers. "Then I would have nothing more to say to him," said Mrs. Low, savagely. "For the present I can have nothing more to say to him." "But neither now nor ever," said Mrs. Low, with great emphasis; "he has been false to you." "No," said Mr. Low, who was a man thoroughly and thoughtfully just at all points; "he has not been false to me. He has always meant what he has said, when he was saying it. But he is weak and blind, and flies like a moth to the candle; one pities the poor moth, and would save him a stump of his wing if it be possible." Phineas, when he had written his letter to Mr. Low, started off for Lincoln's Inn, making his way through the well-known dreary streets of Soho, and through St. Giles's, to Long Acre. He knew every corner well, for he had walked the same road almost daily for the last three years. He had conceived a liking for the route, which he might easily have changed without much addition to the distance, by passing through Oxford Street and Holborn; but there was an air of business on which he prided himself in going by the most direct passage, and he declared to himself very often that things dreary and dingy to the eye might be good in themselves. Lincoln's Inn itself is dingy, and the Law Courts therein are perhaps the meanest in which Equity ever disclosed herself. Mr. Low's three rooms in the Old Square, each of them brown with the binding of law books and with the dust collected on law papers, and with furniture that had been brown always, and had become browner with years, were perhaps as unattractive to the eye of a young pupil as any rooms which were ever entered. And the study of the Chancery law itself is not an alluring pursuit till the mind has come to have some insight into the beauty of its ultimate object. Phineas, during his three years' course of reasoning on these things, had taught himself to believe that things ugly on the outside might be very beautiful within; and had therefore come to prefer crossing Poland Street and Soho Square, and so continuing his travels by the Seven Dials and Long Acre. His morning walk was of a piece with his morning studies, and he took pleasure in the gloom of both. But now the taste of his palate had been already changed by the glare of the lamps in and about palatial Westminster, and he found that St. Giles's was disagreeable. The ways about Pall Mall and across the Park to Parliament Street, or to the Treasury, were much pleasanter, and the new offices in Downing Street, already half built, absorbed all that interest which he had hitherto been able to take in the suggested but uncommenced erection of new Law Courts in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn. As he made his way to the porter's lodge under the great gateway of Lincoln's Inn, he told himself that he was glad that he had escaped, at any rate for a while, from a life so dull and dreary. If he could only sit in chambers at the Treasury instead of chambers in that old court, how much pleasanter it would be! After all, as regarded that question of income, it might well be that the Treasury chambers should be the more remunerative, and the more quickly remunerative, of the two. And, as he thought, Lady Laura might be compatible with the Treasury chambers and Parliament, but could not possibly be made compatible with Old Square, Lincoln's Inn. But nevertheless there came upon him a feeling of sorrow when the old man at the lodge seemed to be rather glad than otherwise that he did not want the chambers. "Then Mr. Green can have them," said the porter; "that'll be good news for Mr. Green. I don't know what the gen'lemen 'll do for chambers if things goes on as they're going." Mr. Green was welcome to the chambers as far as Phineas was concerned; but Phineas felt nevertheless a certain amount of regret that he should have been compelled to abandon a thing which was regarded both by the porter and by Mr. Green as being so desirable. He had however written his letter to Mr. Low, and made his promise to Barrington Erle, and was bound to Lady Laura Standish; and he walked out through the old gateway into Chancery Lane, resolving that he would not even visit Lincoln's Inn again for a year. There were certain books,--law books,--which he would read at such intervals of leisure as politics might give him; but within the precincts of the Inns of Court he would not again put his foot for twelve months, let learned pundits of the law,--such for instance as Mr. and Mrs. Low,--say what they might. He had told Mrs. Bunce, before he left his home after breakfast, that he should for the present remain under her roof. She had been much gratified, not simply because lodgings in Great Marlborough Street are less readily let than chambers in Lincoln's Inn, but also because it was a great honour to her to have a member of Parliament in her house. Members of Parliament are not so common about Oxford Street as they are in the neighbourhood of Pall Mall and St. James's Square. But Mr. Bunce, when he came home to his dinner, did not join as heartily as he should have done in his wife's rejoicing. Mr. Bunce was in the employment of certain copying law-stationers in Carey Street, and had a strong belief in the law as a profession;--but he had none whatever in the House of Commons. "And he's given up going into chambers?" said Mr. Bunce to his wife. "Given it up altogether for the present," said Mrs. Bunce. "And he don't mean to have no clerk?" said Mr. Bunce. "Not unless it is for his Parliament work." "There ain't no clerks wanted for that, and what's worse, there ain't no fees to pay 'em. I'll tell you what it is, Jane;--if you don't look sharp there won't be nothing to pay you before long." "And he in Parliament, Jacob!" "There ain't no salary for being in Parliament. There are scores of them Parliament gents ain't got so much as'll pay their dinners for 'em. And then if anybody does trust 'em, there's no getting at 'em to make 'em pay as there is at other folk." "I don't know that our Mr. Phineas will ever be like that, Jacob." "That's gammon, Jane. That's the way as women gets themselves took in always. Our Mr. Phineas! Why should our Mr. Phineas be better than anybody else?" "He's always acted handsome, Jacob." "There was one time he could not pay his lodgings for wellnigh nine months, till his governor come down with the money. I don't know whether that was handsome. It knocked me about terrible, I know." "He always meant honest, Jacob." "I don't know that I care much for a man's meaning when he runs short of money. How is he going to see his way, with his seat in Parliament, and this giving up of his profession? He owes us near a quarter now." "He paid me two months this morning, Jacob; so he don't owe a farthing." "Very well;--so much the better for us. I shall just have a few words with Mr. Low, and see what he says to it. For myself I don't think half so much of Parliament folk as some do. They're for promising everything before they's elected; but not one in twenty of 'em is as good as his word when he gets there." Mr. Bunce was a copying journeyman, who spent ten hours a day in Carey Street with a pen between his fingers; and after that he would often spend two or three hours of the night with a pen between his fingers in Marlborough Street. He was a thoroughly hard-working man, doing pretty well in the world, for he had a good house over his head, and always could find raiment and bread for his wife and eight children; but, nevertheless, he was an unhappy man because he suffered from political grievances, or, I should more correctly say, that his grievances were semi-political and semi-social. He had no vote, not being himself the tenant of the house in Great Marlborough Street. The tenant was a tailor who occupied the shop, whereas Bunce occupied the whole of the remainder of the premises. He was a lodger, and lodgers were not as yet trusted with the franchise. And he had ideas, which he himself admitted to be very raw, as to the injustice of the manner in which he was paid for his work. So much a folio, without reference to the way in which his work was done, without regard to the success of his work, with no questions asked of himself, was, as he thought, no proper way of remunerating a man for his labours. He had long since joined a Trade Union, and for two years past had paid a subscription of a shilling a week towards its funds. He longed to be doing some battle against his superiors, and to be putting himself in opposition to his employers;--not that he objected personally to Messrs. Foolscap, Margin, and Vellum, who always made much of him as a useful man;--but because some such antagonism would be manly, and the fighting of some battle would be the right thing to do. "If Labour don't mean to go to the wall himself," Bunce would say to his wife, "Labour must look alive, and put somebody else there." Mrs. Bunce was a comfortable motherly woman, who loved her husband but hated politics. As he had an aversion to his superiors in the world because they were superiors, so had she a liking for them for the same reason. She despised people poorer than herself, and thought it a fair subject for boasting that her children always had meat for dinner. If it was ever so small a morsel, she took care that they had it, in order that the boast might be maintained. The world had once or twice been almost too much for her,--when, for instance, her husband had been ill; and again, to tell the truth, for the last three months of that long period in which Phineas had omitted to pay his bills; but she had kept a fine brave heart during those troubles, and could honestly swear that the children always had a bit of meat, though she herself had been occasionally without it for days together. At such times she would be more than ordinarily meek to Mr. Margin, and especially courteous to the old lady who lodged in her first-floor drawing-room,--for Phineas lived up two pairs of stairs,--and she would excuse such servility by declaring that there was no knowing how soon she might want assistance. But her husband, in such emergencies, would become furious and quarrelsome, and would declare that Labour was going to the wall, and that something very strong must be done at once. That shilling which Bunce paid weekly to the Union she regarded as being absolutely thrown away,--as much so as though he cast it weekly into the Thames. And she had told him so, over and over again, making heart-piercing allusions to the eight children and to the bit of meat. He would always endeavour to explain to her that there was no other way under the sun for keeping Labour from being sent to the wall;--but he would do so hopelessly and altogether ineffectually, and she had come to regard him as a lunatic to the extent of that one weekly shilling. She had a woman's instinctive partiality for comeliness in a man, and was very fond of Phineas Finn because he was handsome. And now she was very proud of him because he was a member of Parliament. She had heard,--from her husband, who had told her the fact with much disgust,--that the sons of Dukes and Earls go into Parliament, and she liked to think that the fine young man to whom she talked more or less every day should sit with the sons of Dukes and Earls. When Phineas had really brought distress upon her by owing her some thirty or forty pounds, she could never bring herself to be angry with him,--because he was handsome and because he dined out with Lords. And she had triumphed greatly over her husband, who had desired to be severe upon his aristocratic debtor, when the money had all been paid in a lump. "I don't know that he's any great catch," Bunce had said, when the prospect of their lodger's departure had been debated between them. "Jacob," said his wife, "I don't think you feel it when you've got people respectable about you." "The only respectable man I know," said Jacob, "is the man as earns his bread; and Mr. Finn, as I take it, is a long way from that yet." Phineas returned to his lodgings before he went down to his club, and again told Mrs. Bunce that he had altogether made up his mind about the chambers. "If you'll keep me I shall stay here for the first session I daresay." "Of course we shall be only too proud, Mr. Finn; and though it mayn't perhaps be quite the place for a member of Parliament--" "But I think it is quite the place." "It's very good of you to say so, Mr. Finn, and we'll do our very best to make you comfortable. Respectable we are, I may say; and though Bunce is a bit rough sometimes--" "Never to me, Mrs. Bunce." "But he is rough,--and silly, too, with his radical nonsense, paying a shilling a week to a nasty Union just for nothing. Still he means well, and there ain't a man who works harder for his wife and children;--that I will say of him. And if he do talk politics--" "But I like a man to talk politics, Mrs. Bunce." "For a gentleman in Parliament of course it's proper; but I never could see what good it could do to a law-stationer; and when he talks of Labour going to the wall, I always ask him whether he didn't get his wages regular last Saturday. But, Lord love you, Mr. Finn, when a man as is a journeyman has took up politics and joined a Trade Union, he ain't no better than a milestone for his wife to take and talk to him." After that Phineas went down to the Reform Club, and made one of those who were buzzing there in little crowds and uttering their prophecies as to future events. Lord de Terrier was to go out. That was certain. Whether Mr. Mildmay was to come in was uncertain. That he would go to Windsor to-morrow morning was not to be doubted; but it was thought very probable that he might plead his age, and decline to undertake the responsibility of forming a Ministry. "And what then?" said Phineas to his friend Fitzgibbon. "Why, then there will be a choice out of three. There is the Duke, who is the most incompetent man in England; there is Monk, who is the most unfit; and there is Gresham, who is the most unpopular. I can't conceive it possible to find a worse Prime Minister than either of the three;--but the country affords no other." "And which would Mildmay name?" "All of them,--one after the other, so as to make the embarrassment the greater." That was Mr. Fitzgibbon's description of the crisis; but then it was understood that Mr. Fitzgibbon was given to romancing. CHAPTER VIII The News about Mr. Mildmay and Sir Everard Fitzgibbon and Phineas started together from Pall Mall for Portman Square,--as both of them had promised to call on Lady Laura,--but Fitzgibbon turned in at Brooks's as they walked up St. James's Square, and Phineas went on by himself in a cab. "You should belong here," said Fitzgibbon as his friend entered the cab, and Phineas immediately began to feel that he would have done nothing till he could get into Brooks's. It might be very well to begin by talking politics at the Reform Club. Such talking had procured for him his seat at Loughshane. But that was done now, and something more than talking was wanted for any further progress. Nothing, as he told himself, of political import was managed at the Reform Club. No influence from thence was ever brought to bear upon the adjustment of places under the Government, or upon the arrangement of cabinets. It might be very well to count votes at the Reform Club; but after the votes had been counted,--had been counted successfully,--Brooks's was the place, as Phineas believed, to learn at the earliest moment what would be the exact result of the success. He must get into Brooks's, if it might be possible for him. Fitzgibbon was not exactly the man to propose him. Perhaps the Earl of Brentford would do it. Lady Laura was at home, and with her was sitting--Mr. Kennedy. Phineas had intended to be triumphant as he entered Lady Laura's room. He was there with the express purpose of triumphing in the success of their great party, and of singing a pleasant paean in conjunction with Lady Laura. But his trumpet was put out of tune at once when he saw Mr. Kennedy. He said hardly a word as he gave his hand to Lady Laura,--and then afterwards to Mr. Kennedy, who chose to greet him with this show of cordiality. "I hope you are satisfied, Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura, laughing. "Oh yes." "And is that all? I thought to have found your joy quite irrepressible." "A bottle of soda-water, though it is a very lively thing when opened, won't maintain its vivacity beyond a certain period, Lady Laura." "And you have had your gas let off already?" "Well,--yes; at any rate, the sputtering part of it. Nineteen is very well, but the question is whether we might not have had twenty-one." "Mr. Kennedy has just been saying that not a single available vote has been missed on our side. He has just come from Brooks's, and that seems to be what they say there." So Mr. Kennedy also was a member of Brooks's! At the Reform Club there certainly had been an idea that the number might have been swelled to twenty-one; but then, as Phineas began to understand, nothing was correctly known at the Reform Club. For an accurate appreciation of the political balance of the day, you must go to Brooks's. "Mr. Kennedy must of course be right," said Phineas. "I don't belong to Brooks's myself. But I was only joking, Lady Laura. There is, I suppose, no doubt that Lord de Terrier is out, and that is everything." "He has probably tendered his resignation," said Mr. Kennedy. "That is the same thing," said Phineas, roughly. "Not exactly," said Lady Laura. "Should there be any difficulty about Mr. Mildmay, he might, at the Queen's request, make another attempt." "With a majority of nineteen against him!" said Phineas. "Surely Mr. Mildmay is not the only man in the country. There is the Duke, and there is Mr. Gresham,--and there is Mr. Monk." Phineas had at his tongue's end all the lesson that he had been able to learn at the Reform Club. "I should hardly think the Duke would venture," said Mr. Kennedy. "Nothing venture, nothing have," said Phineas. "It is all very well to say that the Duke is incompetent, but I do not know that anything very wonderful is required in the way of genius. The Duke has held his own in both Houses successfully, and he is both honest and popular. I quite agree that a Prime Minister at the present day should be commonly honest, and more than commonly popular." "So you are all for the Duke, are you?" said Lady Laura, again smiling as she spoke to him. "Certainly;--if we are deserted by Mr. Mildmay. Don't you think so?" "I don't find it quite so easy to make up my mind as you do. I am inclined to think that Mr. Mildmay will form a government; and as long as there is that prospect, I need hardly commit myself to an opinion as to his probable successor." Then the objectionable Mr. Kennedy took his leave, and Phineas was left alone with Lady Laura. "It is glorious;--is it not?" he began, as soon as he found the field to be open for himself and his own manoeuvring. But he was very young, and had not as yet learned the manner in which he might best advance his cause with such a woman as Lady Laura Standish. He was telling her too clearly that he could have no gratification in talking with her unless he could be allowed to have her all to himself. That might be very well if Lady Laura were in love with him, but would hardly be the way to reduce her to that condition. "Mr. Finn," said she, smiling as she spoke, "I am sure that you did not mean it, but you were uncourteous to my friend Mr. Kennedy." "Who? I? Was I? Upon my word, I didn't intend to be uncourteous." "If I had thought you had intended it, of course I could not tell you of it. And now I take the liberty;--for it is a liberty--" "Oh no." "Because I feel so anxious that you should do nothing to mar your chances as a rising man." "You are only too kind to me,--always." "I know how clever you are, and how excellent are all your instincts; but I see that you are a little impetuous. I wonder whether you will be angry if I take upon myself the task of mentor." "Nothing you could say would make me angry,--though you might make me very unhappy." "I will not do that if I can help it. A mentor ought to be very old, you know, and I am infinitely older than you are." "I should have thought it was the reverse;--indeed, I may say that I know that it is," said Phineas. "I am not talking of years. Years have very little to do with the comparative ages of men and women. A woman at forty is quite old, whereas a man at forty is young." Phineas, remembering that he had put down Mr. Kennedy's age as forty in his own mind, frowned when he heard this, and walked about the room in displeasure. "And therefore," continued Lady Laura, "I talk to you as though I were a kind of grandmother." "You shall be my great-grandmother if you will only be kind enough to me to say what you really think." "You must not then be so impetuous, and you must be a little more careful to be civil to persons to whom you may not take any particular fancy. Now Mr. Kennedy is a man who may be very useful to you." "I do not want Mr. Kennedy to be of use to me." "That is what I call being impetuous,--being young,--being a boy. Why should not Mr. Kennedy be of use to you as well as any one else? You do not mean to conquer the world all by yourself." "No;--but there is something mean to me in the expressed idea that I should make use of any man,--and more especially of a man whom I don't like." "And why do you not like him, Mr. Finn?" "Because he is one of my Dr. Fells." "You don't like him simply because he does not talk much. That may be a good reason why you should not make of him an intimate companion,--because you like talkative people; but it should be no ground for dislike." Phineas paused for a moment before he answered her, thinking whether or not it would be well to ask her some question which might produce from her a truth which he would not like to hear. Then he did ask it. "And do you like him?" he said. She too paused, but only for a second. "Yes,--I think I may say that I do like him." "No more than that?" "Certainly no more than that;--but that I think is a great deal." "I wonder what you would say if any one asked you whether you liked me," said Phineas, looking away from her through the window. "Just the same;--but without the doubt, if the person who questioned me had any right to ask the question. There are not above one or two who could have such a right." "And I was wrong, of course, to ask it about Mr. Kennedy," said Phineas, looking out into the Square. "I did not say so." "But I see you think it." "You see nothing of the kind. I was quite willing to be asked the question by you, and quite willing to answer it. Mr. Kennedy is a man of great wealth." "What can that have to do with it?" "Wait a moment, you impetuous Irish boy, and hear me out." Phineas liked being called an impetuous Irish boy, and came close to her, sitting where he could look up into her face; and there came a smile upon his own, and he was very handsome. "I say that he is a man of great wealth," continued Lady Laura; "and as wealth gives influence, he is of great use,--politically,--to the party to which he belongs." "Oh, politically!" "Am I to suppose you care nothing for politics? To such men, to men who think as you think, who are to sit on the same benches with yourself, and go into the same lobby and be seen at the same club, it is your duty to be civil both for your own sake and for that of the cause. It is for the hermits of society to indulge in personal dislikings,--for men who have never been active and never mean to be active. I had been telling Mr. Kennedy how much I thought of you,--as a good Liberal." "And I came in and spoilt it all." "Yes, you did. You knocked down my little house, and I must build it all up again." "Don't trouble yourself, Lady Laura." "I shall. It will be a great deal of trouble,--a great deal, indeed; but I shall take it. I mean you to be very intimate with Mr. Kennedy, and to shoot his grouse, and to stalk his deer, and to help to keep him in progress as a liberal member of Parliament. I am quite prepared to admit, as a friend, that he would go back without some such help." "Oh;--I understand." "I do not believe that you do understand at all, but I must endeavour to make you do so by degrees. If you are to be my political pupil, you must at any rate be obedient. The next time you meet Mr. Kennedy, ask him his opinion instead of telling him your own. He has been in Parliament twelve years, and he was a good deal older than you when he began." At this moment a side door was opened, and the red-haired, red-bearded man whom Phineas had seen before entered the room. He hesitated a moment, as though he were going to retreat again, and then began to pull about the books and toys which lay on one of the distant tables, as though he were in quest of some article. And he would have retreated had not Lady Laura called to him. "Oswald," she said, "let me introduce you to Mr. Finn. Mr. Finn, I do not think you have ever met my brother, Lord Chiltern." Then the two young men bowed, and each of them muttered something. "Do not be in a hurry, Oswald. You have nothing special to take you away. Here is Mr. Finn come to tell us who are all the possible new Prime Ministers. He is uncivil enough not to have named papa." "My father is out of the question," said Lord Chiltern. "Of course he is," said Lady Laura, "but I may be allowed my little joke." "I suppose he will at any rate be in the Cabinet," said Phineas. "I know nothing whatever about politics," said Lord Chiltern. "I wish you did," said his sister,--"with all my heart." "I never did,--and I never shall, for all your wishing. It's the meanest trade going I think, and I'm sure it's the most dishonest. They talk of legs on the turf, and of course there are legs; but what are they to the legs in the House? I don't know whether you are in Parliament, Mr. Finn." "Yes, I am; but do not mind me." "I beg your pardon. Of course there are honest men there, and no doubt you are one of them." "He is indifferent honest,--as yet," said Lady Laura. "I was speaking of men who go into Parliament to look after Government places," said Lord Chiltern. "That is just what I'm doing," said Phineas. "Why should not a man serve the Crown? He has to work very hard for what he earns." "I don't believe that the most of them work at all. However, I beg your pardon. I didn't mean you in particular." "Mr. Finn is such a thorough politician that he will never forgive you," said Lady Laura. "Yes, I will," said Phineas, "and I'll convert him some day. If he does come into the House, Lady Laura, I suppose he'll come on the right side?" "I'll never go into the House, as you call it," said Lord Chiltern. "But, I'll tell you what; I shall be very happy if you'll dine with me to-morrow at Moroni's. They give you a capital little dinner at Moroni's, and they've the best Château Yquem in London." "Do," said Lady Laura, in a whisper. "Oblige me." Phineas was engaged to dine with one of the Vice-Chancellors on the day named. He had never before dined at the house of this great law luminary, whose acquaintance he had made through Mr. Low, and he had thought a great deal of the occasion. Mrs. Freemantle had sent him the invitation nearly a fortnight ago, and he understood there was to be an elaborate dinner party. He did not know it for a fact, but he was in hopes of meeting the expiring Lord Chancellor. He considered it to be his duty never to throw away such a chance. He would in all respects have preferred Mr. Freemantle's dinner in Eaton Place, dull and heavy though it might probably be, to the chance of Lord Chiltern's companions at Moroni's. Whatever might be the faults of our hero, he was not given to what is generally called dissipation by the world at large,--by which the world means self-indulgence. He cared not a brass farthing for Moroni's Château Yquem, nor for the wondrously studied repast which he would doubtless find prepared for him at that celebrated establishment in St. James's Street;--not a farthing as compared with the chance of meeting so great a man as Lord Moles. And Lord Chiltern's friends might probably be just the men whom he would not desire to know. But Lady Laura's request overrode everything with him. She had asked him to oblige her, and of course he would do so. Had he been going to dine with the incoming Prime Minister, he would have put off his engagement at her request. He was not quick enough to make an answer without hesitation; but after a moment's pause he said he should be most happy to dine with Lord Chiltern at Moroni's. "That's right; 7.30 sharp,--only I can tell you you won't meet any other members." Then the servant announced more visitors, and Lord Chiltern escaped out of the room before he was seen by the new comers. These were Mrs. Bonteen and Laurence Fitzgibbon, and then Mr. Bonteen,--and after them Mr. Ratler, the Whip, who was in a violent hurry, and did not stay there a moment, and then Barrington Erle and young Lord James Fitz-Howard, the youngest son of the Duke of St. Bungay. In twenty or thirty minutes there was a gathering of liberal political notabilities in Lady Laura's drawing-room. There were two great pieces of news by which they were all enthralled. Mr. Mildmay would not be Prime Minister, and Sir Everard Powell was--dead. Of course nothing quite positive could be known about Mr. Mildmay. He was to be with the Queen at Windsor on the morrow at eleven o'clock, and it was improbable that he would tell his mind to any one before he told it to her Majesty. But there was no doubt that he had engaged "the Duke,"--so he was called by Lord James,--to go down to Windsor with him, that he might be in readiness if wanted. "I have learned that at home," said Lord James, who had just heard the news from his sister, who had heard it from the Duchess. Lord James was delighted with the importance given to him by his father's coming journey. From this, and from other equally well-known circumstances, it was surmised that Mr. Mildmay would decline the task proposed to him. This, nevertheless, was only a surmise,--whereas the fact with reference to Sir Everard was fully substantiated. The gout had flown to his stomach, and he was dead. "By ---- yes; as dead as a herring," said Mr. Ratler, who at that moment, however, was not within hearing of either of the ladies present. And then he rubbed his hands, and looked as though he were delighted. And he was delighted,--not because his old friend Sir Everard was dead, but by the excitement of the tragedy. "Having done so good a deed in his last moments," said Laurence Fitzgibbon, "we may take it for granted that he will go straight to heaven." "I hope there will be no crowner's quest, Ratler," said Mr. Bonteen; "if there is I don't know how you'll get out of it." "I don't see anything in it so horrible," said Mr. Ratler. "If a fellow dies leading his regiment we don't think anything of it. Sir Everard's vote was of more service to his country than anything that a colonel or a captain can do." But nevertheless I think that Mr. Ratler was somewhat in dread of future newspaper paragraphs, should it be found necessary to summon a coroner's inquisition to sit upon poor Sir Everard. While this was going on Lady Laura took Phineas apart for a moment. "I am so much obliged to you; I am indeed," she said. "What nonsense!" "Never mind whether it's nonsense or not;--but I am. I can't explain it all now, but I do so want you to know my brother. You may be of the greatest service to him,--of the very greatest. He is not half so bad as people say he is. In many ways he is very good,--very good. And he is very clever." "At any rate I will think and believe no ill of him." "Just so;--do not believe evil of him,--not more evil than you see. I am so anxious,--so very anxious to try to put him on his legs, and I find it so difficult to get any connecting link with him. Papa will not speak with him,--because of money." "But he is friends with you." "Yes; I think he loves me. I saw how distasteful it was to you to go to him;--and probably you were engaged?" "One can always get off those sort of things if there is an object." "Yes;--just so. And the object was to oblige me;--was it not?" "Of course it was. But I must go now. We are to hear Daubeny's statement at four, and I would not miss it for worlds." "I wonder whether you would go abroad with my brother in the autumn? But I have no right to think of such a thing;--have I? At any rate I will not think of it yet. Good-bye,--I shall see you perhaps on Sunday if you are in town." Phineas walked down to Westminster with his mind very full of Lady Laura and Lord Chiltern. What did she mean by her affectionate manner to himself, and what did she mean by the continual praises which she lavished upon Mr. Kennedy? Of whom was she thinking most, of Mr. Kennedy, or of him? She had called herself his mentor. Was the description of her feelings towards himself, as conveyed in that name, of a kind to be gratifying to him? No;--he thought not. But then might it not be within his power to change the nature of those feelings? She was not in love with him at present. He could not make any boast to himself on that head. But it might be within his power to compel her to love him. The female mentor might be softened. That she could not love Mr. Kennedy, he thought that he was quite sure. There was nothing like love in her manner to Mr. Kennedy. As to Lord Chiltern, Phineas would do whatever might be in his power. All that he really knew of Lord Chiltern was that he had gambled and that he had drunk. CHAPTER IX The New Government In the House of Lords that night, and in the House of Commons, the outgoing Ministers made their explanations. As our business at the present moment is with the Commons, we will confine ourselves to their chamber, and will do so the more willingly because the upshot of what was said in the two places was the same. The outgoing ministers were very grave, very self-laudatory, and very courteous. In regard to courtesy it may be declared that no stranger to the ways of the place could have understood how such soft words could be spoken by Mr. Daubeny, beaten, so quickly after the very sharp words which he had uttered when he only expected to be beaten. He announced to his fellow-commoners that his right honourable friend and colleague Lord de Terrier had thought it right to retire from the Treasury. Lord de Terrier, in constitutional obedience to the vote of the Lower House, had resigned, and the Queen had been graciously pleased to accept Lord de Terrier's resignation. Mr. Daubeny could only inform the House that her Majesty had signified her pleasure that Mr. Mildmay should wait upon her to-morrow at eleven o'clock. Mr. Mildmay,--so Mr. Daubeny understood,--would be with her Majesty to-morrow at that hour. Lord de Terrier had found it to be his duty to recommend her Majesty to send for Mr. Mildmay. Such was the real import of Mr. Daubeny's speech. That further portion of it in which he explained with blandest, most beneficent, honey-flowing words that his party would have done everything that the country could require of any party, had the House allowed it to remain on the Treasury benches for a month or two,--and explained also that his party would never recriminate, would never return evil for evil, would in no wise copy the factious opposition of their adversaries; that his party would now, as it ever had done, carry itself with the meekness of the dove, and the wisdom of the serpent,--all this, I say, was so generally felt by gentlemen on both sides of the House to be "leather and prunella" that very little attention was paid to it. The great point was that Lord de Terrier had resigned, and that Mr. Mildmay had been summoned to Windsor. The Queen had sent for Mr. Mildmay in compliance with advice given to her by Lord de Terrier. And yet Lord de Terrier and his first lieutenant had used all the most practised efforts of their eloquence for the last three days in endeavouring to make their countrymen believe that no more unfitting Minister than Mr. Mildmay ever attempted to hold the reins of office! Nothing had been too bad for them to say of Mr. Mildmay,--and yet, in the very first moment in which they found themselves unable to carry on the Government themselves, they advised the Queen to send for that most incompetent and baneful statesman! We who are conversant with our own methods of politics, see nothing odd in this, because we are used to it; but surely in the eyes of strangers our practice must be very singular. There is nothing like it in any other country,--nothing as yet. Nowhere else is there the same good-humoured, affectionate, prize-fighting ferocity in politics. The leaders of our two great parties are to each other exactly as are the two champions of the ring who knock each other about for the belt and for five hundred pounds a side once in every two years. How they fly at each other, striking as though each blow should carry death if it were but possible! And yet there is no one whom the Birmingham Bantam respects so highly as he does Bill Burns the Brighton Bully, or with whom he has so much delight in discussing the merits of a pot of half-and-half. And so it was with Mr. Daubeny and Mr. Mildmay. In private life Mr. Daubeny almost adulated his elder rival,--and Mr. Mildmay never omitted an opportunity of taking Mr. Daubeny warmly by the hand. It is not so in the United States. There the same political enmity exists, but the political enmity produces private hatred. The leaders of parties there really mean what they say when they abuse each other, and are in earnest when they talk as though they were about to tear each other limb from limb. I doubt whether Mr. Daubeny would have injured a hair of Mr. Mildmay's venerable head, even for an assurance of six continued months in office. When Mr. Daubeny had completed his statement, Mr. Mildmay simply told the House that he had received and would obey her Majesty's commands. The House would of course understand that he by no means meant to aver that the Queen would even commission him to form a Ministry. But if he took no such command from her Majesty it would become his duty to recommend her Majesty to impose the task upon some other person. Then everything was said that had to be said, and members returned to their clubs. A certain damp was thrown over the joy of some excitable Liberals by tidings which reached the House during Mr. Daubeny's speech. Sir Everard Powell was no more dead than was Mr. Daubeny himself. Now it is very unpleasant to find that your news is untrue, when you have been at great pains to disseminate it. "Oh, but he is dead," said Mr. Ratler. "Lady Powell assured me half an hour ago," said Mr. Ratler's opponent, "that he was at that moment a great deal better than he had been for the last three months. The journey down to the House did him a world of good." "Then we'll have him down for every division," said Mr. Ratler. The political portion of London was in a ferment for the next five days. On the Sunday morning it was known that Mr. Mildmay had declined to put himself at the head of a liberal Government. He and the Duke of St. Bungay, and Mr. Plantagenet Palliser, had been in conference so often, and so long, that it may almost be said they lived together in conference. Then Mr. Gresham had been with Mr. Mildmay,--and Mr. Monk also. At the clubs it was said by many that Mr. Monk had been with Mr. Mildmay; but it was also said very vehemently by others that no such interview had taken place. Mr. Monk was a Radical, much admired by the people, sitting in Parliament for that most Radical of all constituencies, the Pottery Hamlets, who had never as yet been in power. It was the great question of the day whether Mr. Mildmay would or would not ask Mr. Monk to join him; and it was said by those who habitually think at every period of change that the time has now come in which the difficulties to forming a government will at last be found to be insuperable, that Mr. Mildmay could not succeed either with Mr. Monk or without him. There were at the present moment two sections of these gentlemen,--the section which declared that Mr. Mildmay had sent for Mr. Monk, and the section which declared that he had not. But there were others, who perhaps knew better what they were saying, by whom it was asserted that the whole difficulty lay with Mr. Gresham. Mr. Gresham was willing to serve with Mr. Mildmay,--with certain stipulations as to the special seat in the Cabinet which he himself was to occupy, and as to the introduction of certain friends of his own; but,--so said these gentlemen who were supposed really to understand the matter,--Mr. Gresham was not willing to serve with the Duke and with Mr. Palliser. Now, everybody who knew anything knew that the Duke and Mr. Palliser were indispensable to Mr. Mildmay. And a liberal Government, with Mr. Gresham in the opposition, could not live half through a session! All Sunday and Monday these things were discussed; and on the Monday Lord de Terrier absolutely stated to the Upper House that he had received her Majesty's commands to form another government. Mr. Daubeny, in half a dozen most modest words,--in words hardly audible, and most unlike himself,--made his statement in the Lower House to the same effect. Then Mr. Ratler, and Mr. Bonteen, and Mr. Barrington Erle, and Mr. Laurence Fitzgibbon aroused themselves and swore that such things could not be. Should the prey which they had won for themselves, the spoil of their bows and arrows, be snatched from out of their very mouths by treachery? Lord de Terrier and Mr. Daubeny could not venture even to make another attempt unless they did so in combination with Mr. Gresham. Such a combination, said Mr. Barrington Erle, would be disgraceful to both parties, but would prove Mr. Gresham to be as false as Satan himself. Early on the Tuesday morning, when it was known that Mr. Gresham had been at Lord de Terrier's house, Barrington Erle was free to confess that he had always been afraid of Mr. Gresham. "I have felt for years," said he, "that if anybody could break up the party it would be Mr. Gresham." On that Tuesday morning Mr. Gresham certainly was with Lord de Terrier, but nothing came of it. Mr. Gresham was either not enough like Satan for the occasion, or else he was too closely like him. Lord de Terrier did not bid high enough, or else Mr. Gresham did not like biddings from that quarter. Nothing then came from this attempt, and on the Tuesday afternoon the Queen again sent for Mr. Mildmay. On the Wednesday morning the gentlemen who thought that the insuperable difficulties had at length arrived, began to wear their longest faces, and to be triumphant with melancholy forebodings. Now at last there was a dead lock. Nobody could form a government. It was asserted that Mr. Mildmay had fallen at her Majesty's feet dissolved in tears, and had implored to be relieved from further responsibility. It was well known to many at the clubs that the Queen had on that morning telegraphed to Germany for advice. There were men so gloomy as to declare that the Queen must throw herself into the arms of Mr. Monk, unless Mr. Mildmay would consent to rise from his knees and once more buckle on his ancient armour. "Even that would be better than Gresham," said Barrington Erle, in his anger. "I'll tell you what it is," said Ratler, "we shall have Gresham and Monk together, and you and I shall have to do their biddings." Mr. Barrington Erle's reply to that suggestion I may not dare to insert in these pages. On the Wednesday night, however, it was known that everything had been arranged, and before the Houses met on the Thursday every place had been bestowed, either in reality or in imagination. The _Times_, in its second edition on the Thursday, gave a list of the Cabinet, in which four places out of fourteen were rightly filled. On the Friday it named ten places aright, and indicated the law officers, with only one mistake in reference to Ireland; and on the Saturday it gave a list of the Under Secretaries of State, and Secretaries and Vice-Presidents generally, with wonderful correctness as to the individuals, though the offices were a little jumbled. The Government was at last formed in a manner which everybody had seen to be the only possible way in which a government could be formed. Nobody was surprised, and the week's work was regarded as though the regular routine of government making had simply been followed. Mr. Mildmay was Prime Minister; Mr. Gresham was at the Foreign Office; Mr. Monk was at the Board of Trade; the Duke was President of the Council; the Earl of Brentford was Privy Seal; and Mr. Palliser was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Barrington Erle made a step up in the world, and went to the Admiralty as Secretary; Mr. Bonteen was sent again to the Admiralty; and Laurence Fitzgibbon became a junior Lord of the Treasury. Mr. Ratler was, of course, installed as Patronage Secretary to the same Board. Mr. Ratler was perhaps the only man in the party as to whose destination there could not possibly be a doubt. Mr. Ratler had really qualified himself for a position in such a way as to make all men feel that he would, as a matter of course, be called upon to fill it. I do not know whether as much could be said on behalf of any other man in the new Government. During all this excitement, and through all these movements, Phineas Finn felt himself to be left more and more out in the cold. He had not been such a fool as to suppose that any office would be offered to him. He had never hinted at such a thing to his one dearly intimate friend, Lady Laura. He had not hitherto opened his mouth in Parliament. Indeed, when the new Government was formed he had not been sitting for above a fortnight. Of course nothing could be done for him as yet. But, nevertheless, he felt himself to be out in the cold. The very men who had discussed with him the question of the division,--who had discussed it with him because his vote was then as good as that of any other member,--did not care to talk to him about the distribution of places. He, at any rate, could not be one of them. He, at any rate, could not be a rival. He could neither mar nor assist. He could not be either a successful or a disappointed sympathiser,--because he could not himself be a candidate. The affair which perhaps disgusted him more than anything else was the offer of an office,--not in the Cabinet, indeed, but one supposed to confer high dignity,--to Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy refused the offer, and this somewhat lessened Finn's disgust, but the offer itself made him unhappy. "I suppose it was made simply because of his money," he said to Fitzgibbon. "I don't believe that," said Fitzgibbon. "People seem to think that he has got a head on his shoulders, though he has got no tongue in it. I wonder at his refusing it because of the Right Honourable." "I am so glad that Mr. Kennedy refused," said Lady Laura to him. "And why? He would have been the Right Hon. Robert Kennedy for ever and ever." Phineas when he said this did not as yet know exactly how it would have come to pass that such honour,--the honour of the enduring prefix to his name,--would have come in the way of Mr. Kennedy had Mr. Kennedy accepted the office in question; but he was very quick to learn all these things, and, in the meantime, he rarely made any mistake about them. "What would that have been to him,--with his wealth?" said Lady Laura. "He has a position of his own and need not care for such things. There are men who should not attempt what is called independence in Parliament. By doing so they simply decline to make themselves useful. But there are a few whose special walk in life it is to be independent, and, as it were, unmoved by parties." "Great Akinetoses! You know Orion," said Phineas. "Mr. Kennedy is not an Akinetos," said Lady Laura. "He holds a very proud position," said Phineas, ironically. "A very proud position indeed," said Lady Laura, in sober earnest. The dinner at Moroni's had been eaten, and Phineas had given an account of the entertainment to Lord Chiltern's sister. There had been only two other guests, and both of them had been men on the turf. "I was the first there," said Phineas, "and he surprised me ever so much by telling me that you had spoken to him of me before." "Yes; I did so. I wish him to know you. I want him to know some men who think of something besides horses. He is very well educated, you know, and would certainly have taken honours if he had not quarrelled with the people at Christ Church." "Did he take a degree?" "No;--they sent him down. It is best always to have the truth among friends. Of course you will hear it some day. They expelled him because he was drunk." Then Lady Laura burst out into tears, and Phineas sat near her, and consoled her, and swore that if in any way he could befriend her brother he would do so. Mr. Fitzgibbon at this time claimed a promise which he said that Phineas had made to him,--that Phineas would go over with him to Mayo to assist at his re-election. And Phineas did go. The whole affair occupied but a week, and was chiefly memorable as being the means of cementing the friendship which existed between the two Irish members. "A thousand a year!" said Laurence Fitzgibbon, speaking of the salary of his office. "It isn't much; is it? And every fellow to whom I owe a shilling will be down upon me. If I had studied my own comfort, I should have done the same as Kennedy." CHAPTER X Violet Effingham It was now the middle of May, and a month had elapsed since the terrible difficulty about the Queen's Government had been solved. A month had elapsed, and things had shaken themselves into their places with more of ease and apparent fitness than men had given them credit for possessing. Mr. Mildmay, Mr. Gresham, and Mr. Monk were the best friends in the world, swearing by each other in their own house, and supported in the other by as gallant a phalanx of Whig peers as ever were got together to fight against the instincts of their own order in compliance with the instincts of those below them. Lady Laura's father was in the Cabinet, to Lady Laura's infinite delight. It was her ambition to be brought as near to political action as was possible for a woman without surrendering any of the privileges of feminine inaction. That women should even wish to have votes at parliamentary elections was to her abominable, and the cause of the Rights of Women generally was odious to her; but, nevertheless, for herself, she delighted in hoping that she too might be useful,--in thinking that she too was perhaps, in some degree, politically powerful; and she had received considerable increase to such hopes when her father accepted the Privy Seal. The Earl himself was not an ambitious man, and, but for his daughter, would have severed himself altogether from political life before this time. He was an unhappy man;--being an obstinate man, and having in his obstinacy quarrelled with his only son. In his unhappiness he would have kept himself alone, living in the country, brooding over his wretchedness, were it not for his daughter. On her behalf, and in obedience to her requirements, he came yearly up to London, and, perhaps in compliance with her persuasion, had taken some part in the debates of the House of Lords. It is easy for a peer to be a statesman, if the trouble of the life be not too much for him. Lord Brentford was now a statesman, if a seat in the Cabinet be proof of statesmanship. At this time, in May, there was staying with Lady Laura in Portman Square a very dear friend of hers, by name Violet Effingham. Violet Effingham was an orphan, an heiress, and a beauty; with a terrible aunt, one Lady Baldock, who was supposed to be the dragon who had Violet, as a captive maiden, in charge. But as Miss Effingham was of age, and was mistress of her own fortune, Lady Baldock was, in truth, not omnipotent as a dragon should be. The dragon, at any rate, was not now staying in Portman Square, and the captivity of the maiden was therefore not severe at the present moment. Violet Effingham was very pretty, but could hardly be said to be beautiful. She was small, with light crispy hair, which seemed to be ever on the flutter round her brows, and which yet was never a hair astray. She had sweet, soft grey eyes, which never looked at you long, hardly for a moment,--but which yet, in that half moment, nearly killed you by the power of their sweetness. Her cheek was the softest thing in nature, and the colour of it, when its colour was fixed enough to be told, was a shade of pink so faint and creamy that you would hardly dare to call it by its name. Her mouth was perfect, not small enough to give that expression of silliness which is so common, but almost divine, with the temptation of its full, rich, ruby lips. Her teeth, which she but seldom showed, were very even and very white, and there rested on her chin the dearest dimple that ever acted as a loadstar to mens's eyes. The fault of her face, if it had a fault, was in her nose,--which was a little too sharp, and perhaps too small. A woman who wanted to depreciate Violet Effingham had once called her a pug-nosed puppet; but I, as her chronicler, deny that she was pug-nosed,--and all the world who knew her soon came to understand that she was no puppet. In figure she was small, but not so small as she looked to be. Her feet and hands were delicately fine, and there was a softness about her whole person, an apparent compressibility, which seemed to indicate that she might go into very small compass. Into what compass and how compressed, there were very many men who held very different opinions. Violet Effingham was certainly no puppet. She was great at dancing,--as perhaps might be a puppet,--but she was great also at archery, great at skating,--and great, too, at hunting. With reference to that last accomplishment, she and Lady Baldock had had more than one terrible tussle, not always with advantage to the dragon. "My dear aunt," she had said once during the last winter, "I am going to the meet with George,"--George was her cousin, Lord Baldock, and was the dragon's son,--"and there, let there be an end of it." "And you will promise me that you will not go further," said the dragon. "I will promise nothing to-day to any man or to any woman," said Violet. What was to be said to a young lady who spoke in this way, and who had become of age only a fortnight since? She rode that day the famous run from Bagnall's Gorse to Foulsham Common, and was in at the death. Violet Effingham was now sitting in conference with her friend Lady Laura, and they were discussing matters of high import,--of very high import, indeed,--to the interests of both of them. "I do not ask you to accept him," said Lady Laura. "That is lucky," said the other, "as he has never asked me." "He has done much the same. You know that he loves you." "I know,--or fancy that I know,--that so many men love me! But, after all, what sort of love is it? It is just as when you and I, when we see something nice in a shop, call it a dear duck of a thing, and tell somebody to go and buy it, let the price be ever so extravagant. I know my own position, Laura. I'm a dear duck of a thing." "You are a very dear thing to Oswald." "But you, Laura, will some day inspire a grand passion,--or I daresay have already, for you are a great deal too close to tell;--and then there will be cutting of throats, and a mighty hubbub, and a real tragedy. I shall never go beyond genteel comedy,--unless I run away with somebody beneath me, or do something awfully improper." "Don't do that, dear." "I should like to, because of my aunt. I should indeed. If it were possible, without compromising myself, I should like her to be told some morning that I had gone off with the curate." "How can you be so wicked, Violet!" "It would serve her right, and her countenance would be so awfully comic. Mind, if it is ever to come off, I must be there to see it. I know what she would say as well as possible. She would turn to poor Gussy. 'Augusta,' she would say, 'I always expected it. I always did.' Then I should come out and curtsey to her, and say so prettily, 'Dear aunt, it was only our little joke.' That's my line. But for you,--you, if you planned it, would go off to-morrow with Lucifer himself if you liked him." "But failing Lucifer, I shall probably be very humdrum." "You don't mean that there is anything settled, Laura?" "There is nothing settled,--or any beginning of anything that ever can be settled, But I am not talking about myself. He has told me that if you will accept him, he will do anything that you and I may ask him." "Yes;--he will promise." "Did you ever know him to break his word?" "I know nothing about him, my dear. How should I?" "Do not pretend to be ignorant and meek, Violet. You do know him,--much better than most girls know the men they marry. You have known him, more or less intimately, all your life." "But am I bound to marry him because of that accident?" "No; you are not bound to marry him,--unless you love him." "I do not love him," said Violet, with slow, emphatic words, and a little forward motion of her face, as though she were specially eager to convince her friend that she was quite in earnest in what she said. "I fancy, Violet, that you are nearer to loving him than any other man." "I am not at all near to loving any man. I doubt whether I ever shall be. It does not seem to me to be possible to myself to be what girls call in love. I can like a man. I do like, perhaps, half a dozen. I like them so much that if I go to a house or to a party it is quite a matter of importance to me whether this man or that will or will not be there. And then I suppose I flirt with them. At least Augusta tells me that my aunt says that I do. But as for caring about any one of them in the way of loving him,--wanting to marry him, and have him all to myself, and that sort of thing,--I don't know what it means." "But you intend to be married some day," said Lady Laura. "Certainly I do. And I don't intend to wait very much longer. I am heartily tired of Lady Baldock, and though I can generally escape among my friends, that is not sufficient. I am beginning to think that it would be pleasant to have a house of my own. A girl becomes such a Bohemian when she is always going about, and doesn't quite know where any of her things are." Then there was a silence between them for a few minutes. Violet Effingham was doubled up in a corner of a sofa, with her feet tucked under her, and her face reclining upon one of her shoulders. And as she talked she was playing with a little toy which was constructed to take various shapes as it was flung this way or that. A bystander looking at her would have thought that the toy was much more to her than the conversation. Lady Laura was sitting upright, in a common chair, at a table not far from her companion, and was manifestly devoting herself altogether to the subject that was being discussed between them. She had taken no lounging, easy attitude, she had found no employment for her fingers, and she looked steadily at Violet as she talked,--whereas Violet was looking only at the little manikin which she tossed. And now Laura got up and came to the sofa, and sat close to her friend. Violet, though she somewhat moved one foot, so as to seem to make room for the other, still went on with her play. "If you do marry, Violet, you must choose some one man out of the lot." "That's quite true, my dear, I certainly can't marry them all." "And how do you mean to make the choice?" "I don't know. I suppose I shall toss up." "I wish you would be in earnest with me." "Well;--I will be in earnest. I shall take the first that comes after I have quite made up my mind. You'll think it very horrible, but that is really what I shall do. After all, a husband is very much like a house or a horse. You don't take your house because it's the best house in the world, but because just then you want a house. You go and see a house, and if it's very nasty you don't take it. But if you think it will suit pretty well, and if you are tired of looking about for houses, you do take it. That's the way one buys one's horses,--and one's husbands." "And you have not made up your mind yet?" "Not quite. Lady Baldock was a little more decent than usual just before I left Baddingham. When I told her that I meant to have a pair of ponies, she merely threw up her hands and grunted. She didn't gnash her teeth, and curse and swear, and declare to me that I was a child of perdition." "What do you mean by cursing and swearing?" "She told me once that if I bought a certain little dog, it would lead to my being everlastingly--you know what. She isn't so squeamish as I am, and said it out." "What did you do?" "I bought the little dog, and it bit my aunt's heel. I was very sorry then, and gave the creature to Mary Rivers. He was such a beauty! I hope the perdition has gone with him, for I don't like Mary Rivers at all. I had to give the poor beasty to somebody, and Mary Rivers happened to be there. I told her that Puck was connected with Apollyon, but she didn't mind that. Puck was worth twenty guineas, and I daresay she has sold him." "Oswald may have an equal chance then among the other favourites?" said Lady Laura, after another pause. "There are no favourites, and I will not say that any man may have a chance. Why do you press me about your brother in this way?" "Because I am so anxious. Because it would save him. Because you are the only woman for whom he has ever cared, and because he loves you with all his heart; and because his father would be reconciled to him to-morrow if he heard that you and he were engaged." "Laura, my dear--" "Well." "You won't be angry if I speak out?" "Certainly not. After what I have said, you have a right to speak out." "It seems to me that all your reasons are reasons why he should marry me;--not reasons why I should marry him." "Is not his love for you a reason?" "No," said Violet, pausing,--and speaking the word in the lowest possible whisper. "If he did not love me, that, if known to me, should be a reason why I should not marry him. Ten men may love me,--I don't say that any man does--" "He does." "But I can't marry all the ten. And as for that business of saving him--" "You know what I mean!" "I don't know that I have any special mission for saving young men. I sometimes think that I shall have quite enough to do to save myself. It is strange what a propensity I feel for the wrong side of the post." "I feel the strongest assurance that you will always keep on the right side." "Thank you, my dear. I mean to try, but I'm quite sure that the jockey who takes me in hand ought to be very steady himself. Now, Lord Chiltern--" "Well,--out with it. What have you to say?" "He does not bear the best reputation in this world as a steady man. Is he altogether the sort of man that mammas of the best kind are seeking for their daughters? I like a roué myself;--and a prig who sits all night in the House, and talks about nothing but church-rates and suffrage, is to me intolerable. I prefer men who are improper, and all that sort of thing. If I were a man myself I should go in for everything I ought to leave alone. I know I should. But you see,--I'm not a man, and I must take care of myself. The wrong side of a post for a woman is so very much the wrong side. I like a fast man, but I know that I must not dare to marry the sort of man that I like." "To be one of us, then,--the very first among us;--would that be the wrong side?" "You mean that to be Lady Chiltern in the present tense, and Lady Brentford in the future, would be promotion for Violet Effingham in the past?" "How hard you are, Violet!" "Fancy,--that it should come to this,--that you should call me hard, Laura. I should like to be your sister. I should like well enough to be your father's daughter. I should like well enough to be Chiltern's friend. I am his friend. Nothing that any one has ever said of him has estranged me from him. I have fought for him till I have been black in the face. Yes, I have,--with my aunt. But I am afraid to be his wife. The risk would be so great. Suppose that I did not save him, but that he brought me to shipwreck instead?" "That could not be!" "Could it not? I think it might be so very well. When I was a child they used to be always telling me to mind myself. It seems to me that a child and a man need not mind themselves. Let them do what they may, they can be set right again. Let them fall as they will, you can put them on their feet. But a woman has to mind herself;--and very hard work it is when she has a dragon of her own driving her ever the wrong way." "I want to take you from the dragon." "Yes;--and to hand me over to a griffin." "The truth is, Violet, that you do not know Oswald. He is not a griffin." "I did not mean to be uncomplimentary. Take any of the dangerous wild beasts you please. I merely intend to point out that he is a dangerous wild beast. I daresay he is noble-minded, and I will call him a lion if you like it better. But even with a lion there is risk." "Of course there will be risk. There is risk with every man,--unless you will be contented with the prig you described. Of course there would be risk with my brother. He has been a gambler." "They say he is one still." "He has given it up in part, and would entirely at your instance." "And they say other things of him, Laura." "It is true. He has had paroxysms of evil life which have well-nigh ruined him." "And these paroxysms are so dangerous! Is he not in debt?" "He is,--but not deeply. Every shilling that he owes would be paid;--every shilling. Mind, I know all his circumstances, and I give you my word that every shilling should be paid. He has never lied,--and he has told me everything. His father could not leave an acre away from him if he would, and would not if he could." "I did not ask as fearing that. I spoke only of a dangerous habit. A paroxysm of spending money is apt to make one so uncomfortable. And then--" "Well." "I don't know why I should make a catalogue of your brother's weaknesses." "You mean to say that he drinks too much?" "I do not say so. People say so. The dragon says so. And as I always find her sayings to be untrue, I suppose this is like the rest of them." "It is untrue if it be said of him as a habit." "It is another paroxysm,--just now and then." "Do not laugh at me, Violet, when I am taking his part, or I shall be offended." "But you see, if I am to be his wife, it is--rather important." "Still you need not ridicule me." "Dear Laura, you know I do not ridicule you. You know I love you for what you are doing. Would not I do the same, and fight for him down to my nails if I had a brother?" "And therefore I want you to be Oswald's wife;--because I know that you would fight for him. It is not true that he is a--drunkard. Look at his hand, which is as steady as yours. Look at his eye. Is there a sign of it? He has been drunk, once or twice, perhaps,--and has done fearful things." "It might be that he would do fearful things to me." "You never knew a man with a softer heart or with a finer spirit. I believe as I sit here that if he were married to-morrow, his vices would fall from him like old clothes." "You will admit, Laura, that there will be some risk for the wife." "Of course there will be a risk. Is there not always a risk?" "The men in the city would call this double-dangerous, I think," said Violet. Then the door was opened, and the man of whom they were speaking entered the room. CHAPTER XI Lord Chiltern The reader has been told that Lord Chiltern was a red man, and that peculiarity of his personal appearance was certainly the first to strike a stranger. It imparted a certain look of ferocity to him, which was apt to make men afraid of him at first sight. Women are not actuated in the same way, and are accustomed to look deeper into men at the first sight than other men will trouble themselves to do. His beard was red, and was clipped, so as to have none of the softness of waving hair. The hair on his head also was kept short, and was very red,--and the colour of his face was red. Nevertheless he was a handsome man, with well-cut features, not tall, but very strongly built, and with a certain curl in the corner of his eyelids which gave to him a look of resolution,--which perhaps he did not possess. He was known to be a clever man, and when very young had had the reputation of being a scholar. When he was three-and-twenty grey-haired votaries of the turf declared that he would make his fortune on the race-course,--so clear-headed was he as to odds, so excellent a judge of a horse's performances, and so gifted with a memory of events. When he was five-and-twenty he had lost every shilling of a fortune of his own, had squeezed from his father more than his father ever chose to name in speaking of his affairs to any one, and was known to be in debt. But he had sacrificed himself on one or two memorable occasions in conformity with turf laws of honour, and men said of him, either that he was very honest or very chivalric,--in accordance with the special views on the subject of the man who was speaking. It was reported now that he no longer owned horses on the turf;--but this was doubted by some who could name the animals which they said that he owned, and which he ran in the name of Mr. Macnab,--said some; of Mr. Pardoe,--said others; of Mr. Chickerwick,--said a third set of informants. The fact was that Lord Chiltern at this moment had no interest of his own in any horse upon the turf. But all the world knew that he drank. He had taken by the throat a proctor's bull-dog when he had been drunk at Oxford, had nearly strangled the man, and had been expelled. He had fallen through his violence into some terrible misfortune at Paris, had been brought before a public judge, and his name and his infamy had been made notorious in every newspaper in the two capitals. After that he had fought a ruffian at Newmarket, and had really killed him with his fists. In reference to this latter affray it had been proved that the attack had been made on him, that he had not been to blame, and that he had not been drunk. After a prolonged investigation he had come forth from that affair without disgrace. He would have done so, at least, if he had not been heretofore disgraced. But we all know how the man well spoken of may steal a horse, while he who is of evil repute may not look over a hedge. It was asserted widely by many who were supposed to know all about everything that Lord Chiltern was in a fit of delirium tremens when he killed the ruffian at Newmarket. The worst of that latter affair was that it produced the total estrangement which now existed between Lord Brentford and his son. Lord Brentford would not believe that his son was in that matter more sinned against than sinning. "Such things do not happen to other men's sons," he said, when Lady Laura pleaded for her brother. Lady Laura could not induce her father to see his son, but so far prevailed that no sentence of banishment was pronounced against Lord Chiltern. There was nothing to prevent the son sitting at his father's table if he so pleased. He never did so please,--but nevertheless he continued to live in the house in Portman Square; and when he met the Earl, in the hall, perhaps, or on the staircase, would simply bow to him. Then the Earl would bow again, and shuffle on,--and look very wretched, as no doubt he was. A grown-up son must be the greatest comfort a man can have,--if he be his father's best friend; but otherwise he can hardly be a comfort. As it was in this house, the son was a constant thorn in his father's side. "What does he do when we leave London?" Lord Brentford once said to his daughter. "He stays here, papa." "But he hunts still?" "Yes, he hunts,--and he has a room somewhere at an inn,--down in Northamptonshire. But he is mostly in London. They have trains on purpose." "What a life for my son!" said the Earl. "What a life! Of course no decent person will let him into his house." Lady Laura did not know what to say to this, for in truth Lord Chiltern was not fond of staying at the houses of persons whom the Earl would have called decent. General Effingham, the father of Violet, and Lord Brentford had been the closest and dearest of friends. They had been young men in the same regiment, and through life each had confided in the other. When the General's only son, then a youth of seventeen, was killed in one of our grand New Zealand wars, the bereaved father and the Earl had been together for a month in their sorrow. At that time Lord Chiltern's career had still been open to hope,--and the one man had contrasted his lot with the other. General Effingham lived long enough to hear the Earl declare that his lot was the happier of the two. Now the General was dead, and Violet, the daughter of a second wife, was all that was left of the Effinghams. This second wife had been a Miss Plummer, a lady from the city with much money, whose sister had married Lord Baldock. Violet in this way had fallen to the care of the Baldock people, and not into the hands of her father's friends. But, as the reader will have surmised, she had ideas of her own of emancipating herself from Baldock thraldom. Twice before that last terrible affair at Newmarket, before the quarrel between the father and the son had been complete, Lord Brentford had said a word to his daughter,--merely a word,--of his son in connection with Miss Effingham. "If he thinks of it I shall be glad to see him on the subject. You may tell him so." That had been the first word. He had just then resolved that the affair in Paris should be regarded as condoned,--as among the things to be forgotten. "She is too good for him; but if he asks her let him tell her everything." That had been the second word, and had been spoken immediately subsequent to a payment of twelve thousand pounds made by the Earl towards the settlement of certain Doncaster accounts. Lady Laura in negotiating for the money had been very eloquent in describing some honest,--or shall we say chivalric,--sacrifice which had brought her brother into this special difficulty. Since that the Earl had declined to interest himself in his son's matrimonial affairs; and when Lady Laura had once again mentioned the matter, declaring her belief that it would be the means of saving her brother Oswald, the Earl had desired her to be silent. "Would you wish to destroy the poor child?" he had said. Nevertheless Lady Laura felt sure that if she were to go to her father with a positive statement that Oswald and Violet were engaged, he would relent and would accept Violet as his daughter. As for the payment of Lord Chiltern's present debts;--she had a little scheme of her own about that. Miss Effingham, who had been already two days in Portman Square, had not as yet seen Lord Chiltern. She knew that he lived in the house, that is, that he slept there, and probably eat his breakfast in some apartment of his own;--but she knew also that the habits of the house would not by any means make it necessary that they should meet. Laura and her brother probably saw each other daily,--but they never went into society together, and did not know the same sets of people. When she had announced to Lady Baldock her intention of spending the first fortnight of her London season with her friend Lady Laura, Lady Baldock had as a matter of course--"jumped upon her," as Miss Effingham would herself call it. "You are going to the house of the worst reprobate in all England," said Lady Baldock. "What;--dear old Lord Brentford, whom papa loved so well!" "I mean Lord Chiltern, who, only last year,--murdered a man!" "That is not true, aunt." "There is worse than that,--much worse. He is always--tipsy, and always gambling, and always-- But it is quite unfit that I should speak a word more to you about such a man as Lord Chiltern. His name ought never to be mentioned." "Then why did you mention it, aunt?" Lady Baldock's process of jumping upon her niece,--in which I think the aunt had generally the worst of the exercise,--went on for some time, but Violet of course carried her point. "If she marries him there will be an end of everything," said Lady Baldock to her daughter Augusta. "She has more sense than that, mamma," said Augusta. "I don't think she has any sense at all," said Lady Baldock;--"not in the least. I do wish my poor sister had lived;--I do indeed." Lord Chiltern was now in the room with Violet,--immediately upon that conversation between Violet and his sister as to the expediency of Violet becoming his wife. Indeed his entrance had interrupted the conversation before it was over. "I am so glad to see you, Miss Effingham," he said. "I came in thinking that I might find you." "Here I am, as large as life," she said, getting up from her corner on the sofa and giving him her hand. "Laura and I have been discussing the affairs of the nation for the last two days, and have nearly brought our discussion to an end." She could not help looking, first at his eye and then at his hand, not as wanting evidence to the truth of the statement which his sister had made, but because the idea of a drunkard's eye and a drunkard's hand had been brought before her mind. Lord Chiltern's hand was like the hand of any other man, but there was something in his eye that almost frightened her. It looked as though he would not hesitate to wring his wife's neck round, if ever he should be brought to threaten to do so. And then his eye, like the rest of him, was red. No;--she did not think that she could ever bring herself to marry him. Why take a venture that was double-dangerous, when there were so many ventures open to her, apparently with very little of danger attached to them? "If it should ever be said that I loved him, I would do it all the same," she said to herself. "If I did not come and see you here, I suppose that I should never see you," said he, seating himself. "I do not often go to parties, and when I do you are not likely to be there." "We might make our little arrangements for meeting," said she, laughing. "My aunt, Lady Baldock, is going to have an evening next week." "The servants would be ordered to put me out of the house." "Oh no. You can tell her that I invited you." "I don't think that Oswald and Lady Baldock are great friends," said Lady Laura. "Or he might come and take you and me to the Zoo on Sunday. That's the proper sort of thing for a brother and a friend to do." "I hate that place in the Regent's Park," said Lord Chiltern. "When were you there last?" demanded Miss Effingham. "When I came home once from Eton. But I won't go again till I can come home from Eton again." Then he altered his tone as he continued to speak. "People would look at me as if I were the wildest beast in the whole collection." "Then," said Violet, "if you won't go to Lady Baldock's or to the Zoo, we must confine ourselves to Laura's drawing-room;--unless, indeed, you like to take me to the top of the Monument." "I'll take you to the top of the Monument with pleasure." "What do you say, Laura?" "I say that you are a foolish girl," said Lady Laura, "and that I will have nothing to do with such a scheme." "Then there is nothing for it but that you should come here; and as you live in the house, and as I am sure to be here every morning, and as you have no possible occupation for your time, and as we have nothing particular to do with ours,--I daresay I shan't see you again before I go to my aunt's in Berkeley Square." "Very likely not," he said. "And why not, Oswald?" asked his sister. He passed his hand over his face before he answered her. "Because she and I run in different grooves now, and are not such meet playfellows as we used to be once. Do you remember my taking you away right through Saulsby Wood once on the old pony, and not bringing you back till tea-time, and Miss Blink going and telling my father?" "Do I remember it? I think it was the happiest day in my life. His pockets were crammed full of gingerbread and Everton toffy, and we had three bottles of lemonade slung on to the pony's saddlebows. I thought it was a pity that we should ever come back." "It was a pity," said Lord Chiltern. "But, nevertheless, substantially necessary," said Lady Laura. "Failing our power of reproducing the toffy, I suppose it was," said Violet. "You were not Miss Effingham then," said Lord Chiltern. "No,--not as yet. These disagreeable realities of life grow upon one; do they not? You took off my shoes and dried them for me at a woodman's cottage. I am obliged to put up with my maid's doing those things now. And Miss Blink the mild is changed for Lady Baldock the martinet. And if I rode about with you in a wood all day I should be sent to Coventry instead of to bed. And so you see everything is changed as well as my name." "Everything is not changed," said Lord Chiltern, getting up from his seat. "I am not changed,--at least not in this, that as I loved you better than any being in the world,--better even than Laura there,--so do I love you now infinitely the best of all. Do not look so surprised at me. You knew it before as well as you do now;--and Laura knows it. There is no secret to be kept in the matter among us three." "But, Lord Chiltern,--" said Miss Effingham, rising also to her feet, and then pausing, not knowing how to answer him. There had been a suddenness in his mode of addressing her which had, so to say, almost taken away her breath; and then to be told by a man of his love before his sister was in itself, to her, a matter so surprising, that none of those words came at her command which will come, as though by instinct, to young ladies on such occasions. "You have known it always," said he, as though he were angry with her. "Lord Chiltern," she replied, "you must excuse me if I say that you are, at the least, very abrupt. I did not think when I was going back so joyfully to our childish days that you would turn the tables on me in this way." "He has said nothing that ought to make you angry," said Lady Laura. "Only because he has driven me to say that which will make me appear to be uncivil to himself. Lord Chiltern, I do not love you with that love of which you are speaking now. As an old friend I have always regarded you, and I hope that I may always do so." Then she got up and left the room. "Why were you so sudden with her,--so abrupt,--so loud?" said his sister, coming up to him and taking him by the arm almost in anger. "It would make no difference," said he. "She does not care for me." "It makes all the difference in the world," said Lady Laura. "Such a woman as Violet cannot be had after that fashion. You must begin again." "I have begun and ended," he said. "That is nonsense. Of course you will persist. It was madness to speak in that way to-day. You may be sure of this, however, that there is no one she likes better than you. You must remember that you have done much to make any girl afraid of you." "I do remember it." "Do something now to make her fear you no longer. Speak to her softly. Tell her of the sort of life which you would live with her. Tell her that all is changed. As she comes to love you, she will believe you when she would believe no one else on that matter." "Am I to tell her a lie?" said Lord Chiltern, looking his sister full in the face. Then he turned upon his heel and left her. CHAPTER XII Autumnal Prospects The session went on very calmly after the opening battle which ousted Lord de Terrier and sent Mr. Mildmay back to the Treasury,--so calmly that Phineas Finn was unconsciously disappointed, as lacking that excitement of contest to which he had been introduced in the first days of his parliamentary career. From time to time certain waspish attacks were made by Mr. Daubeny, now on this Secretary of State and now on that; but they were felt by both parties to mean nothing; and as no great measure was brought forward, nothing which would serve by the magnitude of its interests to divide the liberal side of the House into fractions, Mr. Mildmay's Cabinet was allowed to hold its own in comparative peace and quiet. It was now July,--the middle of July,--and the member for Loughshane had not yet addressed the House. How often had he meditated doing so; how he had composed his speeches walking round the Park on his way down to the House; how he got his subjects up,--only to find on hearing them discussed that he really knew little or nothing about them; how he had his arguments and almost his very words taken out of his mouth by some other member; and lastly, how he had actually been deterred from getting upon his legs by a certain tremor of blood round his heart when the moment for rising had come,--of all this he never said a word to any man. Since that last journey to county Mayo, Laurence Fitzgibbon had been his most intimate friend, but he said nothing of all this even to Laurence Fitzgibbon. To his other friend, Lady Laura Standish, he did explain something of his feelings, not absolutely describing to her the extent of hindrance to which his modesty had subjected him, but letting her know that he had his qualms as well as his aspirations. But as Lady Laura always recommended patience, and more than once expressed her opinion that a young member would be better to sit in silence at least for one session, he was not driven to the mortification of feeling that he was incurring her contempt by his bashfulness. As regarded the men among whom he lived, I think he was almost annoyed at finding that no one seemed to expect that he should speak. Barrington Erle, when he had first talked of sending Phineas down to Loughshane, had predicted for him all manner of parliamentary successes, and had expressed the warmest admiration of the manner in which Phineas had discussed this or that subject at the Union. "We have not above one or two men in the House who can do that kind of thing," Barrington Erle had once said. But now no allusions whatever were made to his powers of speech, and Phineas in his modest moments began to be more amazed than ever that he should find himself seated in that chamber. To the forms and technicalities of parliamentary business he did give close attention, and was unremitting in his attendance. On one or two occasions he ventured to ask a question of the Speaker, and as the words of experience fell into his ears, he would tell himself that he was going through his education,--that he was learning to be a working member, and perhaps to be a statesman. But his regrets with reference to Mr. Low and the dingy chambers in Old Square were very frequent; and had it been possible for him to undo all that he had done, he would often have abandoned to some one else the honour of representing the electors of Loughshane. But he was supported in all his difficulties by the kindness of his friend, Lady Laura Standish. He was often in the house in Portman Square, and was always received with cordiality, and, as he thought, almost with affection. She would sit and talk to him, sometimes saying a word about her brother and sometimes about her father, as though there were more between them than the casual intimacy of London acquaintance. And in Portman Square he had been introduced to Miss Effingham, and had found Miss Effingham to be--very nice. Miss Effingham had quite taken to him, and he had danced with her at two or three parties, talking always, as he did so, about Lady Laura Standish. "I declare, Laura, I think your friend Mr. Finn is in love with you," said Violet to Lady Laura one night. "I don't think that. He is fond of me, and so am I of him. He is so honest, and so naïve without being awkward! And then he is undoubtedly clever." "And so uncommonly handsome," said Violet. "I don't know that that makes much difference," said Lady Laura. "I think it does if a man looks like a gentleman as well." "Mr. Finn certainly looks like a gentleman," said Lady Laura. "And no doubt is one," said Violet. "I wonder whether he has got any money." "Not a penny, I should say." "How does such a man manage to live? There are so many men like that, and they are always mysteries to me. I suppose he'll have to marry an heiress." "Whoever gets him will not have a bad husband," said Lady Laura Standish. Phineas during the summer had very often met Mr. Kennedy. They sat on the same side of the House, they belonged to the same club, they dined together more than once in Portman Square, and on one occasion Phineas had accepted an invitation to dinner sent to him by Mr. Kennedy himself. "A slower affair I never saw in my life," he said afterwards to Laurence Fitzgibbon. "Though there were two or three men there who talk everywhere else, they could not talk at his table." "He gave you good wine, I should say," said Fitzgibbon, "and let me tell you that that covers a multitude of sins." In spite, however, of all these opportunities for intimacy, now, nearly at the end of the session, Phineas had hardly spoken a dozen words to Mr. Kennedy, and really knew nothing whatsoever of the man, as one friend,--or even as one acquaintance knows another. Lady Laura had desired him to be on good terms with Mr. Kennedy, and for that reason he had dined with him. Nevertheless he disliked Mr. Kennedy, and felt quite sure that Mr. Kennedy disliked him. He was therefore rather surprised when he received the following note:-- Albany, Z 3, July 17, 186--. MY DEAR MR. FINN, I shall have some friends at Loughlinter next month, and should be very glad if you will join us. I will name the 16th August. I don't know whether you shoot, but there are grouse and deer. Yours truly, ROBERT KENNEDY. What was he to do? He had already begun to feel rather uncomfortable at the prospect of being separated from all his new friends as soon as the session should be over. Laurence Fitzgibhon had asked him to make another visit to county Mayo, but that he had declined. Lady Laura had said something to him about going abroad with her brother, and since that there had sprung up a sort of intimacy between him and Lord Chiltern; but nothing had been fixed about this foreign trip, and there were pecuniary objections to it which put it almost out of his power. The Christmas holidays he would of course pass with his family at Killaloe, but he hardly liked the idea of hurrying off to Killaloe immediately the session should be over. Everybody around him seemed to be looking forward to pleasant leisure doings in the country. Men talked about grouse, and of the ladies at the houses to which they were going and of the people whom they were to meet. Lady Laura had said nothing of her own movements for the early autumn, and no invitation had come to him to go to the Earl's country house. He had already felt that every one would depart and that he would be left,--and this had made him uncomfortable. What was he to do with the invitation from Mr. Kennedy? He disliked the man, and had told himself half a dozen times that he despised him. Of course he must refuse it. Even for the sake of the scenery, and the grouse, and the pleasant party, and the feeling that going to Loughlinter in August would be the proper sort of thing to do, he must refuse it! But it occurred to him at last that he would call in Portman Square before he wrote his note. "Of course you will go," said Lady Laura, in her most decided tone. "And why?" "In the first place it is civil in him to ask you, and why should you be uncivil in return?" "There is nothing uncivil in not accepting a man's invitation," said Phineas. "We are going," said Lady Laura, "and I can only say that I shall be disappointed if you do not go too. Both Mr. Gresham and Mr. Monk will be there, and I believe they have never stayed together in the same house before. I have no doubt there are a dozen men on your side of the House who would give their eyes to be there. Of course you will go." Of course he did go. The note accepting Mr. Kennedy's invitation was written at the Reform Club within a quarter of an hour of his leaving Portman Square. He was very careful in writing to be not more familiar or more civil than Mr. Kennedy had been to himself, and then he signed himself "Yours truly, Phineas Finn." But another proposition was made to him, and a most charming proposition, during the few minutes that he remained in Portman Square. "I am so glad," said Lady Laura, "because I can now ask you to run down to us at Saulsby for a couple of days on your way to Loughlinter. Till this was fixed I couldn't ask you to come all the way to Saulsby for two days; and there won't be room for more between our leaving London and starting to Loughlinter." Phineas swore that he would have gone if it had been but for one hour, and if Saulsby had been twice the distance. "Very well; come on the 13th and go on the 15th. You must go on the 15th, unless you choose to stay with the housekeeper. And remember, Mr. Finn, we have got no grouse at Saulsby." Phineas declared that he did not care a straw for grouse. There was another little occurrence which happened before Phineas left London, and which was not altogether so charming as his prospects at Saulsby and Loughlinter. Early in August, when the session was still incomplete, he dined with Laurence Fitzgibbon at the Reform Club. Laurence had specially invited him to do so, and made very much of him on the occasion. "By George, my dear fellow," Laurence said to him that morning, "nothing has happened to me this session that has given me so much pleasure as your being in the House. Of course there are fellows with whom one is very intimate and of whom one is very fond,--and all that sort of thing. But most of these Englishmen on our side are such cold fellows; or else they are like Ratler and Barrington Erle, thinking of nothing but politics. And then as to our own men, there are so many of them one can hardly trust! That's the truth of it. Your being in the House has been such a comfort to me!" Phineas, who really liked his friend Laurence, expressed himself very warmly in answer to this, and became affectionate, and made sundry protestations of friendship which were perfectly sincere. Their sincerity was tested after dinner, when Fitzgibbon, as they two were seated on a sofa in the corner of the smoking-room, asked Phineas to put his name to the back of a bill for two hundred and fifty pounds at six months' date. "But, my dear Laurence," said Phineas, "two hundred and fifty pounds is a sum of money utterly beyond my reach." "Exactly, my dear boy, and that's why I've come to you. D'ye think I'd have asked anybody who by any impossibility might have been made to pay anything for me?" "But what's the use of it then?" "All the use in the world. It's for me to judge of the use, you know. Why, d'ye think I'd ask it if it wasn't any use? I'll make it of use, my boy. And take my word, you'll never hear about it again. It's just a forestalling of my salary; that's all. I wouldn't do it till I saw that we were at least safe for six months to come." Then Phineas Finn with many misgivings, with much inward hatred of himself for his own weakness, did put his name on the back of the bill which Laurence Fitzgibbon had prepared for his signature. CHAPTER XIII Saulsby Wood "So you won't come to Moydrum again?" said Laurence Fitzgibbon to his friend. "Not this autumn, Laurence. Your father would think that I want to live there." "Bedad, it's my father would be glad to see you,--and the oftener the better." "The fact is, my time is filled up." "You're not going to be one of the party at Loughlinter?" "I believe I am. Kennedy asked me, and people seem to think that everybody is to do what he bids them." "I should think so too. I wish he had asked me. I should have thought it as good as a promise of an under-secretaryship. All the Cabinet are to be there. I don't suppose he ever had an Irishman in his house before. When do you start?" "Well;--on the 12th or 13th. I believe I shall go to Saulsby on my way." "The devil you will. Upon my word, Phineas, my boy, you're the luckiest fellow I know. This is your first year, and you're asked to the two most difficult houses in England. You have only to look out for an heiress now. There is little Vi Effingham;--she is sure to be at Saulsby. Good-bye, old fellow. Don't you be in the least unhappy about the bill. I'll see to making that all right." Phineas was rather unhappy about the bill; but there was so much that was pleasant in his cup at the present moment, that he resolved, as far as possible, to ignore the bitter of that one ingredient. He was a little in the dark as to two or three matters respecting these coming visits. He would have liked to have taken a servant with him; but he had no servant, and felt ashamed to hire one for the occasion. And then he was in trouble about a gun, and the paraphernalia of shooting. He was not a bad shot at snipe in the bogs of county Clare, but he had never even seen a gun used in England. However, he bought himself a gun,--with other paraphernalia, and took a license for himself, and then groaned over the expense to which he found that his journey would subject him. And at last he hired a servant for the occasion. He was intensely ashamed of himself when he had done so, hating himself, and telling himself that he was going to the devil headlong. And why had he done it? Not that Lady Laura would like him the better, or that she would care whether he had a servant or not. She probably would know nothing of his servant. But the people about her would know, and he was foolishly anxious that the people about her should think that he was worthy of her. Then he called on Mr. Low before he started. "I did not like to leave London without seeing you," he said; "but I know you will have nothing pleasant to say to me." "I shall say nothing unpleasant certainly. I see your name in the divisions, and I feel a sort of envy myself." "Any fool could go into a lobby," said Phineas. "To tell you the truth, I have been gratified to see that you have had the patience to abstain from speaking till you had looked about you. It was more than I expected from your hot Irish blood. Going to meet Mr. Gresham and Mr. Monk,--are you? Well, I hope you may meet them in the Cabinet some day. Mind you come and see me when Parliament meets in February." Mrs. Bunce was delighted when she found that Phineas had hired a servant; but Mr. Bunce predicted nothing but evil from so vain an expense. "Don't tell me; where is it to come from? He ain't no richer because he's in Parliament. There ain't no wages. M.P. and M.T.,"--whereby Mr. Bunce, I fear, meant empty,--"are pretty much alike when a man hasn't a fortune at his back." "But he's going to stay with all the lords in the Cabinet," said Mrs. Bunce, to whom Phineas, in his pride, had confided perhaps more than was necessary. "Cabinet, indeed," said Bunce; "if he'd stick to chambers, and let alone cabinets, he'd do a deal better. Given up his rooms, has he,--till February? He don't expect we're going to keep them empty for him!" Phineas found that the house was full at Saulsby, although the sojourn of the visitors would necessarily be so short. There were three or four there on their way on to Loughlinter, like himself,--Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Ratler, with Mr. Palliser, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his wife,--and there was Violet Effingham, who, however, was not going to Loughlinter. "No, indeed," she said to our hero, who on the first evening had the pleasure of taking her in to dinner, "unfortunately I haven't a seat in Parliament, and therefore I am not asked." "Lady Laura is going." "Yes;--but Lady Laura has a Cabinet Minister in her keeping. I've only one comfort;--you'll be awfully dull." "I daresay it would be very much nicer to stay here," said Phineas. "If you want to know my real mind," said Violet, "I would give one of my little fingers to go. There will be four Cabinet Ministers in the house, and four un-Cabinet Ministers, and half a dozen other members of Parliament, and there will be Lady Glencora Palliser, who is the best fun in the world; and, in point of fact, it's the thing of the year. But I am not asked. You see I belong to the Baldock faction, and we don't sit on your side of the House. Mr. Kennedy thinks that I should tell secrets." Why on earth had Mr. Kennedy invited him, Phineas Finn, to meet four Cabinet Ministers and Lady Glencora Palliser? He could only have done so at the instance of Lady Laura Standish. It was delightful for Phineas to think that Lady Laura cared for him so deeply; but it was not equally delightful when he remembered how very close must be the alliance between Mr. Kennedy and Lady Laura, when she was thus powerful with him. At Saulsby Phineas did not see much of his hostess. When they were making their plans for the one entire day of this visit, she said a soft word of apology to him. "I am so busy with all these people, that I hardly know what I am doing. But we shall be able to find a quiet minute or two at Loughlinter,--unless, indeed, you intend to be on the mountains all day. I suppose you have brought a gun like everybody else?" "Yes;--I have brought a gun. I do shoot; but I am not an inveterate sportsman." On that one day there was a great riding party made up, and Phineas found himself mounted, after luncheon, with some dozen other equestrians. Among them were Miss Effingham and Lady Glencora, Mr. Ratler and the Earl of Brentford himself. Lady Glencora, whose husband was, as has been said, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who was still a young woman, and a very pretty woman, had taken lately very strongly to politics, which she discussed among men and women of both parties with something more than ordinary audacity. "What a nice, happy, lazy time you've had of it since you've been in," said she to the Earl. "I hope we have been more happy than lazy," said the Earl. "But you've done nothing. Mr. Palliser has twenty schemes of reform, all mature; but among you you've not let him bring in one of them. The Duke and Mr. Mildmay and you will break his heart among you." "Poor Mr. Palliser!" "The truth is, if you don't take care he and Mr. Monk and Mr. Gresham will arise and shake themselves, and turn you all out." "We must look to ourselves, Lady Glencora." "Indeed, yes;--or you will be known to all posterity as the fainéant government." "Let me tell you, Lady Glencora, that a fainéant government is not the worst government that England can have. It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something." "Mr. Mildmay is at any rate innocent of that charge," said Lady Glencora. They were now riding through a vast wood, and Phineas found himself delightfully established by the side of Violet Effingham. "Mr. Ratler has been explaining to me that he must have nineteen next session. Now, if I were you, Mr. Finn, I would decline to be counted up in that way as one of Mr. Ratler's sheep." "But what am I to do?" "Do something on your own hook. You men in Parliament are so much like sheep! If one jumps at a gap, all go after him,--and then you are penned into lobbies, and then you are fed, and then you are fleeced. I wish I were in Parliament. I'd get up in the middle and make such a speech. You all seem to me to be so much afraid of one another that you don't quite dare to speak out. Do you see that cottage there?" "What a pretty cottage it is!" "Yes;--is it not? Twelve years ago I took off my shoes and stockings and had them dried in that cottage, and when I got back to the house I was put to bed for having been out all day in the wood." "Were you wandering about alone?" "No, I wasn't alone. Oswald Standish was with me. We were children then. Do you know him?" "Lord Chiltern;--yes, I know him. He and I have been rather friends this year." "He is very good;--is he not?" "Good,--in what way?" "Honest and generous!" "I know no man whom I believe to be more so." "And he is clever?" asked Miss Effingham. "Very clever. That is, he talks very well if you will let him talk after his own fashion. You would always fancy that he was going to eat you;--but that is his way." "And you like him?" "Very much." "I am so glad to hear you say so." "Is he a favourite of yours, Miss Effingham?" "Not now,--not particularly. I hardly ever see him. But his sister is the best friend I have, and I used to like him so much when he was a boy! I have not seen that cottage since that day, and I remember it as though it were yesterday. Lord Chiltern is quite changed, is he not?" "Changed,--in what way?" "They used to say that he was--unsteady you know." "I think he is changed. But Chiltern is at heart a Bohemian. It is impossible not to see that at once. He hates the decencies of life." "I suppose he does," said Violet. "He ought to marry. If he were married, that would all be cured;--don't you think so?" "I cannot fancy him with a wife," said Phineas, "There is a savagery about him which would make him an uncomfortable companion for a woman." "But he would love his wife?" "Yes, as he does his horses. And he would treat her well,--as he does his horses. But he expects every horse he has to do anything that any horse can do; and he would expect the same of his wife." Phineas had no idea how deep an injury he might be doing his friend by this description, nor did it once occur to him that his companion was thinking of herself as the possible wife of this Red Indian. Miss Effingham rode on in silence for some distance, and then she said but one word more about Lord Chiltern. "He was so good to me in that cottage." On the following day the party at Saulsby was broken up, and there was a regular pilgrimage towards Loughlinter. Phineas resolved upon sleeping a night at Edinburgh on his way, and he found himself joined in the bands of close companionship with Mr. Ratler for the occasion. The evening was by no means thrown away, for he learned much of his trade from Mr. Ratler. And Mr. Ratler was heard to declare afterwards at Loughlinter that Mr. Finn was a pleasant young man. It soon came to be admitted by all who knew Phineas Finn that he had a peculiar power of making himself agreeable which no one knew how to analyse or define. "I think it is because he listens so well," said one man. "But the women would not like him for that," said another. "He has studied when to listen and when to talk," said a third. The truth, however, was, that Phineas Finn had made no study in the matter at all. It was simply his nature to be pleasant. CHAPTER XIV Loughlinter Phineas Finn reached Loughlinter together with Mr. Ratler in a post-chaise from the neighbouring town. Mr. Ratler, who had done this kind of thing very often before, travelled without impediments, but the new servant of our hero's was stuck outside with the driver, and was in the way. "I never bring a man with me," said Mr. Ratler to his young friend. "The servants of the house like it much better, because they get fee'd; you are just as well waited on, and it don't cost half as much." Phineas blushed as he heard all this; but there was the impediment, not to be got rid of for the nonce, and Phineas made the best of his attendant. "It's one of those points," said he, "as to which a man never quite makes up his mind. If you bring a fellow, you wish you hadn't brought him; and if you don't, you wish you had." "I'm a great deal more decided in my ways that that," said Mr. Ratler. Loughlinter, as they approached it, seemed to Phineas to be a much finer place than Saulsby. And so it was, except that Loughlinter wanted that graceful beauty of age which Saulsby possessed. Loughlinter was all of cut stone, but the stones had been cut only yesterday. It stood on a gentle slope, with a greensward falling from the front entrance down to a mountain lake. And on the other side of the Lough there rose a mighty mountain to the skies, Ben Linter. At the foot of it, and all round to the left, there ran the woods of Linter, stretching for miles through crags and bogs and mountain lands. No better ground for deer than the side of Ben Linter was there in all those highlands. And the Linter, rushing down into the Lough through rocks which, in some places, almost met together above its waters, ran so near to the house that the pleasant noise of its cataracts could be heard from the hall door. Behind the house the expanse of drained park land seemed to be interminable; and then, again, came the mountains. There were Ben Linn and Ben Lody;--and the whole territory belonging to Mr. Kennedy. He was laird of Linn and laird of Linter, as his people used to say. And yet his father had walked into Glasgow as a little boy,--no doubt with the normal half-crown in his breeches pocket. "Magnificent;--is it not?" said Phineas to the Treasury Secretary, as they were being driven up to the door. "Very grand;--but the young trees show the new man. A new man may buy a forest; but he can't get park trees." Phineas, at the moment, was thinking how far all these things which he saw, the mountains stretching everywhere around him, the castle, the lake, the river, the wealth of it all, and, more than the wealth, the nobility of the beauty, might act as temptations to Lady Laura Standish. If a woman were asked to have the half of all this, would it be possible that she should prefer to take the half of his nothing? He thought it might be possible for a girl who would confess, or seem to confess, that love should be everything. But it could hardly be possible for a woman who looked at the world almost as a man looked at it,--as an oyster to be opened with such weapon as she could find ready to her hand. Lady Laura professed to have a care for all the affairs of the world. She loved politics, and could talk of social science, and had broad ideas about religion, and was devoted to certain educational views. Such a woman would feel that wealth was necessary to her, and would be willing, for the sake of wealth, to put up with a husband without romance. Nay; might it not be that she would prefer a husband without romance? Thus Phineas was arguing to himself as he was driven up to the door of Loughlinter Castle, while Mr. Ratler was eloquent on the beauty of old park trees. "After all, a Scotch forest is a very scrubby sort of thing," said Mr. Ratler. There was nobody in the house,--at least, they found nobody; and within half an hour Phineas was walking about the grounds by himself. Mr. Ratler had declared himself to be delighted at having an opportunity of writing letters,--and no doubt was writing them by the dozen, all dated from Loughlinter, and all detailing the facts that Mr. Gresham, and Mr. Monk, and Plantagenet Palliser, and Lord Brentford were in the same house with him. Phineas had no letters to write, and therefore rushed down across the broad lawn to the river, of which he heard the noisy tumbling waters. There was something in the air which immediately filled him with high spirits; and, in his desire to investigate the glories of the place, he forgot that he was going to dine with four Cabinet Ministers in a row. He soon reached the stream, and began to make his way up it through the ravine. There was waterfall over waterfall, and there were little bridges here and there which looked to be half natural and half artificial, and a path which required that you should climb, but which was yet a path, and all was so arranged that not a pleasant splashing rush of the waters was lost to the visitor. He went on and on, up the stream, till there was a sharp turn in the ravine, and then, looking upwards, he saw above his head a man and a woman standing together on one of the little half-made wooden bridges. His eyes were sharp, and he saw at a glance that the woman was Lady Laura Standish. He had not recognised the man, but he had very little doubt that it was Mr. Kennedy. Of course it was Mr. Kennedy, because he would prefer that it should be any other man under the sun. He would have turned back at once if he had thought that he could have done so without being observed; but he felt sure that, standing as they were, they must have observed him. He did not like to join them. He would not intrude himself. So he remained still, and began to throw stones into the river. But he had not thrown above a stone or two when he was called from above. He looked up, and then he perceived that the man who called him was his host. Of course it was Mr. Kennedy. Thereupon he ceased to throw stones, and went up the path, and joined them upon the bridge. Mr. Kennedy stepped forward, and bade him welcome to Loughlinter. His manner was less cold, and he seemed to have more words at command than was usual with him. "You have not been long," he said, "in finding out the most beautiful spot about the place." "Is it not lovely?" said Laura. "We have not been here an hour yet, and Mr. Kennedy insisted on bringing me here." "It is wonderfully beautiful," said Phineas. "It is this very spot where we now stand that made me build the house where it is," said Mr. Kennedy, "and I was only eighteen when I stood here and made up my mind. That is just twenty-five years ago." "So he is forty-three," said Phineas to himself, thinking how glorious it was to be only twenty-five. "And within twelve months," continued Mr. Kennedy, "the foundations were being dug and the stone-cutters were at work." "What a good-natured man your father must have been," said Lady Laura. "He had nothing else to do with his money but to pour it over my head, as it were. I don't think he had any other enjoyment of it himself. Will you go a little higher, Lady Laura? We shall get a fine view over to Ben Linn just now." Lady Laura declared that she would go as much higher as he chose to take her, and Phineas was rather in doubt as to what it would become him to do. He would stay where he was, or go down, or make himself to vanish after any most acceptable fashion; but if he were to do so abruptly it would seem as though he were attributing something special to the companionship of the other two. Mr. Kennedy saw his doubt, and asked him to join them. "You may as well come on, Mr. Finn. We don't dine till eight, and it is not much past six yet. The men of business are all writing letters, and the ladies who have been travelling are in bed, I believe." "Not all of them, Mr. Kennedy," said Lady Laura. Then they went on with their walk very pleasantly, and the lord of all that they surveyed took them from one point of vantage to another, till they both swore that of all spots upon the earth Loughlinter was surely the most lovely. "I do delight in it, I own," said the lord. "When I come up here alone, and feel that in the midst of this little bit of a crowded island I have all this to myself,--all this with which no other man's wealth can interfere,--I grow proud of my own, till I become thoroughly ashamed of myself. After all, I believe it is better to dwell in cities than in the country,--better, at any rate, for a rich man." Mr. Kennedy had now spoken more words than Phineas had heard to fall from his lips during the whole time that they had been acquainted with each other. "I believe so too," said Laura, "if one were obliged to choose between the two. For myself, I think that a little of both is good for man and woman." "There is no doubt about that," said Phineas. "No doubt as far as enjoyment goes," said Mr. Kennedy. He took them up out of the ravine on to the side of the mountain, and then down by another path through the woods to the back of the house. As they went he relapsed into his usual silence, and the conversation was kept up between the other two. At a point not very far from the castle,--just so far that one could see by the break of the ground where the castle stood, Kennedy left them. "Mr. Finn will take you back in safety, I am sure," said he, "and, as I am here, I'll go up to the farm for a moment. If I don't show myself now and again when I am here, they think I'm indifferent about the 'bestials'." "Now, Mr. Kennedy," said Lady Laura, "you are going to pretend to understand all about sheep and oxen." Mr. Kennedy, owning that it was so, went away to his farm, and Phineas with Lady Laura returned towards the house. "I think, upon the whole," said Lady Laura, "that that is as good a man as I know." "I should think he is an idle one," said Phineas. "I doubt that. He is, perhaps, neither zealous nor active. But he is thoughtful and high-principled, and has a method and a purpose in the use which he makes of his money. And you see that he has poetry in his nature too, if you get him upon the right string. How fond he is of the scenery of this place!" "Any man would be fond of that. I'm ashamed to say that it almost makes me envy him. I certainly never have wished to be Mr. Robert Kennedy in London, but I should like to be the Laird of Loughlinter." "'Laird of Linn and Laird of Linter,--Here in summer, gone in winter.' There is some ballad about the old lairds; but that belongs to a time when Mr. Kennedy had not been heard of, when some branch of the Mackenzies lived down at that wretched old tower which you see as you first come upon the lake. When old Mr. Kennedy bought it there were hardly a hundred acres on the property under cultivation." "And it belonged to the Mackenzies." "Yes;--to the Mackenzie of Linn, as he was called. It was Mr. Kennedy, the old man, who was first called Loughlinter. That is Linn Castle, and they lived there for hundreds of years. But these Highlanders, with all that is said of their family pride, have forgotten the Mackenzies already, and are quite proud of their rich landlord." "That is unpoetical," said Phineas. "Yes;--but then poetry is so usually false. I doubt whether Scotland would not have been as prosaic a country as any under the sun but for Walter Scott;--and I have no doubt that Henry V owes the romance of his character altogether to Shakspeare." "I sometimes think you despise poetry," said Phineas. "When it is false I do. The difficulty is to know when it is false and when it is true. Tom Moore was always false." "Not so false as Byron," said Phineas with energy. "Much more so, my friend. But we will not discuss that now. Have you seen Mr. Monk since you have been here?" "I have seen no one. I came with Mr. Ratler." "Why with Mr. Ratler? You cannot find Mr. Ratler a companion much to your taste." "Chance brought us together. But Mr. Ratler is a man of sense, Lady Laura, and is not to be despised." "It always seems to me," said Lady Laura, "that nothing is to be gained in politics by sitting at the feet of the little Gamaliels." "But the great Gamaliels will not have a novice on their footstools." "Then sit at no man's feet. Is it not astonishing that the price generally put upon any article by the world is that which the owner puts on it?--and that this is specially true of a man's own self? If you herd with Ratler, men will take it for granted that you are a Ratlerite, and no more. If you consort with Greshams and Pallisers, you will equally be supposed to know your own place." "I never knew a Mentor," said Phineas, "so apt as you are to fill his Telemachus with pride." "It is because I do not think your fault lies that way. If it did, or if I thought so, my Telemachus, you may be sure that I should resign my position as Mentor. Here are Mr. Kennedy and Lady Glencora and Mrs. Gresham on the steps." Then they went up through the Ionic columns on to the broad stone terrace before the door, and there they found a crowd of men and women. For the legislators and statesmen had written their letters, and the ladies had taken their necessary rest. Phineas, as he was dressing, considered deeply all that Lady Laura had said to him,--not so much with reference to the advice which she had given him, though that also was of importance, as to the fact that it had been given by her. She had first called herself his Mentor; but he had accepted the name and had addressed her as her Telemachus. And yet he believed himself to be older than she,--if, indeed, there was any difference in their ages. And was it possible that a female Mentor should love her Telemachus,--should love him as Phineas desired to be loved by Lady Laura? He would not say that it was impossible. Perhaps there had been mistakes between them;--a mistake in his manner of addressing her, and another in hers of addressing him. Perhaps the old bachelor of forty-three was not thinking of a wife. Had this old bachelor of forty-three been really in love with Lady Laura, would he have allowed her to walk home alone with Phineas, leaving her with some flimsy pretext of having to look at his sheep? Phineas resolved that he must at any rate play out his game,--whether he were to lose it or to win it; and in playing it he must, if possible, drop something of that Mentor and Telemachus style of conversation. As to the advice given him of herding with Greshams and Pallisers, instead of with Ratlers and Fitzgibbons,--he must use that as circumstances might direct. To him, himself, as he thought of it all, it was sufficiently astonishing that even the Ratlers and Fitzgibbons should admit him among them as one of themselves. "When I think of my father and of the old house at Killaloe, and remember that hitherto I have done nothing myself, I cannot understand how it is that I should be at Loughlinter." There was only one way of understanding it. If Lady Laura really loved him, the riddle might be read. The rooms at Loughlinter were splendid, much larger and very much more richly furnished than those at Saulsby. But there was a certain stiffness in the movement of things, and perhaps in the manner of some of those present, which was not felt at Saulsby. Phineas at once missed the grace and prettiness and cheery audacity of Violet Effingham, and felt at the same time that Violet Effingham would be out of her element at Loughlinter. At Loughlinter they were met for business. It was at least a semi-political, or perhaps rather a semi-official gathering, and he became aware that he ought not to look simply for amusement. When he entered the drawing-room before dinner, Mr. Monk and Mr. Palliser, and Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Gresham, with sundry others, were standing in a wide group before the fireplace, and among them were Lady Glencora Palliser and Lady Laura and Mrs. Bonteen. As he approached them it seemed as though a sort of opening was made for himself; but he could see, though others did not, that the movement came from Lady Laura. "I believe, Mr. Monk," said Lady Glencora, "that you and I are the only two in the whole party who really know what we would be at." "If I must be divided from so many of my friends," said Mr. Monk, "I am happy to go astray in the company of Lady Glencora Palliser." "And might I ask," said Mr. Gresham, with a peculiar smile for which he was famous, "what it is that you and Mr. Monk are really at?" "Making men and women all equal," said Lady Glencora. "That I take to be the gist of our political theory." "Lady Glencora, I must cry off," said Mr. Monk. "Yes;--no doubt. If I were in the Cabinet myself I should not admit so much. There are reticences,--of course. And there is an official discretion." "But you don't mean to say, Lady Glencora, that you would really advocate equality?" said Mrs. Bonteen. "I do mean to say so, Mrs. Bonteen. And I mean to go further, and to tell you that you are no Liberal at heart unless you do so likewise; unless that is the basis of your political aspirations." "Pray let me speak for myself, Lady Glencora." "By no means,--not when you are criticising me and my politics. Do you not wish to make the lower orders comfortable?" "Certainly," said Mrs. Bonteen. "And educated, and happy and good?" "Undoubtedly." "To make them as comfortable and as good as yourself?" "Better if possible." "And I'm sure you wish to make yourself as good and as comfortable as anybody else,--as those above you, if anybody is above you? You will admit that?" "Yes;--if I understand you." "Then you have admitted everything, and are an advocate for general equality,--just as Mr. Monk is, and as I am. There is no getting out of it;--is there, Mr. Kennedy?" Then dinner was announced, and Mr. Kennedy walked off with the French Republican on his arm. As she went, she whispered into Mr. Kennedy's ear, "You will understand me. I am not saying that people are equal; but that the tendency of all law-making and of all governing should be to reduce the inequalities." In answer to which Mr. Kennedy said not a word. Lady Glencora's politics were too fast and furious for his nature. A week passed by at Loughlinter, at the end of which Phineas found himself on terms of friendly intercourse with all the political magnates assembled in the house, but especially with Mr. Monk. He had determined that he would not follow Lady Laura's advice as to his selection of companions, if in doing so he should be driven even to a seeming of intrusion. He made no attempt to sit at the feet of anybody, and would stand aloof when bigger men than himself were talking, and was content to be less,--as indeed he was less,--than Mr. Bonteen or Mr. Ratler. But at the end of a week he found that, without any effort on his part,--almost in opposition to efforts on his part,--he had fallen into an easy pleasant way with these men which was very delightful to him. He had killed a stag in company with Mr. Palliser, and had stopped beneath a crag to discuss with him a question as to the duty on Irish malt. He had played chess with Mr. Gresham, and had been told that gentleman's opinion on the trial of Mr. Jefferson Davis. Lord Brentford had--at last--called him Finn, and had proved to him that nothing was known in Ireland about sheep. But with Mr. Monk he had had long discussions on abstract questions in politics,--and before the week was over was almost disposed to call himself a disciple, or, at least, a follower of Mr. Monk. Why not of Mr. Monk as well as of any one else? Mr. Monk was in the Cabinet, and of all the members of the Cabinet was the most advanced Liberal. "Lady Glencora was not so far wrong the other night," Mr. Monk said to him. "Equality is an ugly word and shouldn't be used. It misleads, and frightens, and is a bugbear. And she, in using it, had not perhaps a clearly defined meaning for it in her own mind. But the wish of every honest man should be to assist in lifting up those below him, till they be something nearer his own level than he finds them." To this Phineas assented,--and by degrees he found himself assenting to a great many things that Mr. Monk said to him. Mr. Monk was a thin, tall, gaunt man, who had devoted his whole life to politics, hitherto without any personal reward beyond that which came to him from the reputation of his name, and from the honour of a seat in Parliament. He was one of four or five brothers,--and all besides him were in trade. They had prospered in trade, whereas he had prospered solely in politics; and men said that he was dependent altogether on what his relatives supplied for his support. He had now been in Parliament for more than twenty years, and had been known not only as a Radical but as a Democrat. Ten years since, when he had risen to fame, but not to repute, among the men who then governed England, nobody dreamed that Joshua Monk would ever be a paid servant of the Crown. He had inveighed against one minister after another as though they all deserved impeachment. He had advocated political doctrines which at that time seemed to be altogether at variance with any possibility of governing according to English rules of government. He had been regarded as a pestilent thorn in the sides of all ministers. But now he was a member of the Cabinet, and those whom he had terrified in the old days began to find that he was not so much unlike other men. There are but few horses which you cannot put into harness, and those of the highest spirit will generally do your work the best. Phineas, who had his eyes about him, thought that he could perceive that Mr. Palliser did not shoot a deer with Mr. Ratler, and that Mr. Gresham played no chess with Mr. Bonteen. Bonteen, indeed, was a noisy pushing man whom nobody seemed to like, and Phineas wondered why he should be at Loughlinter, and why he should be in office. His friend Laurence Fitzgibbon had indeed once endeavoured to explain this. "A man who can vote hard, as I call it; and who will speak a few words now and then as they're wanted, without any ambition that way, may always have his price. And if he has a pretty wife into the bargain, he ought to have a pleasant time of it." Mr. Ratler no doubt was a very useful man, who thoroughly knew his business; but yet, as it seemed to Phineas, no very great distinction was shown to Mr. Ratler at Loughlinter. "If I got as high as that," he said to himself, "I should think myself a miracle of luck. And yet nobody seems to think anything of Ratler. It is all nothing unless one can go to the very top." "I believe I did right to accept office," Mr. Monk said to him one day, as they sat together on a rock close by one of the little bridges over the Linter. "Indeed, unless a man does so when the bonds of the office tendered to him are made compatible with his own views, he declines to proceed on the open path towards the prosecution of those views. A man who is combating one ministry after another, and striving to imbue those ministers with his convictions, can hardly decline to become a minister himself when he finds that those convictions of his own are henceforth,--or at least for some time to come,--to be the ministerial convictions of the day. Do you follow me?" "Very clearly," said Phineas. "You would have denied your own children had you refused." "Unless indeed a man were to feel that he was in some way unfitted for office work. I very nearly provided for myself an escape on that plea;--but when I came to sift it, I thought that it would be false. But let me tell you that the delight of political life is altogether in opposition. Why, it is freedom against slavery, fire against clay, movement against stagnation! The very inaccuracy which is permitted to opposition is in itself a charm worth more than all the patronage and all the prestige of ministerial power. You'll try them both, and then say if you do not agree with me. Give me the full swing of the benches below the gangway, where I needed to care for no one, and could always enjoy myself on my legs as long as I felt that I was true to those who sent me there! That is all over now. They have got me into harness, and my shoulders are sore. The oats, however, are of the best, and the hay is unexceptionable." CHAPTER XV Donald Bean's Pony Phineas liked being told that the pleasures of opposition and the pleasures of office were both open to him,--and he liked also to be the chosen receptacle of Mr. Monk's confidence. He had come to understand that he was expected to remain ten days at Loughlinter, and that then there was to be a general movement. Since the first day he had seen but little of Mr. Kennedy, but he had found himself very frequently with Lady Laura. And then had come up the question of his projected trip to Paris with Lord Chiltern. He had received a letter from Lord Chiltern. DEAR FINN, Are you going to Paris with me? Yours, C. There had been not a word beyond this, and before he answered it he made up his mind to tell Lady Laura the truth. He could not go to Paris because he had no money. "I've just got that from your brother," said he. "How like Oswald. He writes to me perhaps three times in the year, and his letters are just the same. You will go I hope?" "Well;--no." "I am sorry for that." "I wonder whether I may tell you the real reason, Lady Laura." "Nay;--I cannot answer that; but unless it be some political secret between you and Mr. Monk, I should think you might." "I cannot afford to go to Paris this autumn. It seems to be a shocking admission to make,--though I don't know why it should be." "Nor I;--but, Mr. Finn, I like you all the better for making it. I am very sorry, for Oswald's sake. It's so hard to find any companion for him whom he would like and whom we,--that is I,--should think altogether--; you know what I mean, Mr. Finn." "Your wish that I should go with him is a great compliment, and I thoroughly wish that I could do it. As it is, I must go to Killaloe and retrieve my finances. I daresay, Lady Laura, you can hardly conceive how very poor a man I am." There was a melancholy tone about his voice as he said this, which made her think for the moment whether or no he had been right in going into Parliament, and whether she had been right in instigating him to do so. But it was too late to recur to that question now. "You must climb into office early, and forego those pleasures of opposition which are so dear to Mr. Monk," she said, smiling. "After all, money is an accident which does not count nearly so high as do some other things. You and Mr. Kennedy have the same enjoyment of everything around you here." "Yes; while it lasts." "And Lady Glencora and I stand pretty much on the same footing, in spite of all her wealth,--except that she is a married woman. I do not know what she is worth,--something not to be counted; and I am worth,--just what papa chooses to give me. A ten-pound note at the present moment I should look upon as great riches." This was the first time she had ever spoken to him of her own position as regards money; but he had heard, or thought that he had heard, that she had been left a fortune altogether independent of her father. The last of the ten days had now come, and Phineas was discontented and almost unhappy. The more he saw of Lady Laura the more he feared that it was impossible that she should become his wife. And yet from day to day his intimacy with her became more close. He had never made love to her, nor could he discover that it was possible for him to do so. She seemed to be a woman for whom all the ordinary stages of love-making were quite unsuitable, Of course he could declare his love and ask her to be his wife on any occasion on which he might find himself to be alone with her. And on this morning he had made up his mind that he would do so before the day was over. It might be possible that she would never speak to him again;--that all the pleasures and ambitious hopes to which she had introduced him might be over as soon as that rash word should have been spoken! But, nevertheless, he would speak it. On this day there was to be a grouse-shooting party, and the shooters were to be out early. It had been talked of for some day or two past, and Phineas knew that he could not escape it. There had been some rivalry between him and Mr. Bonteen, and there was to be a sort of match as to which of the two would kill most birds before lunch. But there had also been some half promise on Lady Laura's part that she would walk with him up the Linter and come down upon the lake, taking an opposite direction from that by which they had returned with Mr. Kennedy. "But you will be shooting all day," she said, when he proposed it to her as they were starting for the moor. The waggonet that was to take them was at the door, and she was there to see them start. Her father was one of the shooting party, and Mr. Kennedy was another. "I will undertake to be back in time, if you will not think it too hot. I shall not see you again till we meet in town next year." "Then I certainly will go with you,--that is to say, if you are here. But you cannot return without the rest of the party, as you are going so far." "I'll get back somehow," said Phineas, who was resolved that a few miles more or less of mountain should not detain him from the prosecution of a task so vitally important to him. "If we start at five that will be early enough." "Quite early enough," said Lady Laura. Phineas went off to the mountains, and shot his grouse, and won his match, and eat his luncheon. Mr. Bonteen, however, was not beaten by much, and was in consequence somewhat ill-humoured. "I'll tell you what I'll do," said Mr. Bonteen, "I'll back myself for the rest of the day for a ten-pound note." Now there had been no money staked on the match at all,--but it had been simply a trial of skill, as to which would kill the most birds in a given time. And the proposition for that trial had come from Mr. Bonteen himself. "I should not think of shooting for money," said Phineas. "And why not? A bet is the only way to decide these things." "Partly because I'm sure I shouldn't hit a bird," said Phineas, "and partly because I haven't got any money to lose." "I hate bets," said Mr. Kennedy to him afterwards. "I was annoyed when Bonteen offered the wager. I felt sure, however, you would not accept it." "I suppose such bets are very common." "I don't think men ought to propose them unless they are quite sure of their company. Maybe I'm wrong, and I often feel that I am strait-laced about such things. It is so odd to me that men cannot amuse themselves without pitting themselves against each other. When a man tells me that he can shoot better than I, I tell him that my keeper can shoot better than he." "All the same, it's a good thing to excel," said Phineas. "I'm not so sure of that," said Mr. Kennedy. "A man who can kill more salmon than anybody else, can rarely do anything else. Are you going on with your match?" "No; I'm going to make my way to Loughlinter." "Not alone?" "Yes, alone." "It's over nine miles. You can't walk it." Phineas looked at his watch, and found that it was now two o'clock. It was a broiling day in August, and the way back to Loughlinter, for six or seven out of the nine miles, would be along a high road. "I must do it all the same," said he, preparing for a start. "I have an engagement with Lady Laura Standish; and as this is the last day that I shall see her, I certainly do not mean to break it." "An engagement with Lady Laura," said Mr. Kennedy. "Why did you not tell me, that I might have a pony ready? But come along. Donald Bean has a pony. He's not much bigger than a dog, but he'll carry you to Loughlinter." "I can walk it, Mr. Kennedy." "Yes; and think of the state in which you'd reach Loughlinter! Come along with me." "But I can't take you off the mountain," said Phineas. "Then you must allow me to take you off." So Mr. Kennedy led the way down to Donald Bean's cottage, and before three o'clock Phineas found himself mounted on a shaggy steed, which, in sober truth, was not much bigger than a large dog. "If Mr. Kennedy is really my rival," said Phineas to himself, as he trotted along, "I almost think that I am doing an unhandsome thing in taking the pony." At five o'clock he was under the portico before the front door, and there he found Lady Laura waiting for him,--waiting for him, or at least ready for him. She had on her hat and gloves and light shawl, and her parasol was in her hand. He thought that he had never seen her look so young, so pretty, and so fit to receive a lover's vows. But at the same moment it occurred to him that she was Lady Laura Standish, the daughter of an Earl, the descendant of a line of Earls,--and that he was the son of a simple country doctor in Ireland. Was it fitting that he should ask such a woman to be his wife? But then Mr. Kennedy was the son of a man who had walked into Glasgow with half-a-crown in his pocket. Mr. Kennedy's grandfather had been,--Phineas thought that he had heard that Mr. Kennedy's grandfather had been a Scotch drover; whereas his own grandfather had been a little squire near Ennistimon, in county Clare, and his own first cousin once removed still held the paternal acres at Finn Grove. His family was supposed to be descended from kings in that part of Ireland. It certainly did not become him to fear Lady Laura on the score of rank, if it was to be allowed to Mr. Kennedy to proceed without fear on that head. As to wealth, Lady Laura had already told him that her fortune was no greater than his. Her statement to himself on that head made him feel that he should not hesitate on the score of money. They neither had any, and he was willing to work for both. If she feared the risk, let her say so. It was thus that he argued with himself; but yet he knew,--knew as well as the reader will know,--that he was going to do that which he had no right to do. It might be very well for him to wait,--presuming him to be successful in his love,--for the opening of that oyster with his political sword, that oyster on which he proposed that they should both live; but such waiting could not well be to the taste of Lady Laura Standish. It could hardly be pleasant to her to look forward to his being made a junior lord or an assistant secretary before she could establish herself in her home. So he told himself. And yet he told himself at the same time that it was incumbent on him to persevere. "I did not expect you in the least," said Lady Laura. "And yet I spoke very positively." "But there are things as to which a man may be very positive, and yet may be allowed to fail. In the first place, how on earth did you get home?" "Mr. Kennedy got me a pony,--Donald Bean's pony." "You told him, then?" "Yes; I told him why I was coming, and that I must be here. Then he took the trouble to come all the way off the mountain to persuade Donald to lend me his pony. I must acknowledge that Mr. Kennedy has conquered me at last." "I am so glad of that," said Lady Laura. "I knew he would,--unless it were your own fault." They went up the path by the brook, from bridge to bridge, till they found themselves out upon the open mountain at the top. Phineas had resolved that he would not speak out his mind till he found himself on that spot; that then he would ask her to sit down, and that while she was so seated he would tell her everything. At the present moment he had on his head a Scotch cap with a grouse's feather in it, and he was dressed in a velvet shooting-jacket and dark knickerbockers; and was certainly, in this costume, as handsome a man as any woman would wish to see. And there was, too, a look of breeding about him which had come to him, no doubt, from the royal Finns of old, which ever served him in great stead. He was, indeed, only Phineas Finn, and was known by the world to be no more; but he looked as though he might have been anybody,--a royal Finn himself. And then he had that special grace of appearing to be altogether unconscious of his own personal advantages. And I think that in truth he was barely conscious of them; that he depended on them very little, if at all; that there was nothing of personal vanity in his composition. He had never indulged in any hope that Lady Laura would accept him because he was a handsome man. "After all that climbing," he said, "will you not sit down for a moment?" As he spoke to her she looked at him and told herself that he was as handsome as a god. "Do sit down for one moment," he said. "I have something that I desire to say to you, and to say it here." "I will," she said; "but I also have something to tell you, and will say it while I am yet standing. Yesterday I accepted an offer of marriage from Mr. Kennedy." "Then I am too late," said Phineas, and putting his hands into the pockets of his coat, he turned his back upon her, and walked away across the mountain. What a fool he had been to let her know his secret when her knowledge of it could be of no service to him,--when her knowledge of it could only make him appear foolish in her eyes! But for his life he could not have kept his secret to himself. Nor now could he bring himself to utter a word of even decent civility. But he went on walking as though he could thus leave her there, and never see her again. What an ass he had been in supposing that she cared for him! What a fool to imagine that his poverty could stand a chance against the wealth of Loughlinter! But why had she lured him on? How he wished that he were now grinding, hard at work in Mr. Low's chambers, or sitting at home at Killaloe with the hand of that pretty little Irish girl within his own! Presently he heard a voice behind him,--calling him gently. Then he turned and found that she was very near him. He himself had then been standing still for some moments, and she had followed him. "Mr. Finn," she said. "Well;--yes: what is it?" And turning round he made an attempt to smile. "Will you not wish me joy, or say a word of congratulation? Had I not thought much of your friendship, I should not have been so quick to tell you of my destiny. No one else has been told, except papa." "Of course I hope you will be happy. Of course I do. No wonder he lent me the pony!" "You must forget all that." "Forget what?" "Well,--nothing. You need forget nothing," said Lady Laura, "for nothing has been said that need be regretted. Only wish me joy, and all will be pleasant." "Lady Laura, I do wish you joy, with all my heart,--but that will not make all things pleasant. I came up here to ask you to be my wife." "No;--no, no; do not say it." "But I have said it, and will say it again. I, poor, penniless, plain simple fool that I am, have been ass enough to love you, Lady Laura Standish; and I brought you up here to-day to ask you to share with me--my nothingness. And this I have done on soil that is to be all your own. Tell me that you regard me as a conceited fool,--as a bewildered idiot." "I wish to regard you as a dear friend,--both of my own and of my husband," said she, offering him her hand. "Should I have had a chance, I wonder, if I had spoken a week since?" "How can I answer such a question, Mr. Finn? Or, rather, I will, answer it fully. It is not a week since we told each other, you to me and I to you, that we were both poor,--both without other means than those which come to us from our fathers. You will make your way;--will make it surely; but how at present could you marry any woman unless she had money of her own? For me,--like so many other girls, it was necessary that I should stay at home or marry some one rich enough to dispense with fortune in a wife. The man whom in all the world I think the best has asked me to share everything with him;--and I have thought it wise to accept his offer." "And I was fool enough to think that you loved me," said Phineas. To this she made no immediate answer. "Yes, I was. I feel that I owe it you to tell you what a fool I have been. I did. I thought you loved me. At least I thought that perhaps you loved me. It was like a child wanting the moon;--was it not?" "And why should I not have loved you?" she said slowly, laying her hand gently upon his arm. "Why not? Because Loughlinter--" "Stop, Mr. Finn; stop. Do not say to me any unkind word that I have not deserved, and that would make a breach between us. I have accepted the owner of Loughlinter as my husband, because I verily believe that I shall thus do my duty in that sphere of life to which it has pleased God to call me. I have always liked him, and I will love him. For you,--may I trust myself to speak openly to you?" "You may trust me as against all others, except us two ourselves." "For you, then, I will say also that I have always liked you since I knew you; that I have loved you as a friend;--and could have loved you otherwise had not circumstances showed me so plainly that it would be unwise." "Oh, Lady Laura!" "Listen a moment. And pray remember that what I say to you now must never be repeated to any ears. No one knows it but my father, my brother, and Mr. Kennedy. Early in the spring I paid my brother's debts. His affection to me is more than a return for what I have done for him. But when I did this,--when I made up my mind to do it, I made up my mind also that I could not allow myself the same freedom of choice which would otherwise have belonged to me. Will that be sufficient, Mr. Finn?" "How can I answer you, Lady Laura? Sufficient! And you are not angry with me for what I have said?" "No, I am not angry. But it is understood, of course, that nothing of this shall ever be repeated,--even among ourselves. Is that a bargain?" "Oh, yes. I shall never speak of it again." "And now you will wish me joy?" "I have wished you joy, Lady Laura. And I will do so again. May you have every blessing which the world can give you. You cannot expect me to be very jovial for awhile myself; but there will be nobody to see my melancholy moods. I shall be hiding myself away in Ireland. When is the marriage to be?" "Nothing has been said of that. I shall be guided by him,--but there must, of course, be delay. There will be settlements and I know not what. It may probably be in the spring,--or perhaps the summer. I shall do just what my betters tell me to do." Phineas had now seated himself on the exact stone on which he had wished her to sit when he proposed to tell his own story, and was looking forth upon the lake. It seemed to him that everything had been changed for him while he had been up there upon the mountain, and that the change had been marvellous in its nature. When he had been coming up, there had been apparently two alternatives before him: the glory of successful love,--which, indeed, had seemed to him to be a most improbable result of the coming interview,--and the despair and utter banishment attendant on disdainful rejection. But his position was far removed from either of these alternatives. She had almost told him that she would have loved him had she not been poor,--that she was beginning to love him and had quenched her love, because it had become impossible to her to marry a poor man. In such circumstances he could not be angry with her,--he could not quarrel with her; he could not do other than swear to himself that he would be her friend. And yet he loved her better than ever;--and she was the promised wife of his rival! Why had not Donald Bean's pony broken his neck? "Shall we go down now?" she said. "Oh, yes." "You will not go on by the lake?" "What is the use? It is all the same now. You will want to be back to receive him in from shooting." "Not that, I think. He is above those little cares. But it will be as well we should go the nearest way, as we have spent so much of our time here. I shall tell Mr. Kennedy that I have told you,--if you do not mind." "Tell him what you please," said Phineas. "But I won't have it taken in that way, Mr. Finn. Your brusque want of courtesy to me I have forgiven, but I shall expect you to make up for it by the alacrity of your congratulations to him. I will not have you uncourteous to Mr. Kennedy." "If I have been uncourteous I beg your pardon." "You need not do that. We are old friends, and may take the liberty of speaking plainly to each other;--but you will owe it to Mr. Kennedy to be gracious. Think of the pony." They walked back to the house together, and as they went down the path very little was said. Just as they were about to come out upon the open lawn, while they were still under cover of the rocks and shrubs, Phineas stopped his companion by standing before her, and then he made his farewell speech to her. "I must say good-bye to you. I shall be away early in the morning." "Good-bye, and God bless you," said Lady Laura. "Give me your hand," said he. And she gave him her hand. "I don't suppose you know what it is to love dearly." "I hope I do." "But to be in love! I believe you do not. And to miss your love! I think,--I am bound to think that you have never been so tormented. It is very sore;--but I will do my best, like a man, to get over it." "Do, my friend, do. So small a trouble will never weigh heavily on shoulders such as yours." "It will weigh very heavily, but I will struggle hard that it may not crush me. I have loved you so dearly! As we are parting give me one kiss, that I may think of it and treasure it in my memory!" What murmuring words she spoke to express her refusal of such a request, I will not quote; but the kiss had been taken before the denial was completed, and then they walked on in silence together,--and in peace, towards the house. On the next morning six or seven men were going away, and there was an early breakfast. There were none of the ladies there, but Mr. Kennedy, the host, was among his friends. A large drag with four horses was there to take the travellers and their luggage to the station, and there was naturally a good deal of noise at the front door as the preparations for the departure were made. In the middle of them Mr. Kennedy took our hero aside. "Laura has told me," said Mr. Kennedy, "that she has acquainted you with my good fortune." "And I congratulate you most heartily," said Phineas, grasping the other's hand. "You are indeed a lucky fellow." "I feel myself to be so," said Mr. Kennedy. "Such a wife was all that was wanting to me, and such a wife is very hard to find. Will you remember, Finn, that Loughlinter will never be so full but what there will be a room for you, or so empty but what you will be made welcome? I say this on Lady Laura's part and on my own." Phineas, as he was being carried away to the railway station, could not keep himself from speculating as to how much Kennedy knew of what had taken place during the walk up the Linter. Of one small circumstance that had occurred, he felt quite sure that Mr. Kennedy knew nothing. CHAPTER XVI Phineas Finn Returns to Killaloe Phineas Finn's first session of Parliament was over,--his first session with all its adventures. When he got back to Mrs. Bunce's house,--for Mrs. Bunce received him for a night in spite of her husband's advice to the contrary,--I am afraid he almost felt that Mrs. Bunce and her rooms were beneath him. Of course he was very unhappy,--as wretched as a man can be; there were moments in which he thought that it would hardly become him to live unless he could do something to prevent the marriage of Lady Laura and Mr. Kennedy. But, nevertheless, he had his consolations. These were reflections which had in them much of melancholy satisfaction. He had not been despised by the woman to whom he had told his love. She had not shown him that she thought him to be unworthy of her. She had not regarded his love as an offence. Indeed, she had almost told him that prudence alone had forbidden her to return his passion. And he had kissed her, and had afterwards parted from her as a dear friend. I do not know why there should have been a flavour of exquisite joy in the midst of his agony as he thought of this;--but it was so. He would never kiss her again. All future delights of that kind would belong to Mr. Kennedy, and he had no real idea of interfering with that gentleman in the fruition of his privileges. But still there was the kiss,--an eternal fact. And then, in all respects except that of his love, his visit to Loughlinter had been pre-eminently successful. Mr. Monk had become his friend, and had encouraged him to speak during the next session,--setting before him various models, and prescribing for him a course of reading. Lord Brentford had become intimate with him. He was on pleasant terms with Mr. Palliser and Mr. Gresham. And as for Mr. Kennedy,--he and Mr. Kennedy were almost bosom friends. It seemed to him that he had quite surpassed the Ratlers, Fitzgibbons, and Bonteens in that politico-social success which goes so far towards downright political success, and which in itself is so pleasant. He had surpassed these men in spite of their offices and their acquired positions, and could not but think that even Mr. Low, if he knew it all, would confess that he had been right. As to his bosom friendship with Mr. Kennedy, that of course troubled him. Ought he not to be driving a poniard into Mr. Kennedy's heart? The conventions of life forbade that; and therefore the bosom friendship was to be excused. If not an enemy to the death, then there could be no reason why he should not be a bosom friend. He went over to Ireland, staying but one night with Mrs. Bunce, and came down upon them at Killaloe like a god out of the heavens. Even his father was well-nigh overwhelmed by admiration, and his mother and sisters thought themselves only fit to minister to his pleasures. He had learned, if he had learned nothing else, to look as though he were master of the circumstances around him, and was entirely free from internal embarrassment. When his father spoke to him about his legal studies, he did not exactly laugh at his father's ignorance, but he recapitulated to his father so much of Mr. Monk's wisdom at second hand,--showing plainly that it was his business to study the arts of speech and the technicalities of the House, and not to study law,--that his father had nothing further to say. He had become a man of such dimensions that an ordinary father could hardly dare to inquire into his proceedings; and as for an ordinary mother,--such as Mrs. Finn certainly was,--she could do no more than look after her son's linen with awe. Mary Flood Jones,--the reader I hope will not quite have forgotten Mary Flood Jones,--was in a great tremor when first she met the hero of Loughshane after returning from the honours of his first session. She had been somewhat disappointed because the newspapers had not been full of the speeches he had made in Parliament. And indeed the ladies of the Finn household had all been ill at ease on this head. They could not imagine why Phineas had restrained himself with so much philosophy. But Miss Flood Jones in discussing the matter with the Miss Finns had never expressed the slightest doubt of his capacity or his judgment. And when tidings came,--the tidings came in a letter from Phineas to his father,--that he did not intend to speak that session, because speeches from a young member on his first session were thought to be inexpedient, Miss Flood Jones and the Miss Finns were quite willing to accept the wisdom of this decision, much as they might regret the effect of it. Mary, when she met her hero, hardly dared to look him in the face, but she remembered accurately all the circumstances of her last interview with him. Could it be that he wore that ringlet near his heart? Mary had received from Barbara Finn certain hairs supposed to have come from the head of Phineas, and these she always wore near her own. And moreover, since she had seen Phineas she had refused an offer of marriage from Mr. Elias Bodkin,--had refused it almost ignominiously,--and when doing so had told herself that she would never be false to Phineas Finn. "We think it so good of you to come to see us again," she said. "Good to come home to my own people?" "Of course you might be staying with plenty of grandees if you liked it." "No, indeed, Mary. It did happen by accident that I had to go to the house of a man whom perhaps you would call a grandee, and to meet grandees there. But it was only for a few days, and I am very glad to be taken in again here, I can assure you." "You know how very glad we all are to have you." "Are you glad to see me, Mary?" "Very glad. Why should I not be glad, and Barbara the dearest friend I have in the world? Of course she talks about you,--and that makes me think of you." "If you knew, Mary, how often I think about you." Then Mary, who was very happy at hearing such words, and who was walking in to dinner with him at the moment, could not refrain herself from pressing his arm with her little fingers. She knew that Phineas in his position could not marry at once; but she would wait for him,--oh, for ever, if he would only ask her. He of course was a wicked traitor to tell her that he was wont to think of her. But Jove smiles at lovers' perjuries;--and it is well that he should do so, as such perjuries can hardly be avoided altogether in the difficult circumstances of a successful gentleman's life. Phineas was a traitor, of course, but he was almost forced to be a traitor, by the simple fact that Lady Laura Standish was in London, and Mary Flood Jones in Killaloe. He remained for nearly five months at Killaloe, and I doubt whether his time was altogether well spent. Some of the books recommended to him by Mr. Monk he probably did read, and was often to be found encompassed by blue books. I fear that there was a grain of pretence about his blue books and parliamentary papers, and that in these days he was, in a gentle way, something of an impostor. "You must not be angry with me for not going to you," he said once to Mary's mother when he had declined an invitation to drink tea; "but the fact is that my time is not my own." "Pray don't make any apologies. We are quite aware that we have very little to offer," said Mrs. Flood Jones, who was not altogether happy about Mary, and who perhaps knew more about members of Parliament and blue books than Phineas Finn had supposed. "Mary, you are a fool to think of that man," the mother said to her daughter the next morning. "I don't think of him, mamma; not particularly." "He is no better than anybody else that I can see, and he is beginning to give himself airs," said Mrs. Flood Jones. Mary made no answer; but she went up into her room and swore before a figure of the Virgin that she would be true to Phineas for ever and ever, in spite of her mother, in spite of all the world,--in spite, should it be necessary, even of himself. About Christmas time there came a discussion between Phineas and his father about money. "I hope you find you get on pretty well," said the doctor, who thought that he had been liberal. "It's a tight fit," said Phineas,--who was less afraid of his father than he had been when he last discussed these things. "I had hoped it would have been ample," said the doctor. "Don't think for a moment, sir, that I am complaining," said Phineas. "I know it is much more than I have a right to expect." The doctor began to make an inquiry within his own breast as to whether his son had a right to expect anything;--whether the time had not come in which his son should be earning his own bread. "I suppose," he said, after a pause, "there is no chance of your doing anything at the bar now?" "Not immediately. It is almost impossible to combine the two studies together." Mr. Low himself was aware of that. "But you are not to suppose that I have given the profession up." "I hope not,--after all the money it has cost us." "By no means, sir. And all that I am doing now will, I trust, be of assistance to me when I shall come back to work at the law. Of course it is on the cards that I may go into office,--and if so, public business will become my profession." "And be turned out with the Ministry!" "Yes; that is true, sir. I must run my chance. If the worst comes to the worst, I hope I might be able to secure some permanent place. I should think that I can hardly fail to do so. But I trust I may never be driven to want it. I thought, however, that we had settled all this before." Then Phineas assumed a look of injured innocence, as though his father was driving him too hard. "And in the mean time your money has been enough?" said the doctor, after a pause. "I had intended to ask you to advance me a hundred pounds," said Phineas. "There were expenses to which I was driven on first entering Parliament." "A hundred pounds." "If it be inconvenient, sir, I can do without it." He had not as yet paid for his gun, or for that velvet coat in which he had been shooting, or, most probably, for the knickerbockers. He knew he wanted the hundred pounds badly; but he felt ashamed of himself in asking for it. If he were once in office,--though the office were but a sorry junior lordship,--he would repay his father instantly. "You shall have it, of course," said the doctor; "but do not let the necessity for asking for more hundreds come oftener than you can help." Phineas said that he would not, and then there was no further discourse about money. It need hardly be said that he told his father nothing of that bill which he had endorsed for Laurence Fitzgibbon. At last came the time which called him again to London and the glories of London life,--to lobbies, and the clubs, and the gossip of men in office, and the chance of promotion for himself; to the glare of the gas-lamps, the mock anger of rival debaters, and the prospect of the Speaker's wig. During the idleness of the recess he had resolved at any rate upon this,--that a month of the session should not have passed by before he had been seen upon his legs in the House,--had been seen and heard. And many a time as he had wandered alone, with his gun, across the bogs which lie on the other side of the Shannon from Killaloe, he had practised the sort of address which he would make to the House. He would be short,--always short; and he would eschew all action and gesticulation; Mr. Monk had been very urgent in his instructions to him on that head; but he would be especially careful that no words should escape him which had not in them some purpose. He might be wrong in his purpose, but purpose there should be. He had been twitted more than once at Killaloe with his silence;--for it had been conceived by his fellow-townsmen that he had been sent to Parliament on the special ground of his eloquence. They should twit him no more on his next return. He would speak and would carry the House with him if a human effort might prevail. So he packed up his things, and started again for London in the beginning of February. "Good-bye, Mary," he said with his sweetest smile. But on this occasion there was no kiss, and no culling of locks. "I know he cannot help it," said Mary to herself. "It is his position. But whether it be for good or evil, I will be true to him." "I am afraid you are unhappy," Babara Finn said to her on the next morning. "No; I am not unhappy,--not at all. I have a deal to make me happy and proud. I don't mean to be a bit unhappy." Then she turned away and cried heartily, and Barbara Finn cried with her for company. CHAPTER XVII Phineas Finn Returns to London Phineas had received two letters during his recess at Killaloe from two women who admired him much, which, as they were both short, shall be submitted to the reader. The first was as follows:-- Saulsby, October 20, 186--. MY DEAR MR. FINN, I write a line to tell you that our marriage is to be hurried on as quickly as possible. Mr. Kennedy does not like to be absent from Parliament; nor will he be content to postpone the ceremony till the session be over. The day fixed is the 3rd of December, and we then go at once to Rome, and intend to be back in London by the opening of Parliament. Yours most sincerely, LAURA STANDISH. Our London address will be No. 52, Grosvenor Place. To this he wrote an answer as short, expressing his ardent wishes that those winter hymeneals might produce nothing but happiness, and saying that he would not be in town many days before he knocked at the door of No. 52, Grosvenor Place. And the second letter was as follows:-- Great Marlborough Street, December, 186--. DEAR AND HONOURED SIR, Bunce is getting ever so anxious about the rooms, and says as how he has a young Equity draftsman and wife and baby as would take the whole house, and all because Miss Pouncefoot said a word about her port wine, which any lady of her age might say in her tantrums, and mean nothing after all. Me and Miss Pouncefoot's knowed each other for seven years, and what's a word or two as isn't meant after that? But, honoured sir, it's not about that as I write to trouble you, but to ask if I may say for certain that you'll take the rooms again in February. It's easy to let them for the month after Christmas, because of the pantomimes. Only say at once, because Bunce is nagging me day after day. I don't want nobody's wife and baby to have to do for, and 'd sooner have a Parliament gent like yourself than any one else. Yours umbly and respectful, JANE BUNCE. To this he replied that he would certainly come back to the rooms in Great Marlborough Street, should he be lucky enough to find them vacant, and he expressed his willingness to take them on and from the 1st of February. And on the 3rd of February he found himself in the old quarters, Mrs. Bunce having contrived, with much conjugal adroitness, both to keep Miss Pouncefoot and to stave off the Equity draftsman's wife and baby. Bunce, however, received Phineas very coldly, and told his wife the same evening that as far as he could see their lodger would never turn up to be a trump in the matter of the ballot. "If he means well, why did he go and stay with them lords down in Scotland? I knows all about it. I knows a man when I sees him. Mr. Low, who's looking out to be a Tory judge some of these days, is a deal better;--because he knows what he's after." Immediately on his return to town, Phineas found himself summoned to a political meeting at Mr. Mildmay's house in St. James's Square. "We're going to begin in earnest this time," Barrington Erle said to him at the club. "I am glad of that," said Phineas. "I suppose you heard all about it down at Loughlinter?" Now, in truth, Phineas had heard very little of any settled plan down at Loughlinter. He had played a game of chess with Mr. Gresham, and had shot a stag with Mr. Palliser, and had discussed sheep with Lord Brentford, but had hardly heard a word about politics from any one of those influential gentlemen. From Mr. Monk he had heard much of a coming Reform Bill; but his communications with Mr. Monk had rather been private discussions,--in which he had learned Mr. Monk's own views on certain points,--than revelations on the intention of the party to which Mr. Monk belonged. "I heard of nothing settled," said Phineas; "but I suppose we are to have a Reform Bill." "That is a matter of course." "And I suppose we are not to touch the question of ballot." "That's the difficulty," said Barrington Erle. "But of course we shan't touch it as long as Mr. Mildmay is in the Cabinet. He will never consent to the ballot as First Minister of the Crown." "Nor would Gresham, or Palliser," said Phineas, who did not choose to bring forward his greatest gun at first. "I don't know about Gresham. It is impossible to say what Gresham might bring himself to do. Gresham is a man who may go any lengths before he has done. Planty Pall,"--for such was the name by which Mr. Plantagenet Palliser was ordinarily known among his friends,--"would of course go with Mr. Mildmay and the Duke." "And Monk is opposed to the ballot," said Phineas. "Ah, that's the question. No doubt he has assented to the proposition of a measure without the ballot; but if there should come a row, and men like Turnbull demand it, and the London mob kick up a shindy, I don't know how far Monk would be steady." "Whatever he says, he'll stick to." "He is your leader, then?" asked Barrington. "I don't know that I have a leader. Mr. Mildmay leads our side; and if anybody leads me, he does. But I have great faith in Mr. Monk." "There's one who would go for the ballot to-morrow, if it were brought forward stoutly," said Barrington Erle to Mr. Ratler a few minutes afterwards, pointing to Phineas as he spoke. "I don't think much of that young man," said Ratler. Mr. Bonteen and Mr. Ratler had put their heads together during that last evening at Loughlinter, and had agreed that they did not think much of Phineas Finn. Why did Mr. Kennedy go down off the mountain to get him a pony? And why did Mr. Gresham play chess with him? Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen may have been right in making up their minds to think but little of Phineas Finn, but Barrington Erle had been quite wrong when he had said that Phineas would "go for the ballot" to-morrow. Phineas had made up his mind very strongly that he would always oppose the ballot. That he would hold the same opinion throughout his life, no one should pretend to say; but in his present mood, and under the tuition which he had received from Mr. Monk, he was prepared to demonstrate, out of the House and in it, that the ballot was, as a political measure, unmanly, ineffective, and enervating. Enervating had been a great word with Mr. Monk, and Phineas had clung to it with admiration. The meeting took place at Mr. Mildmay's on the third day of the session. Phineas had of course heard of such meetings before, but had never attended one. Indeed, there had been no such gathering when Mr. Mildmay's party came into power early in the last session. Mr. Mildmay and his men had then made their effort in turning out their opponents, and had been well pleased to rest awhile upon their oars. Now, however, they must go again to work, and therefore the liberal party was collected at Mr. Mildmay's house, in order that the liberal party might be told what it was that Mr. Mildmay and his Cabinet intended to do. Phineas Finn was quite in the dark as to what would be the nature of the performance on this occasion, and entertained some idea that every gentleman present would be called upon to express individually his assent or dissent in regard to the measure proposed. He walked to St. James's Square with Laurence Fitzgibbon; but even with Fitzgibbon was ashamed to show his ignorance by asking questions. "After all," said Fitzgibbon, "this kind of thing means nothing. I know as well as possible, and so do you, what Mr. Mildmay will say,--and then Gresham will say a few words; and then Turnbull will make a murmur, and then we shall all assent,--to anything or to nothing;--and then it will be over." Still Phineas did not understand whether the assent required would or would not be an individual personal assent. When the affair was over he found that he was disappointed, and that he might almost as well have stayed away from the meeting,--except that he had attended at Mr. Mildmay's bidding, and had given a silent adhesion to Mr. Mildmay's plan of reform for that session. Laurence Fitzgibbon had been very nearly correct in his description of what would occur. Mr. Mildmay made a long speech. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical of the day,--the man who was supposed to represent what many called the Manchester school of politics,--asked half a dozen questions. In answer to these Mr. Gresham made a short speech. Then Mr. Mildmay made another speech, and then all was over. The gist of the whole thing was, that there should be a Reform Bill,--very generous in its enlargement of the franchise,--but no ballot. Mr. Turnbull expressed his doubt whether this would be satisfactory to the country; but even Mr. Turnbull was soft in his tone and complaisant in his manner. As there was no reporter present,--that plan of turning private meetings at gentlemen's houses into public assemblies not having been as yet adopted,--there could be no need for energy or violence. They went to Mr. Mildmay's house to hear Mr. Mildmay's plan,--and they heard it. Two days after this Phineas was to dine with Mr. Monk. Mr. Monk had asked him in the lobby of the House. "I don't give dinner parties," he said, "but I should like you to come and meet Mr. Turnbull." Phineas accepted the invitation as a matter of course. There were many who said that Mr. Turnbull was the greatest man in the nation, and that the nation could be saved only by a direct obedience to Mr. Turnbull's instructions. Others said that Mr. Turnbull was a demagogue and at heart a rebel; that he was un-English, false and very dangerous. Phineas was rather inclined to believe the latter statement; and as danger and dangerous men are always more attractive than safety and safe men, he was glad to have an opportunity of meeting Mr. Turnbull at dinner. In the meantime he went to call on Lady Laura, whom he had not seen since the last evening which he spent in her company at Loughlinter,--whom, when he was last speaking to her, he had kissed close beneath the falls of the Linter. He found her at home, and with her was her husband. "Here is a Darby and Joan meeting, is it not?" she said, getting up to welcome him. He had seen Mr. Kennedy before, and had been standing close to him during the meeting at Mr. Mildmay's. "I am very glad to find you both together." "But Robert is going away this instant," said Lady Laura. "Has he told you of our adventures at Rome?" "Not a word." "Then I must tell you;--but not now. The dear old Pope was so civil to us. I came to think it quite a pity that he should be in trouble." "I must be off," said the husband, getting up. "But I shall meet you at dinner, I believe." "Do you dine at Mr. Monk's?" "Yes, and am asked expressly to hear Turnbull make a convert of you. There are only to be us four. Au revoir." Then Mr. Kennedy went, and Phineas found himself alone with Lady Laura. He hardly knew how to address her, and remained silent. He had not prepared himself for the interview as he ought to have done, and felt himself to be awkward. She evidently expected him to speak, and for a few seconds sat waiting for what he might say. At last she found that it was incumbent on her to begin. "Were you surprised at our suddenness when you got my note?" "A little. You had spoken of waiting." "I had never imagined that he would have been impetuous. And he seems to think that even the business of getting himself married would not justify him staying away from Parliament. He is a rigid martinet in all matters of duty." "I did not wonder that he should be in a hurry, but that you should submit." "I told you that I should do just what the wise people told me. I asked papa, and he said that it would be better. So the lawyers were driven out of their minds, and the milliners out of their bodies, and the thing was done." "Who was there at the marriage?" "Oswald was not there. That I know is what you mean to ask. Papa said that he might come if he pleased. Oswald stipulated that he should be received as a son. Then my father spoke the hardest word that ever fell from his mouth." "What did he say?" "I will not repeat it,--not altogether. But he said that Oswald was not entitled to a son's treatment. He was very sore about my money, because Robert was so generous as to his settlement. So the breach between them is as wide as ever." "And where is Chiltern now?" said Phineas. "Down in Northamptonshire, staying at some inn from whence he hunts. He tells me that he is quite alone,--that he never dines out, never has any one to dine with him, that he hunts five or six days a week,--and reads at night." "That is not a bad sort of life." "Not if the reading is any good. But I cannot bear that he should be so solitary. And if he breaks down in it, then his companions will not be fit for him. Do you ever hunt?" "Oh yes,--at home in county Clare. All Irishmen hunt." "I wish you would go down to him and see him. He would be delighted to have you." Phineas thought over the proposition before he answered it, and then made the reply that he had made once before. "I would do so, Lady Laura,--but that I have no money for hunting in England." "Alas, alas!" said she, smiling. "How that hits one on every side!" "I might manage it,--for a couple of days,--in March." "Do not do what you think you ought not to do," said Lady Laura. "No; certainly. But I should like it, and if I can I will." "He could mount you, I have no doubt. He has no other expense now, and keeps a stable full of horses. I think he has seven or eight. And now tell me, Mr. Finn; when are you going to charm the House? Or is it your first intention to strike terror?" He blushed,--he knew that he blushed as he answered. "Oh, I suppose I shall make some sort of attempt before long. I can't bear the idea of being a bore." "I think you ought to speak, Mr. Finn." "I do not know about that, but I certainly mean to try. There will be lots of opportunities about the new Reform Bill. Of course you know that Mr. Mildmay is going to bring it in at once. You hear all that from Mr. Kennedy." "And papa has told me. I still see papa almost every day. You must call upon him. Mind you do." Phineas said that he certainly would. "Papa is very lonely now, and I sometimes feel that I have been almost cruel in deserting him. And I think that he has a horror of the house,--especially later in the year,--always fancying that he will meet Oswald. I am so unhappy about it all, Mr. Finn." "Why doesn't your brother marry?" said Phineas, knowing nothing as yet of Lord Chiltern and Violet Effingham. "If he were to marry well, that would bring your father round." "Yes,--it would." "And why should he not?" Lady Laura paused before she answered; and then she told the whole story. "He is violently in love, and the girl he loves has refused him twice." "Is it with Miss Effingham?" asked Phineas, guessing the truth at once, and remembering what Miss Effingham had said to him when riding in the wood. "Yes;--with Violet Effingham; my father's pet, his favourite, whom he loves next to myself,--almost as well as myself; whom he would really welcome as a daughter. He would gladly make her mistress of his house, and of Saulsby. Everything would then go smoothly." "But she does not like Lord Chiltern?" "I believe she loves him in her heart; but she is afraid of him. As she says herself, a girl is bound to be so careful of herself. With all her seeming frolic, Violet Effingham is very wise." Phineas, though not conscious of anything akin to jealousy, was annoyed at the revelation made to him. Since he had heard that Lord Chiltern was in love with Miss Effingham, he did not like Lord Chiltern quite as well as he had done before. He himself had simply admired Miss Effingham, and had taken pleasure in her society; but, though this had been all, he did not like to hear of another man wanting to marry her, and he was almost angry with Lady Laura for saying that she believed Miss Effingham loved her brother. If Miss Effingham had twice refused Lord Chiltern, that ought to have been sufficient. It was not that Phineas was in love with Miss Effingham himself. As he was still violently in love with Lady Laura, any other love was of course impossible; but, nevertheless, there was something offensive to him in the story as it had been told. "If it be wisdom on her part," said he, answering Lady Laura's last words, "you cannot find fault with her for her decision." "I find no fault;--but I think my brother would make her happy." Lady Laura, when she was left alone, at once reverted to the tone in which Phineas Finn had answered her remarks about Miss Effingham. Phineas was very ill able to conceal his thoughts, and wore his heart almost upon his sleeve. "Can it be possible that he cares for her himself?" That was the nature of Lady Laura's first question to herself upon the matter. And in asking herself that question, she thought nothing of the disparity in rank or fortune between Phineas Finn and Violet Effingham. Nor did it occur to her as at all improbable that Violet might accept the love of him who had so lately been her own lover. But the idea grated against her wishes on two sides. She was most anxious that Violet should ultimately become her brother's wife,--and she could not be pleased that Phineas should be able to love any woman. I must beg my readers not to be carried away by those last words into any erroneous conclusion. They must not suppose that Lady Laura Kennedy, the lately married bride, indulged a guilty passion for the young man who had loved her. Though she had probably thought often of Phineas Finn since her marriage, her thoughts had never been of a nature to disturb her rest. It had never occurred to her even to think that she regarded him with any feeling that was an offence to her husband. She would have hated herself had any such idea presented itself to her mind. She prided herself on being a pure high-principled woman, who had kept so strong a guard upon herself as to be nearly free from the dangers of those rocks upon which other women made shipwreck of their happiness. She took pride in this, and would then blame herself for her own pride. But though she so blamed herself, it never occurred to her to think that to her there might be danger of such shipwreck. She had put away from herself the idea of love when she had first perceived that Phineas had regarded her with more than friendship, and had accepted Mr. Kennedy's offer with an assured conviction that by doing so she was acting best for her own happiness and for that of all those concerned. She had felt the romance of the position to be sweet when Phineas had stood with her at the top of the falls of the Linter, and had told her of the hopes which he had dared to indulge. And when at the bottom of the falls he had presumed to take her in his arms, she had forgiven him without difficulty to herself, telling herself that that would be the alpha and the omega of the romance of her life. She had not felt herself bound to tell Mr. Kennedy of what had occurred,--but she had felt that he could hardly have been angry even had he been told. And she had often thought of her lover since, and of his love,--telling herself that she too had once had a lover, never regarding her husband in that light; but her thoughts had not frightened her as guilty thoughts will do. There had come a romance which had been pleasant, and it was gone. It had been soon banished,--but it had left to her a sweet flavour, of which she loved to taste the sweetness though she knew that it was gone. And the man should be her friend, but especially her husband's friend. It should be her care to see that his life was successful,--and especially her husband's care. It was a great delight to her to know that her husband liked the man. And the man would marry, and the man's wife should be her friend. All this had been very pure and very pleasant. Now an idea had flitted across her brain that the man was in love with some one else,--and she did not like it! But she did not therefore become afraid of herself, or in the least realise at once the danger of her own position. Her immediate glance at the matter did not go beyond the falseness of men. If it were so, as she suspected,--if Phineas had in truth transferred his affections to Violet Effingham, of how little value was the love of such a man! It did not occur to her at this moment that she also had transferred hers to Robert Kennedy, or that, if not, she had done worse. But she did remember that in the autumn this young Phoebus among men had turned his back upon her out upon the mountain that he might hide from her the agony of his heart when he learned that she was to be the wife of another man; and that now, before the winter was over, he could not hide from her the fact that his heart was elsewhere! And then she speculated, and counted up facts, and satisfied herself that Phineas could not even have seen Violet Effingham since they two had stood together upon the mountain. How false are men!--how false and how weak of heart! "Chiltern and Violet Effingham!" said Phineas to himself, as he walked away from Grosvenor Place. "Is it fair that she should be sacrificed because she is rich, and because she is so winning and so fascinating that Lord Brentford would receive even his son for the sake of receiving also such a daughter-in-law?" Phineas also liked Lord Chiltern; had seen or fancied that he had seen fine things in him; had looked forward to his regeneration, hoping, perhaps, that he might have some hand in the good work. But he did not recognise the propriety of sacrificing Violet Effingham even for work so good as this. If Miss Effingham had refused Lord Chiltern twice, surely that ought to be sufficient. It did not occur to him that the love of such a girl as Violet would be a great treasure--to himself. As regarded himself, he was still in love,--hopelessly in love, with Lady Laura Kennedy! CHAPTER XVIII Mr. Turnbull It was a Wednesday evening and there was no House;--and at seven o'clock Phineas was at Mr. Monk's hall door. He was the first of the guests, and he found Mr. Monk alone in the dining-room. "I am doing butler," said Mr. Monk, who had a brace of decanters in his hands, which he proceeded to put down in the neighbourhood of the fire. "But I have finished, and now we will go up-stairs to receive the two great men properly." "I beg your pardon for coming too early," said Finn. "Not a minute too early. Seven is seven, and it is I who am too late. But, Lord bless you, you don't think I'm ashamed of being found in the act of decanting my own wine! I remember Lord Palmerston saying before some committee about salaries, five or six years ago now, I daresay, that it wouldn't do for an English Minister to have his hall door opened by a maid-servant. Now, I'm an English Minister, and I've got nobody but a maid-servant to open my hall door, and I'm obliged to look after my own wine. I wonder whether it's improper? I shouldn't like to be the means of injuring the British Constitution." "Perhaps if you resign soon, and if nobody follows your example, grave evil results may be avoided." "I sincerely hope so, for I do love the British Constitution; and I love also the respect in which members of the English Cabinet are held. Now Turnbull, who will be here in a moment, hates it all; but he is a rich man, and has more powdered footmen hanging about his house than ever Lord Palmerston had himself." "He is still in business." "Oh yes;--and makes his thirty thousand a year. Here he is. How are you, Turnbull? We were talking about my maid-servant. I hope she opened the door for you properly." "Certainly,--as far as I perceived," said Mr. Turnbull, who was better at a speech than a joke. "A very respectable young woman I should say." "There is not one more so in all London," said Mr. Monk; "but Finn seems to think that I ought to have a man in livery." "It is a matter of perfect indifference to me," said Mr. Turnbull. "I am one of those who never think of such things." "Nor I either," said Mr. Monk. Then the laird of Loughlinter was announced, and they all went down to dinner. Mr. Turnbull was a good-looking robust man about sixty, with long grey hair and a red complexion, with hard eyes, a well-cut nose, and full lips. He was nearly six feet high, stood quite upright, and always wore a black swallow-tail coat, black trousers, and a black silk waistcoat. In the House, at least, he was always so dressed, and at dinner tables. What difference there might be in his costume when at home at Staleybridge few of those who saw him in London had the means of knowing. There was nothing in his face to indicate special talent. No one looking at him would take him to be a fool; but there was none of the fire of genius in his eye, nor was there in the lines of his mouth any of that play of thought or fancy which is generally to be found in the faces of men and women who have made themselves great. Mr. Turnbull had certainly made himself great, and could hardly have done so without force of intellect. He was one of the most popular, if not the most popular politician in the country. Poor men believed in him, thinking that he was their most honest public friend; and men who were not poor believed in his power, thinking that his counsels must surely prevail. He had obtained the ear of the House and the favour of the reporters, and opened his voice at no public dinner, on no public platform, without a conviction that the words spoken by him would be read by thousands. The first necessity for good speaking is a large audience; and of this advantage Mr. Turnbull had made himself sure. And yet it could hardly be said that he was a great orator. He was gifted with a powerful voice, with strong, and I may, perhaps, call them broad convictions, with perfect self-reliance, with almost unlimited powers of endurance, with hot ambition, with no keen scruples, and with a moral skin of great thickness. Nothing said against him pained him, no attacks wounded him, no raillery touched him in the least. There was not a sore spot about him, and probably his first thoughts on waking every morning told him that he, at least, was totus teres atque rotundus. He was, of course, a thorough Radical,--and so was Mr. Monk. But Mr. Monk's first waking thoughts were probably exactly the reverse of those of his friend. Mr. Monk was a much hotter man in debate than Mr. Turnbull;--but Mr. Monk was ever doubting of himself, and never doubted of himself so much as when he had been most violent, and also most effective, in debate. When Mr. Monk jeered at himself for being a Cabinet Minister and keeping no attendant grander than a parlour-maid, there was a substratum of self-doubt under the joke. Mr. Turnbull was certainly a great Radical, and as such enjoyed a great reputation. I do not think that high office in the State had ever been offered to him; but things had been said which justified him, or seemed to himself to justify him, in declaring that in no possible circumstances would he serve the Crown. "I serve the people," he had said, "and much as I respect the servants of the Crown, I think that my own office is the higher." He had been greatly called to task for this speech; and Mr. Mildmay, the present Premier, had asked him whether he did not recognise the so-called servants of the Crown as the most hard-worked and truest servants of the people. The House and the press had supported Mr. Mildmay, but to all that Mr. Turnbull was quite indifferent; and when an assertion made by him before three or four thousand persons at Manchester, to the effect that he,--he specially,--was the friend and servant of the people, was received with acclamation, he felt quite satisfied that he had gained his point. Progressive reform in the franchise, of which manhood suffrage should be the acknowledged and not far distant end, equal electoral districts, ballot, tenant right for England as well as Ireland, reduction of the standing army till there should be no standing army to reduce, utter disregard of all political movements in Europe, an almost idolatrous admiration for all political movements in America, free trade in everything except malt, and an absolute extinction of a State Church,--these were among the principal articles in Mr. Turnbull's political catalogue. And I think that when once he had learned the art of arranging his words as he stood upon his legs, and had so mastered his voice as to have obtained the ear of the House, the work of his life was not difficult. Having nothing to construct, he could always deal with generalities. Being free from responsibility, he was not called upon either to study details or to master even great facts. It was his business to inveigh against existing evils, and perhaps there is no easier business when once the privilege of an audience has been attained. It was his work to cut down forest-trees, and he had nothing to do with the subsequent cultivation of the land. Mr. Monk had once told Phineas Finn how great were the charms of that inaccuracy which was permitted to the Opposition. Mr. Turnbull no doubt enjoyed these charms to the full, though he would sooner have put a padlock on his mouth for a month than have owned as much. Upon the whole, Mr. Turnbull was no doubt right in resolving that he would not take office, though some reticence on that subject might have been more becoming to him. The conversation at dinner, though it was altogether on political subjects, had in it nothing of special interest as long as the girl was there to change the plates; but when she was gone, and the door was closed, it gradually opened out, and there came on to be a pleasant sparring match between the two great Radicals,--the Radical who had joined himself to the governing powers, and the Radical who stood aloof. Mr. Kennedy barely said a word now and then, and Phineas was almost as silent as Mr. Kennedy. He had come there to hear some such discussion, and was quite willing to listen while guns of such great calibre were being fired off for his amusement. "I think Mr. Mildmay is making a great step forward," said Mr. Turnbull. "I think he is," said Mr. Monk. "I did not believe that he would ever live to go so far. It will hardly suffice even for this year; but still coming from him, it is a great deal. It only shows how far a man may be made to go, if only the proper force be applied. After all, it matters very little who are the Ministers." "That is what I have always declared," said Mr. Monk. "Very little indeed. We don't mind whether it be Lord de Terrier, or Mr. Mildmay, or Mr. Gresham, or you yourself, if you choose to get yourself made First Lord of the Treasury." "I have no such ambition, Turnbull." "I should have thought you had. If I went in for that kind of thing myself, I should like to go to the top of the ladder. I should feel that if I could do any good at all by becoming a Minister, I could only do it by becoming first Minister." "You wouldn't doubt your own fitness for such a position?" "I doubt my fitness for the position of any Minister," said Mr. Turnbull. "You mean that on other grounds," said Mr. Kennedy. "I mean it on every ground," said Mr. Turnbull, rising on his legs and standing with his back to the fire. "Of course I am not fit to have diplomatic intercourse with men who would come to me simply with the desire of deceiving me. Of course I am unfit to deal with members of Parliament who would flock around me because they wanted places. Of course I am unfit to answer every man's question so as to give no information to any one." "Could you not answer them so as to give information?" said Mr. Kennedy. But Mr. Turnbull was so intent on his speech that it may be doubted whether he heard this interruption. He took no notice of it as he went on. "Of course I am unfit to maintain the proprieties of a seeming confidence between a Crown all-powerless and a people all-powerful. No man recognises his own unfitness for such work more clearly than I do, Mr. Monk. But if I took in hand such work at all, I should like to be the leader, and not the led. Tell us fairly, now, what are your convictions worth in Mr. Mildmay's Cabinet?" "That is a question which a man may hardly answer himself," said Mr. Monk. "It is a question which a man should at least answer for himself before he consents to sit there," said Mr. Turnbull, in a tone of voice which was almost angry. "And what reason have you for supposing that I have omitted that duty?" said Mr. Monk. "Simply this,--that I cannot reconcile your known opinions with the practices of your colleagues." "I will not tell you what my convictions may be worth in Mr. Mildmay's Cabinet. I will not take upon myself to say that they are worth the chair on which I sit when I am there. But I will tell you what my aspirations were when I consented to fill that chair, and you shall judge of their worth. I thought that they might possibly leaven the batch of bread which we have to bake,--giving to the whole batch more of the flavour of reform than it would have possessed had I absented myself. I thought that when I was asked to join Mr. Mildmay and Mr. Gresham, the very fact of that request indicated liberal progress, and that if I refused the request I should be declining to assist in good work." "You could have supported them, if anything were proposed worthy of support," said Mr. Turnbull. "Yes; but I could not have been so effective in taking care that some measure be proposed worthy of support as I may possibly be now. I thought a good deal about it, and I believe that my decision was right." "I am sure you were right," said Mr. Kennedy. "There can be no juster object of ambition than a seat in the Cabinet," said Phineas. "Sir, I must dispute that," said Mr. Turnbull, turning round upon our hero. "I regard the position of our high Ministers as most respectable." "Thank you for so much," said Mr. Monk. But the orator went on again, regardless of the interruption:-- "The position of gentlemen in inferior offices,--of gentlemen who attend rather to the nods and winks of their superiors in Downing Street than to the interest of their constituents,--I do not regard as being highly respectable." "A man cannot begin at the top," said Phineas. "Our friend Mr. Monk has begun at what you are pleased to call the top," said Mr. Turnbull. "But I will not profess to think that even he has raised himself by going into office. To be an independent representative of a really popular commercial constituency is, in my estimation, the highest object of an Englishman's ambition." "But why commercial, Mr. Turnbull?" said Mr. Kennedy. "Because the commercial constituencies really do elect their own members in accordance with their own judgments, whereas the counties and the small towns are coerced either by individuals or by a combination of aristocratic influences." "And yet," said Mr. Kennedy, "there are not half a dozen Conservatives returned by all the counties in Scotland." "Scotland is very much to be honoured," said Mr. Turnbull. Mr. Kennedy was the first to take his departure, and Mr. Turnbull followed him very quickly. Phineas got up to go at the same time, but stayed at his host's request, and sat for awhile smoking a cigar. "Turnbull is a wonderful man," said Mr. Monk. "Does he not domineer too much?" "His fault is not arrogance, so much as ignorance that there is, or should be, a difference between public and private life. In the House of Commons a man in Mr. Turnbull's position must speak with dictatorial assurance. He is always addressing, not the House only, but the country at large, and the country will not believe in him unless he believe in himself. But he forgets that he is not always addressing the country at large. I wonder what sort of a time Mrs. Turnbull and the little Turnbulls have of it?" Phineas, as he went home, made up his mind that Mrs. Turnbull and the little Turnbulls must probably have a bad time of it. CHAPTER XIX Lord Chiltern Rides His Horse Bonebreaker It was known that whatever might be the details of Mr. Mildmay's bill, the ballot would not form a part of it; and as there was a strong party in the House of Commons, and a very numerous party out of it, who were desirous that voting by ballot should be made a part of the electoral law, it was decided that an independent motion should be brought on in anticipation of Mr. Mildmay's bill. The arrangement was probably one of Mr. Mildmay's own making; so that he might be hampered by no opposition on that subject by his own followers if,--as he did not doubt,--the motion should be lost. It was expected that the debate would not last over one night, and Phineas resolved that he would make his maiden speech on this occasion. He had very strong opinions as to the inefficacy of the ballot for any good purposes, and thought that he might be able to strike out from his convictions some sparks of that fire which used to be so plentiful with him at the old debating clubs. But even at breakfast that morning his heart began to beat quickly at the idea of having to stand on his legs before so critical an audience. He knew that it would be well that he should if possible get the subject off his mind during the day, and therefore went out among the people who certainly would not talk to him about the ballot. He sat for nearly an hour in the morning with Mr. Low, and did not even tell Mr. Low that it was his intention to speak on that day. Then he made one or two other calls, and at about three went up to Portman Square to look for Lord Chiltern. It was now nearly the end of February, and Phineas had often seen Lady Laura. He had not seen her brother, but had learned from his sister that he had been driven up to London by the frost, He was told by the porter at Lord Brentford's that Lord Chiltern was in the house, and as he was passing through the hall he met Lord Brentford himself. He was thus driven to speak, and felt himself called upon to explain why he was there. "I am come to see Lord Chiltern," he said. "Is Lord Chiltern in the house?" said the Earl, turning to the servant. "Yes, my lord; his lordship arrived last night." "You will find him upstairs, I suppose," said the Earl. "For myself I know nothing of him." He spoke in an angry tone, as though he resented the fact that any one should come to his house to call upon his son; and turned his back quickly upon Phineas. But he thought better of it before he reached the front door, and turned again. "By-the-bye," said he, "what majority shall we have to-night, Finn?" "Pretty nearly as many as you please to name, my lord," said Phineas. "Well;--yes; I suppose we are tolerably safe. You ought to speak upon it." "Perhaps I may," said Phineas, feeling that he blushed as he spoke. "Do," said the Earl. "Do. If you see Lord Chiltern will you tell him from me that I should be glad to see him before he leaves London. I shall be at home till noon to-morrow." Phineas, much astonished at the commission given to him, of course said that he would do as he was desired, and then passed on to Lord Chiltern's apartments. He found his friend standing in the middle of the room, without coat and waistcoat, with a pair of dumb-bells in his hands. "When there's no hunting I'm driven to this kind of thing," said Lord Chiltern. "I suppose it's good exercise," said Phineas. "And it gives me something to do. When I'm in London I feel like a gipsy in church, till the time comes for prowling out at night. I've no occupation for my days whatever, and no place to which I can take myself. I can't stand in a club window as some men do, and I should disgrace any decent club if I did stand there. I belong to the Travellers, but I doubt whether the porter would let me go in." "I think you pique yourself on being more of an outer Bohemian than you are," said Phineas. "I pique myself on this, that whether Bohemian or not, I will go nowhere that I am not wanted. Though,--for the matter of that, I suppose I'm not wanted here." Then Phineas gave him the message from his father. "He wishes to see me to-morrow morning?" continued Lord Chiltern. "Let him send me word what it is he has to say to me. I do not choose to be insulted by him, though he is my father." "I would certainly go, if I were you." "I doubt it very much, if all the circumstances were the same. Let him tell me what he wants." "Of course I cannot ask him, Chiltern." "I know what he wants very well. Laura has been interfering and doing no good. You know Violet Effingham?" "Yes; I know her," said Phineas, much surprised. "They want her to marry me." "And you do not wish to marry her?" "I did not say that. But do you think that such a girl as Miss Effingham would marry such a man as I am? She would be much more likely to take you. By George, she would! Do you know that she has three thousand a year of her own?" "I know that she has money." "That's about the tune of it. I would take her without a shilling to-morrow, if she would have me,--because I like her. She is the only girl I ever did like. But what is the use of my liking her? They have painted me so black among them, especially my father, that no decent girl would think of marrying me." "Your father can't be angry with you if you do your best to comply with his wishes." "I don't care a straw whether he be angry or not. He allows me eight hundred a year, and he knows that if he stopped it I should go to the Jews the next day. I could not help myself. He can't leave an acre away from me, and yet he won't join me in raising money for the sake of paying Laura her fortune." "Lady Laura can hardly want money now." "That detestable prig whom she has chosen to marry, and whom I hate with all my heart, is richer than ever Croesus was; but nevertheless Laura ought to have her own money. She shall have it some day." "I would see Lord Brentford, if I were you." "I will think about it. Now tell me about coming down to Willingford. Laura says you will come some day in March. I can mount you for a couple of days and should be delighted to have you. My horses all pull like the mischief, and rush like devils, and want a deal of riding; but an Irishman likes that." "I do not dislike it particularly." "I like it. I prefer to have something to do on horseback. When a man tells me that a horse is an armchair, I always tell him to put the brute into his bedroom. Mind you come. The house I stay at is called the Willingford Bull, and it's just four miles from Peterborough." Phineas swore that he would go down and ride the pulling horses, and then took his leave, earnestly advising Lord Chiltern, as he went, to keep the appointment proposed by his father. When the morning came, at half-past eleven, the son, who had been standing for half an hour with his back to the fire in the large gloomy dining-room, suddenly rang the bell. "Tell the Earl," he said to the servant, "that I am here and will go to him if he wishes it." The servant came back, and said that the Earl was waiting. Then Lord Chiltern strode after the man into his father's room. "Oswald," said the father, "I have sent for you because I think it may be as well to speak to you on some business. Will you sit down?" Lord Chiltern sat down, but did not answer a word. "I feel very unhappy about your sister's fortune," said the Earl. "So do I,--very unhappy. We can raise the money between us, and pay her to-morrow, if you please it." "It was in opposition to my advice that she paid your debts." "And in opposition to mine too." "I told her that I would not pay them, and were I to give her back to-morrow, as you say, the money that she has so used, I should be stultifying myself. But I will do so on one condition. I will join with you in raising the money for your sister, on one condition." "What is that?" "Laura tells me,--indeed she has told me often,--that you are attached to Violet Effingham." "But Violet Effingham, my lord, is unhappily not attached to me." "I do not know how that may be. Of course I cannot say. I have never taken the liberty of interrogating her upon the subject." "Even you, my lord, could hardly have done that." "What do you mean by that? I say that I never have," said the Earl, angrily. "I simply mean that even you could hardly have asked Miss Effingham such a question. I have asked her, and she has refused me." "But girls often do that, and yet accept afterwards the men whom they have refused. Laura tells me that she believes that Violet would consent if you pressed your suit." "Laura knows nothing about it, my lord." "There you are probably wrong. Laura and Violet are very close friends, and have no doubt discussed this matter between them. At any rate, it may be as well that you should hear what I have to say. Of course I shall not interfere myself. There is no ground on which I can do so with propriety." "None whatever," said Lord Chiltern. The Earl became very angry, and nearly broke down in his anger. He paused for a moment, feeling disposed to tell his son to go and never to see him again. But he gulped down his wrath, and went on with his speech. "My meaning, sir, is this;--that I have so great faith in Violet Effingham, that I would receive her acceptance of your hand as the only proof which would be convincing to me of amendment in your mode of life. If she were to do so, I would join with you in raising money to pay your sister, would make some further sacrifice with reference to an income for you and your wife, and--would make you both welcome to Saulsby,--if you chose to come." The Earl's voice hesitated much and became almost tremulous as he made the last proposition. And his eyes had fallen away from his son's gaze, and he had bent a little over the table, and was moved. But he recovered himself at once, and added, with all proper dignity, "If you have anything to say I shall be glad to hear it." "All your offers would be nothing, my lord, if I did not like the girl." "I should not ask you to marry a girl if you did not like her, as you call it." "But as to Miss Effingham, it happens that our wishes jump together. I have asked her, and she has refused me. I don't even know where to find her to ask her again. If I went to Lady Baldock's house the servants would not let me in." "And whose fault is that?" "Yours partly, my lord. You have told everybody that I am the devil, and now all the old women believe it." "I never told anybody so." "I'll tell you what I'll do. I will go down to Lady Baldock's to-day. I suppose she is at Baddingham. And if I can get speech of Miss Effingham--" "Miss Effingham is not at Baddingham. Miss Effingham is staying with your sister in Grosvenor Place. I saw her yesterday." "She is in London?" "I tell you that I saw her yesterday." "Very well, my lord. Then I will do the best I can. Laura will tell you of the result." The father would have given the son some advice as to the mode in which he should put forward his claim upon Violet's hand, but the son would not wait to hear it. Choosing to presume that the conference was over, he went back to the room in which he had kept his dumb-bells, and for a minute or two went to work at his favourite exercise. But he soon put the dumb-bells down, and began to prepare himself for his work. If this thing was to be done, it might as well be done at once. He looked out of his window, and saw that the streets were in a mess of slush. White snow was becoming black mud, as it will do in London; and the violence of frost was giving way to the horrors of thaw. All would be soft and comparatively pleasant in Northamptonshire on the following morning, and if everything went right he would breakfast at the Willingford Bull. He would go down by the hunting train, and be at the inn by ten. The meet was only six miles distant, and all would be pleasant. He would do this whatever might be the result of his work to-day;--but in the meantime he would go and do his work. He had a cab called, and within half an hour of the time at which he had left his father, he was at the door of his sister's house in Grosvenor Place. The servants told him that the ladies were at lunch. "I can't eat lunch," he said. "Tell them that I am in the drawing-room." "He has come to see you," said Lady Laura, as soon as the servant had left the room. "I hope not," said Violet. "Do not say that." "But I do say it. I hope he has not come to see me;--that is, not to see me specially. Of course I cannot pretend not to know what you mean." "He may think it civil to call if he has heard that you are in town," said Lady Laura, after a pause. "If it be only that, I will be civil in return;--as sweet as May to him. If it be really only that, and if I were sure of it, I should be really glad to see him." Then they finished their lunch, and Lady Laura got up and led the way to the drawing-room. "I hope you remember," said she, gravely, "that you might be a saviour to him." "I do not believe in girls being saviours to men. It is the man who should be the saviour to the girl. If I marry at all, I have the right to expect that protection shall be given to me,--not that I shall have to give it." "Violet, you are determined to misrepresent what I mean." Lord Chiltern was walking about the room, and did not sit down when they entered. The ordinary greetings took place, and Miss Effingham made some remark about the frost. "But it seems to be going," she said, "and I suppose that you will soon be at work again?" "Yes;--I shall hunt to-morrow," said Lord Chiltern. "And the next day, and the next, and the next," said Violet, "till about the middle of April;--and then your period of misery will begin!" "Exactly," said Lord Chiltern. "I have nothing but hunting that I can call an occupation." "Why don't you make one?" said his sister. "I mean to do so, if it be possible. Laura, would you mind leaving me and Miss Effingham alone for a few minutes?" Lady Laura got up, and so also did Miss Effingham. "For what purpose?" said the latter. "It cannot be for any good purpose." "At any rate I wish it, and I will not harm you." Lady Laura was now going, but paused before she reached the door. "Laura, will you do as I ask you?" said the brother. Then Lady Laura went. "It was not that I feared you would harm me, Lord Chiltern," said Violet. "No;--I know it was not. But what I say is always said awkwardly. An hour ago I did not know that you were in town, but when I was told the news I came at once. My father told me." "I am so glad that you see your father." "I have not spoken to him for months before, and probably may not speak to him for months again. But there is one point, Violet, on which he and I agree." "I hope there will soon be many." "It is possible,--but I fear not probable. Look here, Violet,"--and he looked at her with all his eyes, till it seemed to her that he was all eyes, so great was the intensity of his gaze;--"I should scorn myself were I to permit myself to come before you with a plea for your favour founded on my father's whims. My father is unreasonable, and has been very unjust to me. He has ever believed evil of me, and has believed it often when all the world knew that he was wrong. I care little for being reconciled to a father who has been so cruel to me." "He loves me dearly, and is my friend. I would rather that you should not speak against him to me." "You will understand, at least, that I am asking nothing from you because he wishes it. Laura probably has told you that you may make things straight by becoming my wife." "She has,--certainly, Lord Chiltern." "It is an argument that she should never have used. It is an argument to which you should not listen for a moment. Make things straight indeed! Who can tell? There would be very little made straight by such a marriage, if it were not that I loved you. Violet, that is my plea, and my only one. I love you so well that I do believe that if you took me I should return to the old ways, and become as other men are, and be in time as respectable, as stupid,--and perhaps as ill-natured as old Lady Baldock herself." "My poor aunt!" "You know she says worse things of me than that. Now, dearest, you have heard all that I have to say to you." As he spoke he came close to her, and put out his hand,--but she did not touch it. "I have no other argument to use,--not a word more to say. As I came here in the cab I was turning it over in my mind that I might find what best I should say. But, after all, there is nothing more to be said than that." "The words make no difference," she replied. "Not unless they be so uttered as to force a belief. I do love you. I know no other reason but that why you should be my wife. I have no other excuse to offer for coming to you again. You are the one thing in the world that to me has any charm. Can you be surprised that I should be persistent in asking for it?" He was looking at her still with the same gaze, and there seemed to be a power in his eye from which she could not escape. He was still standing with his right hand out, as though expecting, or at least hoping, that her hand might be put into his. "How am I to answer you?" she said. "With your love, if you can give it to me. Do you remember how you swore once that you would love me for ever and always?" "You should not remind me of that. I was a child then,--a naughty child," she added, smiling; "and was put to bed for what I did on that day." "Be a child still." "Ah, if we but could!" "And have you no other answer to make me?" "Of course I must answer you. You are entitled to an answer. Lord Chiltern, I am sorry that I cannot give you the love for which you ask." "Never?" "Never." "Is it myself personally, or what you have heard of me, that is so hateful to you?" "Nothing is hateful to me. I have never spoken of hate. I shall always feel the strongest regard for my old friend and playfellow. But there are many things which a woman is bound to consider before she allows herself so to love a man that she can consent to become his wife." "Allow herself! Then it is a matter entirely of calculation." "I suppose there should be some thought in it, Lord Chiltern." There was now a pause, and the man's hand was at last allowed to drop, as there came no response to the proffered grasp. He walked once or twice across the room before he spoke again, and then he stopped himself closely opposite to her. "I shall never try again," he said. "It will be better so," she replied. "There is something to me unmanly in a man's persecuting a girl. Just tell Laura, will you, that it is all over; and she may as well tell my father. Good-bye." She then tendered her hand to him, but he did not take it,--probably did not see it, and at once left the room and the house. "And yet I believe you love him," Lady Laura said to her friend in her anger, when they discussed the matter immediately on Lord Chiltern's departure. "You have no right to say that, Laura." "I have a right to my belief, and I do believe it. I think you love him, and that you lack the courage to risk yourself in trying to save him." "Is a woman bound to marry a man if she love him?" "Yes, she is," replied Lady Laura impetuously, without thinking of what she was saying; "that is, if she be convinced that she also is loved." "Whatever be the man's character;--whatever be the circumstances? Must she do so, whatever friends may say to the contrary? Is there to be no prudence in marriage?" "There may be a great deal too much prudence," said Lady Laura. "That is true. There is certainly too much prudence if a woman marries prudently, but without love." Violet intended by this no attack upon her friend,--had not had present in her mind at the moment any idea of Lady Laura's special prudence in marrying Mr. Kennedy; but Lady Laura felt it keenly, and knew at once that an arrow had been shot which had wounded her. "We shall get nothing," she said, "by descending to personalities with each other." "I meant none, Laura." "I suppose it is always hard," said Lady Laura, "for any one person to judge altogether of the mind of another. If I have said anything severe of your refusal of my brother, I retract it. I only wish that it could have been otherwise." Lord Chiltern, when he left his sister's house, walked through the slush and dirt to a haunt of his in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, and there he remained through the whole afternoon and evening. A certain Captain Clutterbuck joined him, and dined with him. He told nothing to Captain Clutterbuck of his sorrow, but Captain Clutterbuck could see that he was unhappy. "Let's have another bottle of 'cham,'" said Captain Clutterbuck, when their dinner was nearly over. "'Cham' is the only thing to screw one up when one is down a peg." "You can have what you like," said Lord Chiltern; "but I shall have some brandy-and-water." "The worst of brandy-and-water is, that one gets tired of it before the night is over," said Captain Clutterbuck. Nevertheless, Lord Chiltern did go down to Peterborough the next day by the hunting train, and rode his horse Bonebreaker so well in that famous run from Sutton springs to Gidding that after the run young Piles,--of the house of Piles, Sarsnet, and Gingham,--offered him three hundred pounds for the animal. "He isn't worth above fifty," said Lord Chiltern. "But I'll give you the three hundred," said Piles. "You couldn't ride him if you'd got him," said Lord Chiltern. "Oh, couldn't I!" said Piles. But Mr. Piles did not continue the conversation, contenting himself with telling his friend Grogram that that red devil Chiltern was as drunk as a lord. CHAPTER XX The Debate on the Ballot Phineas took his seat in the House with a consciousness of much inward trepidation of heart on that night of the ballot debate. After leaving Lord Chiltern he went down to his club and dined alone. Three or four men came and spoke to him; but he could not talk to them at his ease, nor did he quite know what they were saying to him. He was going to do something which he longed to achieve, but the very idea of which, now that it was so near to him, was a terror to him. To be in the House and not to speak would, to his thinking, be a disgraceful failure. Indeed, he could not continue to keep his seat unless he spoke. He had been put there that he might speak. He would speak. Of course he would speak. Had he not already been conspicuous almost as a boy orator? And yet, at this moment he did not know whether he was eating mutton or beef, or who was standing opposite to him and talking to him, so much was he in dread of the ordeal which he had prepared for himself. As he went down to the House after dinner, he almost made up his mind that it would be a good thing to leave London by one of the night mail trains. He felt himself to be stiff and stilted as he walked, and that his clothes were uneasy to him. When he turned into Westminster Hall he regretted more keenly than ever he had done that he had seceded from the keeping of Mr. Low. He could, he thought, have spoken very well in court, and would there have learned that self-confidence which now failed him so terribly. It was, however, too late to think of that. He could only go in and take his seat. He went in and took his seat, and the chamber seemed to him to be mysteriously large, as though benches were crowded over benches, and galleries over galleries. He had been long enough in the House to have lost the original awe inspired by the Speaker and the clerks of the House, by the row of Ministers, and by the unequalled importance of the place. On ordinary occasions he could saunter in and out, and whisper at his ease to a neighbour. But on this occasion he went direct to the bench on which he ordinarily sat, and began at once to rehearse to himself his speech. He had in truth been doing this all day, in spite of the effort that he had made to rid himself of all memory of the occasion. He had been collecting the heads of his speech while Mr. Low had been talking to him, and refreshing his quotations in the presence of Lord Chiltern and the dumb-bells. He had taxed his memory and his intellect with various tasks, which, as he feared, would not adjust themselves one with another. He had learned the headings of his speech,--so that one heading might follow the other, and nothing be forgotten. And he had learned verbatim the words which he intended to utter under each heading,--with a hope that if any one compact part should be destroyed or injured in its compactness by treachery of memory, or by the course of the debate, each other compact part might be there in its entirety, ready for use;--or at least so many of the compact parts as treachery of memory and the accidents of the debate might leave to him; so that his speech might be like a vessel, watertight in its various compartments, that would float by the buoyancy of its stern and bow, even though the hold should be waterlogged. But this use of his composed words, even though he should be able to carry it through, would not complete his work;--for it would be his duty to answer in some sort those who had gone before him, and in order to do this he must be able to insert, without any prearrangement of words or ideas, little intercalatory parts between those compact masses of argument with which he had been occupying himself for many laborious hours. As he looked round upon the House and perceived that everything was dim before him, that all his original awe of the House had returned, and with it a present quaking fear that made him feel the pulsations of his own heart, he became painfully aware that the task he had prepared for himself was too great. He should, on this the occasion of his rising to his maiden legs, have either prepared for himself a short general speech, which could indeed have done little for his credit in the House, but which might have served to carry off the novelty of the thing, and have introduced him to the sound of his own voice within those walls,--or he should have trusted to what his wit and spirit would produce for him on the spur of the moment, and not have burdened himself with a huge exercise of memory. During the presentation of a few petitions he tried to repeat to himself the first of his compact parts,--a compact part on which, as it might certainly be brought into use let the debate have gone as it might, he had expended great care. He had flattered himself that there was something of real strength in his words as he repeated them to himself in the comfortable seclusion of his own room, and he had made them so ready to his tongue that he thought it to be impossible that he should forget even an intonation. Now he found that he could not remember the first phrases without unloosing and looking at a small roll of paper which he held furtively in his hand. What was the good of looking at it? He would forget it again in the next moment. He had intended to satisfy the most eager of his friends, and to astound his opponents. As it was, no one would be satisfied,--and none astounded but they who had trusted in him. The debate began, and if the leisure afforded by a long and tedious speech could have served him, he might have had leisure enough. He tried at first to follow all that this advocate for the ballot might say, hoping thence to acquire the impetus of strong interest; but he soon wearied of the work, and began to long that the speech might be ended, although the period of his own martyrdom would thereby be brought nearer to him. At half-past seven so many members had deserted their seats, that Phineas began to think that he might be saved all further pains by a "count out." He reckoned the members present and found that they were below the mystic forty,--first by two, then by four, by five, by seven, and at one time by eleven. It was not for him to ask the Speaker to count the House, but he wondered that no one else should do so. And yet, as the idea of this termination to the night's work came upon him, and as he thought of his lost labour, he almost took courage again,--almost dreaded rather than wished for the interference of some malicious member. But there was no malicious member then present, or else it was known that Lords of the Treasury and Lords of the Admiralty would flock in during the Speaker's ponderous counting,--and thus the slow length of the ballot-lover's verbosity was permitted to evolve itself without interruption. At eight o'clock he had completed his catalogue of illustrations, and immediately Mr. Monk rose from the Treasury bench to explain the grounds on which the Government must decline to support the motion before the House. Phineas was aware that Mr. Monk intended to speak, and was aware also that his speech would be very short. "My idea is," he had said to Phineas, "that every man possessed of the franchise should dare to have and to express a political opinion of his own; that otherwise the franchise is not worth having; and that men will learn that when all so dare, no evil can come from such daring. As the ballot would make any courage of that kind unnecessary, I dislike the ballot. I shall confine myself to that, and leave the illustration to younger debaters." Phineas also had been informed that Mr. Turnbull would reply to Mr. Monk, with the purpose of crushing Mr. Monk into dust, and Phineas had prepared his speech with something of an intention of subsequently crushing Mr. Turnbull. He knew, however, that he could not command his opportunity. There was the chapter of accidents to which he must accommodate himself; but such had been his programme for the evening. Mr. Monk made his speech,--and though he was short, he was very fiery and energetic. Quick as lightning words of wrath and scorn flew from him, in which he painted the cowardice, the meanness, the falsehood of the ballot. "The ballot-box," he said, "was the grave of all true political opinion." Though he spoke hardly for ten minutes, he seemed to say more than enough, ten times enough, to slaughter the argument of the former speaker. At every hot word as it fell Phineas was driven to regret that a paragraph of his own was taken away from him, and that his choicest morsels of standing ground were being cut from under his feet. When Mr. Monk sat down, Phineas felt that Mr. Monk had said all that he, Phineas Finn, had intended to say. Then Mr. Turnbull rose slowly from the bench below the gangway. With a speaker so frequent and so famous as Mr. Turnbull no hurry is necessary. He is sure to have his opportunity. The Speaker's eye is ever travelling to the accustomed spots. Mr. Turnbull rose slowly and began his oration very mildly. "There was nothing," he said, "that he admired so much as the poetic imagery and the high-flown sentiment of his right honourable friend the member for West Bromwich,"--Mr. Monk sat for West Bromwich,--"unless it were the stubborn facts and unanswered arguments of his honourable friend who had brought forward this motion." Then Mr. Turnbull proceeded after his fashion to crush Mr. Monk. He was very prosaic, very clear both in voice and language, very harsh, and very unscrupulous. He and Mr. Monk had been joined together in politics for over twenty years;--but one would have thought, from Mr. Turnbull's words, that they had been the bitterest of enemies. Mr. Monk was taunted with his office, taunted with his desertion of the liberal party, taunted with his ambition,--and taunted with his lack of ambition. "I once thought," said Mr. Turnbull,--"nay, not long ago I thought, that he and I would have fought this battle for the people, shoulder to shoulder, and knee to knee;--but he has preferred that the knee next to his own shall wear a garter, and that the shoulder which supports him shall be decked with a blue ribbon,--as shoulders, I presume, are decked in those closet conferences which are called Cabinets." Just after this, while Mr. Turnbull was still going on with a variety of illustrations drawn from the United States, Barrington Erle stepped across the benches up to the place where Phineas was sitting, and whispered a few words into his ear. "Bonteen is prepared to answer Turnbull, and wishes to do it. I told him that I thought you should have the opportunity, if you wish it." Phineas was not ready with a reply to Erle at the spur of the moment. "Somebody told me," continued Erle, "that you had said that you would like to speak to-night." "So I did," said Phineas. "Shall I tell Bonteen that you will do it?" The chamber seemed to swim round before our hero's eyes. Mr. Turnbull was still going on with his clear, loud, unpleasant voice, but there was no knowing how long he might go on. Upon Phineas, if he should now consent, might devolve the duty, within ten minutes, within three minutes, of rising there before a full House to defend his great friend, Mr. Monk, from a gross personal attack. Was it fit that such a novice as he should undertake such a work as that? Were he to do so, all that speech which he had prepared, with its various self-floating parts, must go for nothing. The task was exactly that which, of all tasks, he would best like to have accomplished, and to have accomplished well. But if he should fail! And he felt that he would fail. For such work a man should have all his senses about him,--his full courage, perfect confidence, something almost approaching to contempt for listening opponents, and nothing of fear in regard to listening friends. He should be as a cock in his own farmyard, master of all the circumstances around him. But Phineas Finn had not even as yet heard the sound of his own voice in that room. At this moment, so confused was he, that he did not know where sat Mr. Mildmay, and where Mr. Daubeny. All was confused, and there arose as it were a sound of waters in his ears, and a feeling as of a great hell around him. "I had rather wait," he said at last. "Bonteen had better reply." Barrington Erle looked into his face, and then stepping back across the benches, told Mr. Bonteen that the opportunity was his. Mr. Turnbull continued speaking quite long enough to give poor Phineas time for repentance; but repentance was of no use. He had decided against himself, and his decision could not be reversed. He would have left the House, only it seemed to him that had he done so every one would look at him. He drew his hat down over his eyes, and remained in his place, hating Mr. Bonteen, hating Barrington Erle, hating Mr. Turnbull,--but hating no one so much as he hated himself. He had disgraced himself for ever and could never recover the occasion which he had lost. Mr. Bonteen's speech was in no way remarkable. Mr. Monk, he said, had done the State good service by adding his wisdom and patriotism to the Cabinet. The sort of argument which Mr. Bonteen used to prove that a man who has gained credit as a legislator should in process of time become a member of the executive, is trite and common, and was not used by Mr. Bonteen with any special force. Mr. Bonteen was glib of tongue and possessed that familiarity with the place which poor Phineas had lacked so sorely. There was one moment, however, which was terrible to Phineas. As soon as Mr. Bonteen had shown the purpose for which he was on his legs, Mr. Monk looked round at Phineas, as though in reproach. He had expected that this work should fall into the hands of one who would perform it with more warmth of heart than could be expected from Mr. Bonteen. When Mr. Bonteen ceased, two or three other short speeches were made and members fired off their little guns. Phineas having lost so great an opportunity, would not now consent to accept one that should be comparatively valueless. Then there came a division. The motion was lost by a large majority,--by any number you might choose to name, as Phineas had said to Lord Brentford; but in that there was no triumph to the poor wretch who had failed through fear, and who was now a coward in his own esteem. He left the House alone, carefully avoiding all speech with any one. As he came out he had seen Laurence Fitzgibbon in the lobby, but he had gone on without pausing a moment, so that he might avoid his friend. And when he was out in Palace Yard, where was he to go next? He looked at his watch, and found that it was just ten. He did not dare to go to his club, and it was impossible for him to go home and to bed. He was very miserable, and nothing would comfort him but sympathy. Was there any one who would listen to his abuse of himself, and would then answer him with kindly apologies for his own weakness? Mrs. Bunce would do it if she knew how, but sympathy from Mrs. Bunce would hardly avail. There was but one person in the world to whom he could tell his own humiliation with any hope of comfort, and that person was Lady Laura Kennedy. Sympathy from any man would have been distasteful to him. He had thought for a moment of flinging himself at Mr. Monk's feet and telling all his weakness;--but he could not have endured pity even from Mr. Monk. It was not to be endured from any man. He thought that Lady Laura Kennedy would be at home, and probably alone. He knew, at any rate, that he might be allowed to knock at her door, even at that hour. He had left Mr. Kennedy in the House, and there he would probably remain for the next hour. There was no man more constant than Mr. Kennedy in seeing the work of the day,--or of the night,--to its end. So Phineas walked up Victoria Street, and from thence into Grosvenor Place, and knocked at Lady Laura's door. "Yes; Lady Laura was at home; and alone." He was shown up into the drawing-room, and there he found Lady Laura waiting for her husband. "So the great debate is over," she said, with as much of irony as she knew how to throw into the epithet. "Yes; it is over." "And what have they done,--those leviathans of the people?" Then Phineas told her what was the majority. "Is there anything the matter with you, Mr. Finn?" she said, looking at him suddenly. "Are you not well?" "Yes; I am very well." "Will you not sit down? There is something wrong, I know. What is it?" "I have simply been the greatest idiot, the greatest coward, the most awkward ass that ever lived!" "What do you mean?" "I do not know why I should come to tell you of it at this hour at night, but I have come that I might tell you. Probably because there is no one else in the whole world who would not laugh at me." "At any rate, I shall not laugh at you," said Lady Laura. "But you will despise me." "That I am sure I shall not do." "You cannot help it. I despise myself. For years I have placed before myself the ambition of speaking in the House of Commons;--for years I have been thinking whether there would ever come to me an opportunity of making myself heard in that assembly, which I consider to be the first in the world. To-day the opportunity has been offered to me,--and, though the motion was nothing, the opportunity was great. The subject was one on which I was thoroughly prepared. The manner in which I was summoned was most flattering to me. I was especially called on to perform a task which was most congenial to my feelings;--and I declined because I was afraid." "You had thought too much about it, my friend," said Lady Laura. "Too much or too little, what does it matter?" replied Phineas, in despair. "There is the fact. I could not do it. Do you remember the story of Conachar in the 'Fair Maid of Perth;'--how his heart refused to give him blood enough to fight? He had been suckled with the milk of a timid creature, and, though he could die, there was none of the strength of manhood in him. It is about the same thing with me, I take it." "I do not think you are at all like Conachar," said Lady Laura. "I am equally disgraced, and I must perish after the same fashion. I shall apply for the Chiltern Hundreds in a day or two." "You will do nothing of the kind," said Lady Laura, getting up from her chair and coming towards him. "You shall not leave this room till you have promised me that you will do nothing of the kind. I do not know as yet what has occurred to-night; but I do know that that modesty which has kept you silent is more often a grace than a disgrace." This was the kind of sympathy which he wanted, She drew her chair nearer to him, and then he explained to her as accurately as he could what had taken place in the House on this evening,--how he had prepared his speech, how he had felt that his preparation was vain, how he perceived from the course of the debate that if he spoke at all his speech must be very different from what he had first intended; how he had declined to take upon himself a task which seemed to require so close a knowledge of the ways of the House and of the temper of the men, as the defence of such a man as Mr. Monk. In accusing himself he, unconsciously, excused himself, and his excuse, in Lady Laura's ears, was more valid than his accusation. "And you would give it all up for that?" she said. "Yes; I think I ought." "I have very little doubt but that you were right in allowing Mr. Bonteen to undertake such a task. I should simply explain to Mr. Monk that you felt too keen an interest in his welfare to stand up as an untried member in his defence. It is not, I think, the work for a man who is not at home in the House. I am sure Mr. Monk will feel this, and I am quite certain that Mr. Kennedy will think that you have been right." "I do not care what Mr. Kennedy may think." "Why do you say that, Mr. Finn? That is not courteous." "Simply because I care so much what Mr. Kennedy's wife may think. Your opinion is all in all to me,--only that I know you are too kind to me." "He would not be too kind to you. He is never too kind to any one. He is justice itself." Phineas, as he heard the tones of her voice, could not but feel that there was in Lady Laura's words something of an accusation against her husband. "I hate justice," said Phineas. "I know that justice would condemn me. But love and friendship know nothing of justice. The value of love is that it overlooks faults, and forgives even crimes." "I, at any rate," said Lady Laura, "will forgive the crime of your silence in the House. My strong belief in your success will not be in the least affected by what you tell me of your failure to-night. You must await another opportunity; and, if possible, you should be less anxious as to your own performance. There is Violet." As Lady Laura spoke the last words, there was a sound of a carriage stopping in the street, and the front door was immediately opened. "She is staying here, but has been dining with her uncle, Admiral Effingham." Then Violet Effingham entered the room, rolled up in pretty white furs, and silk cloaks, and lace shawls. "Here is Mr. Finn, come to tell us of the debate about the ballot." "I don't care twopence about the ballot," said Violet, as she put out her hand to Phineas. "Are we going to have a new iron fleet built? That's the question." "Sir Simeon has come out strong to-night," said Lady Laura. "There is no political question of any importance except the question of the iron fleet," said Violet. "I am quite sure of that, and so, if Mr. Finn can tell me nothing about the iron fleet, I'll go to bed." "Mr. Kennedy will tell you everything when he comes home," said Phineas. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy! Mr. Kennedy never tells one anything. I doubt whether Mr. Kennedy thinks that any woman knows the meaning of the British Constitution." "Do you know what it means, Violet?" asked Lady Laura. "To be sure I do. It is liberty to growl about the iron fleet, or the ballot, or the taxes, or the peers, or the bishops,--or anything else, except the House of Commons. That's the British Constitution. Good-night, Mr. Finn." "What a beautiful creature she is!" said Phineas. "Yes, indeed," said Lady Laura. "And full of wit and grace and pleasantness. I do not wonder at your brother's choice." It will be remembered that this was said on the day before Lord Chiltern had made his offer for the third time. "Poor Oswald! he does not know as yet that she is in town." After that Phineas went, not wishing to await the return of Mr. Kennedy. He had felt that Violet Effingham had come into the room just in time to remedy a great difficulty. He did not wish to speak of his love to a married woman,--to the wife of the man who called him friend,--to a woman who he felt sure would have rebuked him. But he could hardly have restrained himself had not Miss Effingham been there. But as he went home he thought more of Miss Effingham than he did of Lady Laura; and I think that the voice of Miss Effingham had done almost as much towards comforting him as had the kindness of the other. At any rate, he had been comforted. CHAPTER XXI "Do be punctual" On the very morning after his failure in the House of Commons, when Phineas was reading in the _Telegraph_,--he took the _Telegraph_ not from choice but for economy,--the words of that debate which he had heard and in which he should have taken a part, a most unwelcome visit was paid to him. It was near eleven, and the breakfast things were still on the table. He was at this time on a Committee of the House with reference to the use of potted peas in the army and navy, at which he had sat once,--at a preliminary meeting,--and in reference to which he had already resolved that as he had failed so frightfully in debate, he would certainly do his duty to the utmost in the more easy but infinitely more tedious work of the Committee Room. The Committee met at twelve, and he intended to walk down to the Reform Club, and then to the House. He had just completed his reading of the debate and of the leaders in the _Telegraph_ on the subject. He had told himself how little the writer of the article knew about Mr. Turnbull, how little about Mr. Monk, and how little about the people,--such being his own ideas as to the qualifications of the writer of that leading article,--and was about to start. But Mrs. Bunce arrested him by telling him that there was a man below who wanted to see him. "What sort of a man, Mrs. Bunce?" "He ain't a gentleman, sir." "Did he give his name?" "He did not, sir; but I know it's about money. I know the ways of them so well. I've seen this one's face before somewhere." "You had better show him up," said Phineas. He knew well the business on which the man was come. The man wanted money for that bill which Laurence Fitzgibbon had sent afloat, and which Phineas had endorsed. Phineas had never as yet fallen so deeply into troubles of money as to make it necessary that he need refuse himself to any callers on that score, and he did not choose to do so now. Nevertheless he most heartily wished that he had left his lodgings for the club before the man had come. This was not the first he had heard of the bill being overdue and unpaid. The bill had been brought to him noted a month since, and then he had simply told the youth who brought it that he would see Mr. Fitzgibbon and have the matter settled. He had spoken to his friend Laurence, and Laurence had simply assured him that all should be made right in two days,--or, at furthest, by the end of a week. Since that time he had observed that his friend had been somewhat shy of speaking to him when no others were with them. Phineas would not have alluded to the bill had he and Laurence been alone together; but he had been quick enough to guess from his friend's manner that the matter was not settled. Now, no doubt, serious trouble was about to commence. The visitor was a little man with grey hair and a white cravat, some sixty years of age, dressed in black, with a very decent hat,--which, on entering the room, he at once put down on the nearest chair,--with reference to whom, any judge on the subject would have concurred at first sight in the decision pronounced by Mrs. Bunce, though none but a judge very well used to sift the causes of his own conclusions could have given the reasons for that early decision. "He ain't a gentleman," Mrs. Bunce had said. And the man certainly was not a gentleman. The old man in the white cravat was very neatly dressed, and carried himself without any of that humility which betrays one class of uncertified aspirants to gentility, or of that assumed arrogance which is at once fatal to another class. But, nevertheless, Mrs. Bunce had seen at a glance that he was not a gentleman,--had seen, moreover, that such a man could have come only upon one mission. She was right there too. This visitor had come about money. "About this bill, Mr. Finn," said the visitor, proceeding to take out of his breast coat-pocket a rather large leathern case, as he advanced up towards the fire. "My name is Clarkson, Mr. Finn. If I may venture so far, I'll take a chair." "Certainly, Mr. Clarkson," said Phineas, getting up and pointing to a seat. "Thankye, Mr. Finn, thankye. We shall be more comfortable doing business sitting, shan't we?" Whereupon the horrid little man drew himself close in to the fire, and spreading out his leathern case upon his knees, began to turn over one suspicious bit of paper after another, as though he were uncertain in what part of his portfolio lay this identical bit which he was seeking. He seemed to be quite at home, and to feel that there was no ground whatever for hurry in such comfortable quarters. Phineas hated him at once,--with a hatred altogether unconnected with the difficulty which his friend Fitzgibbon had brought upon him. "Here it is," said Mr. Clarkson at last. "Oh, dear me, dear me! the third of November, and here we are in March! I didn't think it was so bad as this;--I didn't indeed. This is very bad,--very bad! And for Parliament gents, too, who should be more punctual than anybody, because of the privilege. Shouldn't they now, Mr. Finn?" "All men should be punctual, I suppose," said Phineas. "Of course they should; of course they should. I always say to my gents, 'Be punctual, and I'll do anything for you.' But, perhaps, Mr. Finn, you can hand me a cheque for this amount, and then you and I will begin square." "Indeed I cannot, Mr. Clarkson." "Not hand me a cheque for it!" "Upon my word, no." "That's very bad;--very bad indeed. Then I suppose I must take the half, and renew for the remainder, though I don't like it;--I don't indeed." "I can pay no part of that bill, Mr. Clarkson." "Pay no part of it!" and Mr. Clarkson, in order that he might the better express his surprise, arrested his hand in the very act of poking his host's fire. "If you'll allow me, I'll manage the fire," said Phineas, putting out his hand for the poker. But Mr. Clarkson was fond of poking fires, and would not surrender the poker. "Pay no part of it!" he said again, holding the poker away from Phineas in his left hand. "Don't say that, Mr. Finn. Pray don't say that. Don't drive me to be severe. I don't like to be severe with my gents. I'll do anything, Mr. Finn, if you'll only be punctual." "The fact is, Mr. Clarkson, I have never had one penny of consideration for that bill, and--" "Oh, Mr. Finn! oh, Mr. Finn!" and then Mr. Clarkson had his will of the fire. "I never had one penny of consideration for that bill," continued Phineas. "Of course, I don't deny my responsibility." "No, Mr. Finn; you can't deny that. Here it is;--Phineas Finn;--and everybody knows you, because you're a Parliament gent." "I don't deny it. But I had no reason to suppose that I should be called upon for the money when I accommodated my friend, Mr. Fitzgibbon, and I have not got it. That is the long and the short of it. I must see him and take care that arrangements are made." "Arrangements!" "Yes, arrangements for settling the bill." "He hasn't got the money, Mr. Finn. You know that as well as I do." "I know nothing about it, Mr. Clarkson." "Oh yes, Mr. Finn; you know; you know." "I tell you I know nothing about it," said Phineas, waxing angry. "As to Mr. Fitzgibbon, he's the pleasantest gent that ever lived. Isn't he now? I've know'd him these ten years. I don't suppose that for ten years I've been without his name in my pocket. But, bless you, Mr. Finn, there's an end to everything. I shouldn't have looked at this bit of paper if it hadn't been for your signature. Of course not. You're just beginning, and it's natural you should want a little help. You'll find me always ready, if you'll only be punctual." "I tell you again, sir, that I never had a shilling out of that for myself, and do not want any such help." Here Mr. Clarkson smiled sweetly. "I gave my name to my friend simply to oblige him." "I like you Irish gents because you do hang together so close," said Mr. Clarkson. "Simply to oblige him," continued Phineas. "As I said before, I know that I am responsible; but, as I said before also, I have not the means of taking up that bill. I will see Mr. Fitzgibbon, and let you know what we propose to do." Then Phineas got up from his seat and took his hat. It was full time that he should go down to his Committee. But Mr. Clarkson did not get up from his seat. "I'm afraid I must ask you to leave me now, Mr. Clarkson, as I have business down at the House." "Business at the House never presses, Mr. Finn," said Mr. Clarkson. "That's the best of Parliament. I've known Parliament gents this thirty years and more. Would you believe it--I've had a Prime Minister's name in that portfolio; that I have; and a Lord Chancellor's; that I have;--and an Archbishop's too. I know what Parliament is, Mr. Finn. Come, come; don't put me off with Parliament." There he sat before the fire with his pouch open before him, and Phineas had no power of moving him. Could Phineas have paid him the money which was manifestly due to him on the bill, the man would of course have gone; but failing in that, Phineas could not turn him out. There was a black cloud on the young member's brow, and great anger at his heart,--against Fitzgibbon rather than against the man who was sitting there before him. "Sir," he said, "it is really imperative that I should go. I am pledged to an appointment at the House at twelve, and it wants now only a quarter. I regret that your interview with me should be so unsatisfactory, but I can only promise you that I will see Mr. Fitzgibbon." "And when shall I call again, Mr. Finn?" "Perhaps I had better write to you," said Phineas. "Oh dear, no," said Mr. Clarkson. "I should much prefer to look in. Looking in is always best. We can get to understand one another in that way. Let me see. I daresay you're not particular. Suppose I say Sunday morning." "Really, I could not see you on Sunday morning, Mr. Clarkson." "Parliament gents ain't generally particular,--'speciaily not among the Catholics," pleaded Mr. Clarkson. "I am always engaged on Sundays," said Phineas. "Suppose we say Monday,--or Tuesday. Tuesday morning at eleven. And do be punctual, Mr. Finn. At Tuesday morning I'll come, and then no doubt I shall find you ready." Whereupon Mr. Clarkson slowly put up his bills within his portfolio, and then, before Phineas knew where he was, had warmly shaken that poor dismayed member of Parliament by the hand. "Only do be punctual, Mr. Finn," he said, as he made his way down the stairs. It was now twelve, and Phineas rushed off to a cab. He was in such a fervour of rage and misery that he could hardly think of his position, or what he had better do, till he got into the Committee Room; and when there he could think of nothing else. He intended to go deeply into the question of potted peas, holding an equal balance between the assailed Government offices on the one hand, and the advocates of the potted peas on the other. The potters of the peas, who wanted to sell their article to the Crown, declared that an extensive,--perhaps we may say, an unlimited,--use of the article would save the whole army and navy from the scourges of scurvy, dyspepsia, and rheumatism, would be the best safeguard against typhus and other fevers, and would be an invaluable aid in all other maladies to which soldiers and sailors are peculiarly subject. The peas in question were grown on a large scale in Holstein, and their growth had been fostered with the special object of doing good to the British army and navy. The peas were so cheap that there would be a great saving in money,--and it really had seemed to many that the officials of the Horse Guards and the Admiralty had been actuated by some fiendish desire to deprive their men of salutary fresh vegetables, simply because they were of foreign growth. But the officials of the War Office and the Admiralty declared that the potted peas in question were hardly fit for swine. The motion for the Committee had been made by a gentleman of the opposition, and Phineas had been put upon it as an independent member. He had resolved to give it all his mind, and, as far as he was concerned, to reach a just decision, in which there should be no favour shown to the Government side. New brooms are proverbial for thorough work, and in this Committee work Phineas was as yet a new broom. But, unfortunately, on this day his mind was so harassed that he could hardly understand what was going on. It did not, perhaps, much signify, as the witnesses examined were altogether agricultural. They only proved the production of peas in Holstein,--a fact as to which Phineas had no doubt. The proof was naturally slow, as the evidence was given in German, and had to be translated into English. And the work of the day was much impeded by a certain member who unfortunately spoke German, who seemed to be fond of speaking German before his brethren of the Committee, and who was curious as to agriculture in Holstein generally. The chairman did not understand German, and there was a difficulty in checking this gentleman, and in making him understand that his questions were not relevant to the issue. Phineas could not keep his mind during the whole afternoon from the subject of his misfortune. What should he do if this horrid man came to him once or twice a week? He certainly did owe the man the money. He must admit that to himself. The man no doubt was a dishonest knave who had discounted the bill probably at fifty per cent; but, nevertheless, Phineas had made himself legally responsible for the amount. The privilege of the House prohibited him from arrest. He thought of that very often, but the thought only made him the more unhappy. Would it not be said, and might it not be said truly, that he had incurred this responsibility,--a responsibility which he was altogether unequal to answer,--because he was so protected? He did feel that a certain consciousness of his privilege had been present to him when he had put his name across the paper, and there had been dishonesty in that very consciousness. And of what service would his privilege be to him, if this man could harass every hour of his life? The man was to be with him again in a day or two, and when the appointment had been proposed, he, Phineas, had not dared to negative it. And how was he to escape? As for paying the bill, that with him was altogether impossible. The man had told him,--and he had believed the man,--that payment by Fitzgibbon was out of the question. And yet Fitzgibbon was the son of a peer, whereas he was only the son of a country doctor! Of course Fitzgibbon must make some effort,--some great effort,--and have the thing settled. Alas, alas! He knew enough of the world already to feel that the hope was vain. He went down from the Committee Room into the House, and he dined at the House, and remained there until eight or nine at night; but Fitzgibbon did not come. He then went to the Reform Club, but he was not there. Both at the club and in the House many men spoke to him about the debate of the previous night, expressing surprise that he had not spoken,--making him more and more wretched. He saw Mr. Monk, but Mr. Monk was walking arm in arm with his colleague, Mr. Palliser, and Phineas could do no more than just speak to them. He thought that Mr. Monk's nod of recognition was very cold. That might be fancy, but it certainly was a fact that Mr. Monk only nodded to him. He would tell Mr. Monk the truth, and then, if Mr. Monk chose to quarrel with him, he at any rate would take no step to renew their friendship. From the Reform Club he went to the Shakspeare, a smaller club to which Fitzgibbon belonged,--and of which Phineas much wished to become a member,--and to which he knew that his friend resorted when he wished to enjoy himself thoroughly, and to be at ease in his inn. Men at the Shakspeare could do as they pleased. There were no politics there, no fashion, no stiffness, and no rules,--so men said; but that was hardly true. Everybody called everybody by his Christian name, and members smoked all over the house. They who did not belong to the Shakspeare thought it an Elysium upon earth; and they who did, believed it to be among Pandemoniums the most pleasant. Phineas called at the Shakspeare, and was told by the porter that Mr. Fitzgibbon was up-stairs. He was shown into the strangers room, and in five minutes his friend came down to him. "I want you to come down to the Reform with me," said Phineas. "By jingo, my dear fellow, I'm in the middle of a rubber of whist." "There has been a man with me about that bill." "What;--Clarkson?" "Yes, Clarkson," said Phineas. "Don't mind him," said Fitzgibbon. "That's nonsense. How am I to help minding him? I must mind him. He is coming to me again on Tuesday morning." "Don't see him." "How can I help seeing him?" "Make them say you're not at home." "He has made an appointment. He has told me that he'll never leave me alone. He'll be the death of me if this is not settled." "It shall be settled, my dear fellow. I'll see about it. I'll see about it and write you a line. You must excuse me now, because those fellows are waiting. I'll have it all arranged." Again as Phineas went home he thoroughly wished that he had not seceded from Mr. Low. CHAPTER XXII Lady Baldock at Home About the middle of March Lady Baldock came up from Baddingham to London, coerced into doing so, as Violet Effingham declared, in thorough opposition to all her own tastes, by the known wishes of her friends and relatives. Her friends and relatives, so Miss Effingham insinuated, were unanimous in wishing that Lady Baldock should remain at Baddingham Park, and therefore,--that wish having been indiscreetly expressed,--she had put herself to great inconvenience, and had come to London in March. "Gustavus will go mad," said Violet to Lady Laura. The Gustavus in question was the Lord Baldock of the present generation, Miss Effingham's Lady Baldock being the peer's mother. "Why does not Lord Baldock take a house himself?" asked Lady Laura. "Don't you know, my dear," Violet answered, "how much we Baddingham people think of money? We don't like being vexed and driven mad, but even that is better than keeping up two households." As regarded Violet, the injury arising from Lady Baldock's early migration was very great, for she was thus compelled to move from Grosvenor Place to Lady Baldock's house in Berkeley Square. "As you are so fond of being in London, Augusta and I have made up our minds to come up before Easter," Lady Baldock had written to her. "I shall go to her now," Violet had said to her friend, "because I have not quite made up my mind as to what I will do for the future." "Marry Oswald, and be your own mistress." "I mean to be my own mistress without marrying Oswald, though I don't see my way quite clearly as yet. I think I shall set up a little house of my own, and let the world say what it pleases. I suppose they couldn't make me out to be a lunatic." "I shouldn't wonder if they were to try," said Lady Laura. "They could not prevent me in any other way. But I am in the dark as yet, and so I shall be obedient and go to my aunt." Miss Effingham went to Berkeley Square, and Phineas Finn was introduced to Lady Baldock. He had been often in Grosvenor Place, and had seen Violet frequently. Mr. Kennedy gave periodical dinners,--once a week,--to which everybody went who could get an invitation; and Phineas had been a guest more than once. Indeed, in spite of his miseries he had taken to dining out a good deal, and was popular as an eater of dinners. He could talk when wanted, and did not talk too much, was pleasant in manners and appearance, and had already achieved a certain recognised position in London life. Of those who knew him intimately, not one in twenty were aware from whence he came, what was his parentage, or what his means of living. He was a member of Parliament, a friend of Mr. Kennedy's, was intimate with Mr. Monk, though an Irishman did not as a rule herd with other Irishmen, and was the right sort of person to have at your house. Some people said he was a cousin of Lord Brentford's, and others declared that he was Lord Chiltern's earliest friend. There he was, however, with a position gained, and even Lady Baldock asked him to her house. Lady Baldock had evenings. People went to her house, and stood about the room and on the stairs, talked to each other for half an hour, and went away. In these March days there was no crowding, but still there were always enough of people there to show that Lady Baldock was successful. Why people should have gone to Lady Baldock's I cannot explain;--but there are houses to which people go without any reason. Phineas received a little card asking him to go, and he always went. "I think you like my friend, Mr. Finn," Lady Laura said to Miss Effingham, after the first of these evenings. "Yes, I do. I like him decidedly." "So do I. I should hardly have thought that you would have taken a fancy to him." "I hardly know what you call taking a fancy," said Violet. "I am not quite sure I like to be told that I have taken a fancy for a young man." "I mean no offence, my dear." "Of course you don't But, to speak truth, I think I have rather taken a fancy to him. There is just enough of him, but not too much. I don't mean materially,--in regard to his inches; but as to his mental belongings. I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don't like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth, and all that kind of thing." "You want to be flattered without plain flattery." "Of course I do. A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout. Now in all those matters, your friend, Mr. Finn, seems to know what he is about. In other words, he makes himself pleasant, and, therefore, one is glad to see him." "I suppose you do not mean to fall in love with him?" "Not that I know of, my dear. But when I do, I'll be sure to give you notice." I fear that there was more of earnestness in Lady Laura's last question than Miss Effingham had supposed. She had declared to herself over and over again that she had never been in love with Phineas Finn. She had acknowledged to herself, before Mr. Kennedy had asked her hand in marriage, that there had been danger,--that she could have learned to love the man if such love would not have been ruinous to her,--that the romance of such a passion would have been pleasant to her. She had gone farther than this, and had said to herself that she would have given way to that romance, and would have been ready to accept such love if offered to her, had she not put it out of her own power to marry a poor man by her generosity to her brother. Then she had thrust the thing aside, and had clearly understood,--she thought that she had clearly understood,--that life for her must be a matter of business. Was it not the case with nine out of every ten among mankind, with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand, that life must be a matter of business and not of romance? Of course she could not marry Mr. Finn, knowing, as she did, that neither of them had a shilling. Of all men in the world she esteemed Mr. Kennedy the most, and when these thoughts were passing through her mind, she was well aware that he would ask her to be his wife. Had she not resolved that she would accept the offer, she would not have gone to Loughlinter. Having put aside all romance as unfitted to her life, she could, she thought, do her duty as Mr. Kennedy's wife. She would teach herself to love him. Nay,--she had taught herself to love him. She was at any rate so sure of her own heart that she would never give her husband cause to rue the confidence he placed in her. And yet there was something sore within her when she thought that Phineas Finn was fond of Violet Effingham. It was Lady Baldock's second evening, and Phineas came to the house at about eleven o'clock. At this time he had encountered a second and a third interview with Mr. Clarkson, and had already failed in obtaining any word of comfort from Laurence Fitzgibbon about the bill. It was clear enough now that Laurence felt that they were both made safe by their privilege, and that Mr. Clarkson should be treated as you treat the organ-grinders. They are a nuisance and must be endured. But the nuisance is not so great but what you can live in comfort,--if only you are not too sore as to the annoyance. "My dear fellow," Laurence had said to him, "I have had Clarkson almost living in my rooms. He used to drink nearly a pint of sherry a day for me. All I looked to was that I didn't live there at the same time. If you wish it, I'll send in the sherry." This was very bad, and Phineas tried to quarrel with his friend; but he found that it was difficult to quarrel with Laurence Fitzgibbon. But though on this side Phineas was very miserable, on another side he had obtained great comfort. Mr. Monk and he were better friends than ever. "As to what Turnbull says about me in the House," Mr. Monk had said, laughing; "he and I understand each other perfectly. I should like to see you on your legs, but it is just as well, perhaps, that you have deferred it. We shall have the real question on immediately after Easter, and then you'll have plenty of opportunities." Phineas had explained how he had attempted, how he had failed, and how he had suffered;--and Mr. Monk had been generous in his sympathy. "I know all about it," said he, "and have gone through it all myself. The more respect you feel for the House, the more satisfaction you will have in addressing it when you have mastered this difficulty." The first person who spoke to Phineas at Lady Baldock's was Miss Fitzgibbon, Laurence's sister. Aspasia Fitzgibbon was a warm woman as regarded money, and as she was moreover a most discreet spinster, she was made welcome by Lady Baldock, in spite of the well-known iniquities of her male relatives. "Mr. Finn," said she, "how d'ye do? I want to say a word to ye. Just come here into the corner." Phineas, not knowing how to escape, did retreat into the corner with Miss Fitzgibbon. "Tell me now, Mr. Finn;--have ye been lending money to Laurence?" "No; I have lent him no money," said Phineas, much astonished by the question. "Don't. That's my advice to ye. Don't. On any other matter Laurence is the best creature in the world,--but he's bad to lend money to. You ain't in any hobble with him, then?" "Well;--nothing to speak of. What makes you ask?" "Then you are in a hobble? Dear, dear! I never saw such a man as Laurence;--never. Good-bye. I wouldn't do it again, if I were you;--that's all." Then Miss Fitzgibbon came out of the corner and made her way down-stairs. Phineas immediately afterwards came across Miss Effingham. "I did not know," said she, "that you and the divine Aspasia were such close allies." "We are the dearest friends in the world, but she has taken my breath away now." "May a body be told how she has done that?" Violet asked. "Well, no; I'm afraid not, even though the body be Miss Effingham. It was a profound secret;--really a secret concerning a third person, and she began about it just as though she were speaking about the weather!" "How charming! I do so like her. You haven't heard, have you, that Mr. Ratler proposed to her the other day?" "No!" "But he did;--at least, so she tells everybody. She said she'd take him if he would promise to get her brother's salary doubled." "Did she tell you?" "No; not me. And of course I don't believe a word of it. I suppose Barrington Erle made up the story. Are you going out of town next week, Mr. Finn?" The week next to this was Easter-week. "I heard you were going into Northamptonshire." "From Lady Laura?" "Yes;--from Lady Laura." "I intend to spend three days with Lord Chiltern at Willingford. It is an old promise. I am going to ride his horses,--that is, if I am able to ride them." "Take care what you are about, Mr. Finn;--they say his horses are so dangerous!" "I'm rather good at falling, I flatter myself." "I know that Lord Chiltern rides anything he can sit, so long as it is some animal that nobody else will ride. It was always so with him. He is so odd; is he not?" Phineas knew, of course, that Lord Chiltern had more than once asked Violet Effingham to be his wife,--and he believed that she, from her intimacy with Lady Laura, must know that he knew it. He had also heard Lady Laura express a very strong wish that, in spite of these refusals, Violet might even yet become her brother's wife. And Phineas also knew that Violet Effingham was becoming, in his own estimation, the most charming woman of his acquaintance. How was he to talk to her about Lord Chiltern? "He is odd," said Phineas; "but he is an excellent fellow,--whom his father altogether misunderstands." "Exactly,--just so; I am so glad to hear you say that,--you who have never had the misfortune to have anything to do with a bad set. Why don't you tell Lord Brentford? Lord Brentford would listen to you." "To me?" "Yes;--of course he would,--for you are just the link that is wanting. You are Chiltern's intimate friend, and you are also the friend of big-wigs and Cabinet Ministers." "Lord Brentford would put me down at once if I spoke to him on such a subject." "I am sure he would not. You are too big to be put down, and no man can really dislike to hear his son well spoken of by those who are well spoken of themselves. Won't you try, Mr. Finn?" Phineas said that he would think of it,--that he would try if any fit opportunity could be found. "Of course you know how intimate I have been with the Standishes," said Violet; "that Laura is to me a sister, and that Oswald used to be almost a brother." "Why do not you speak to Lord Brentford;--you who are his favourite?" "There are reasons, Mr. Finn. Besides, how can any girl come forward and say that she knows the disposition of any man? You can live with Lord Chiltern, and see what he is made of, and know his thoughts, and learn what is good in him, and also what is bad. After all, how is any girl really to know anything of a man's life?" "If I can do anything, Miss Effingham, I will," said Phineas. "And then we shall all of us be so grateful to you," said Violet, with her sweetest smile. Phineas, retreating from this conversation, stood for a while alone, thinking of it. Had she spoken thus of Lord Chiltern because she did love him or because she did not? And the sweet commendations which had fallen from her lips upon him,--him, Phineas Finn,--were they compatible with anything like a growing partiality for himself, or were they incompatible with any such feeling? Had he most reason to be comforted or to be discomfited by what had taken place? It seemed hardly possible to his imagination that Violet Effingham should love such a nobody as he. And yet he had had fair evidence that one standing as high in the world as Violet Effingham would fain have loved him could she have followed the dictates of her heart. He had trembled when he had first resolved to declare his passion to Lady Laura,--fearing that she would scorn him as being presumptuous. But there had been no cause for such fear as that. He had declared his love, and she had not thought him to be presumptuous. That now was ages ago,--eight months since; and Lady Laura had become a married woman. Since he had become so warmly alive to the charms of Violet Effingham he had determined, with stern propriety, that a passion for a married woman was disgraceful. Such love was in itself a sin, even though it was accompanied by the severest forbearance and the most rigid propriety of conduct. No;--Lady Laura had done wisely to check the growing feeling of partiality which she had admitted; and now that she was married, he would be as wise as she. It was clear to him that, as regarded his own heart, the way was open to him for a new enterprise. But what if he were to fail again, and be told by Violet, when he declared his love, that she had just engaged herself to Lord Chiltern! "What were you and Violet talking about so eagerly?" said Lady Laura to him, with a smile that, in its approach to laughter, almost betrayed its mistress. "We were talking about your brother." "You are going to him, are you not?" "Yes; I leave London on Sunday night;--but only for a day or two." "Has he any chance there, do you think?" "What, with Miss Effingham?" "Yes;--with Violet. Sometimes I think she loves him." "How can I say? In such a matter you can judge better than I can do. One woman with reference to another can draw the line between love and friendship. She certainly likes Chiltern." "Oh, I believe she loves him. I do indeed. But she fears him. She does not quite understand how much there is of tenderness with that assumed ferocity. And Oswald is so strange, so unwise, so impolitic, that though he loves her better than all the world beside, he will not sacrifice even a turn of a word to win her. When he asks her to marry him, he almost flies at her throat, as an angry debtor who applies for instant payment. Tell him, Mr. Finn, never to give it over;--and teach him that he should be soft with her. Tell him, also, that in her heart she likes him. One woman, as you say, knows another woman; and I am certain he would win her if he would only be gentle with her." Then, again, before they parted, Lady Laura told him that this marriage was the dearest wish of her heart, and that there would be no end to her gratitude if Phineas could do anything to promote it. All which again made our hero unhappy. CHAPTER XXIII Sunday in Grosvenor Place Mr. Kennedy, though he was a most scrupulously attentive member of Parliament, was a man very punctual to hours and rules in his own house,--and liked that his wife should be as punctual as himself. Lady Laura, who in marrying him had firmly resolved that she would do her duty to him in all ways, even though the ways might sometimes be painful,--and had been perhaps more punctilious in this respect than she might have been had she loved him heartily,--was not perhaps quite so fond of accurate regularity as her husband; and thus, by this time, certain habits of his had become rather bonds than habits to her. He always had prayers at nine, and breakfasted at a quarter past nine, let the hours on the night before have been as late as they might before the time for rest had come. After breakfast he would open his letters in his study, but he liked her to be with him, and desired to discuss with her every application he got from a constituent. He had his private secretary in a room apart, but he thought that everything should be filtered to his private secretary through his wife. He was very anxious that she herself should superintend the accounts of their own private expenditure, and had taken some trouble to teach her an excellent mode of book-keeping. He had recommended to her a certain course of reading,--which was pleasant enough; ladies like to receive such recommendations; but Mr. Kennedy, having drawn out the course, seemed to expect that his wife should read the books he had named, and, worse still, that she should read them in the time he had allocated for the work. This, I think, was tyranny. Then the Sundays became very wearisome to Lady Laura. Going to church twice, she had learnt, would be a part of her duty; and though in her father's household attendance at church had never been very strict, she had made up her mind to this cheerfully. But Mr. Kennedy expected also that he and she should always dine together on Sundays, that there should be no guests, and that there should be no evening company. After all, the demand was not very severe, but yet she found that it operated injuriously upon her comfort. The Sundays were very wearisome to her, and made her feel that her lord and master was--her lord and master. She made an effort or two to escape, but the efforts were all in vain. He never spoke a cross word to her. He never gave a stern command. But yet he had his way. "I won't say that reading a novel on a Sunday is a sin," he said; "but we must at any rate admit that it is a matter on which men disagree, that many of the best of men are against such occupation on Sunday, and that to abstain is to be on the safe side." So the novels were put away, and Sunday afternoon with the long evening became rather a stumbling-block to Lady Laura. Those two hours, moreover, with her husband in the morning became very wearisome to her. At first she had declared that it would be her greatest ambition to help her husband in his work, and she had read all the letters from the MacNabs and MacFies, asking to be made gaugers and landing-waiters, with an assumed interest. But the work palled upon her very quickly. Her quick intellect discovered soon that there was nothing in it which she really did. It was all form and verbiage, and pretence at business. Her husband went through it all with the utmost patience, reading every word, giving orders as to every detail, and conscientiously doing that which he conceived he had undertaken to do. But Lady Laura wanted to meddle with high politics, to discuss reform bills, to assist in putting up Mr. This and putting down my Lord That. Why should she waste her time in doing that which the lad in the next room, who was called a private secretary, could do as well? Still she would obey. Let the task be as hard as it might, she would obey. If he counselled her to do this or that, she would follow his counsel,--because she owed him so much. If she had accepted the half of all his wealth without loving him, she owed him the more on that account. But she knew,--she could not but know,--that her intellect was brighter than his; and might it not be possible for her to lead him? Then she made efforts to lead her husband, and found that he was as stiff-necked as an ox. Mr. Kennedy was not, perhaps, a clever man; but he was a man who knew his own way, and who intended to keep it. "I have got a headache, Robert," she said to him one Sunday after luncheon. "I think I will not go to church this afternoon." "It is not serious, I hope." "Oh dear no. Don't you know how one feels sometimes that one has got a head? And when that is the case one's armchair is the best place." "I am not sure of that," said Mr. Kennedy. "If I went to church I should not attend," said Lady Laura. "The fresh air would do you more good than anything else, and we could walk across the park." "Thank you;--I won't go out again to-day." This she said with something almost of crossness in her manner, and Mr. Kennedy went to the afternoon service by himself. Lady Laura when she was left alone began to think of her position. She was not more than four or five months married, and she was becoming very tired of her life. Was it not also true that she was becoming tired of her husband? She had twice told Phineas Finn that of all men in the world she esteemed Mr. Kennedy the most. She did not esteem him less now. She knew no point or particle in which he did not do his duty with accuracy. But no person can live happily with another,--not even with a brother or a sister or a friend,--simply upon esteem. All the virtues in the calendar, though they exist on each side, will not make a man and woman happy together, unless there be sympathy. Lady Laura was beginning to find out that there was a lack of sympathy between herself and her husband. She thought of this till she was tired of thinking of it, and then, wishing to divert her mind, she took up the book that was lying nearest to her hand. It was a volume of a new novel which she had been reading on the previous day, and now, without much thought about it, she went on with her reading. There came to her, no doubt, some dim, half-formed idea that, as she was freed from going to church by the plea of a headache, she was also absolved by the same plea from other Sunday hindrances. A child, when it is ill, has buttered toast and a picture-book instead of bread-and-milk and lessons. In this way, Lady Laura conceived herself to be entitled to her novel. While she was reading it, there came a knock at the door, and Barrington Erle was shown upstairs. Mr. Kennedy had given no orders against Sunday visitors, but had simply said that Sunday visiting was not to his taste. Barrington, however, was Lady Laura's cousin, and people must be very strict if they can't see their cousins on Sunday. Lady Laura soon lost her headache altogether in the animation of discussing the chances of the new Reform Bill with the Prime Minister's private secretary; and had left her chair, and was standing by the table with the novel in her hand, protesting this and denying that, expressing infinite confidence in Mr. Monk, and violently denouncing Mr. Turnbull, when her husband returned from church and came up into the drawing-room. Lady Laura had forgotten her headache altogether, and had in her composition none of that thoughtfulness of hypocrisy which would have taught her to moderate her political feeling at her husband's return. "I do declare," she said, "that if Mr. Turnbull opposes the Government measure now, because he can't have his own way in everything, I will never again put my trust in any man who calls himself a popular leader." "You never should," said Barrington Erle. "That's all very well for you, Barrington, who are an aristocratic Whig of the old official school, and who call yourself a Liberal simply because Fox was a Liberal a hundred years ago. My heart's in it." "Heart should never have anything to do with politics; should it?" said Erle, turning round to Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy did not wish to discuss the matter on a Sunday, nor yet did he wish to say before Barrington Erle that he thought it wrong to do so. And he was desirous of treating his wife in some way as though she were an invalid,--that she thereby might be, as it were, punished; but he did not wish to do this in such a way that Barrington should be aware of the punishment. "Laura had better not disturb herself about it now," he said. "How is a person to help being disturbed?" said Lady Laura, laughing. "Well, well; we won't mind all that now," said Mr. Kennedy, turning away. Then he took up the novel which Lady Laura had just laid down from her hand, and, having looked at it, carried it aside, and placed it on a book-shelf which was remote from them. Lady Laura watched him as he did this, and the whole course of her husband's thoughts on the subject was open to her at once. She regretted the novel, and she regretted also the political discussion. Soon afterwards Barrington Erle went away, and the husband and wife were alone together. "I am glad that your head is so much better," said he. He did not intend to be severe, but he spoke with a gravity of manner which almost amounted to severity. "Yes; it is," she said, "Barrington's coming in cheered me up." "I am sorry that you should have wanted cheering." "Don't you know what I mean, Robert?" "No; I do not think that I do, exactly." "I suppose your head is stronger. You do not get that feeling of dazed, helpless imbecility of brain, which hardly amounts to headache, but which yet--is almost as bad." "Imbecility of brain may be worse than headache, but I don't think it can produce it." "Well, well;--I don't know how to explain it." "Headache comes, I think, always from the stomach, even when produced by nervous affections. But imbecility of the brain--" "Oh, Robert, I am so sorry that I used the word." "I see that it did not prevent your reading," he said, after a pause. "Not such reading as that. I was up to nothing better." Then there was another pause. "I won't deny that it may be a prejudice," he said, "but I confess that the use of novels in my own house on Sundays is a pain to me. My mother's ideas on the subject are very strict, and I cannot think that it is bad for a son to hang on to the teaching of his mother." This he said in the most serious tone which he could command. "I don't know why I took it up," said Lady Laura. "Simply, I believe, because it was there. I will avoid doing so for the future." "Do, my dear," said the husband. "I shall be obliged and grateful if you will remember what I have said." Then he left her, and she sat alone, first in the dusk and then in the dark, for two hours, doing nothing. Was this to be the life which she had procured for herself by marrying Mr. Kennedy of Loughlinter? If it was harsh and unendurable in London, what would it be in the country? CHAPTER XXIV The Willingford Bull Phineas left London by a night mail train on Easter Sunday, and found himself at the Willingford Bull about half an hour after midnight. Lord Chiltern was up and waiting for him, and supper was on the table. The Willingford Bull was an English inn of the old stamp, which had now, in these latter years of railway travelling, ceased to have a road business,--for there were no travellers on the road, and but little posting--but had acquired a new trade as a dépôt for hunters and hunting men. The landlord let out horses and kept hunting stables, and the house was generally filled from the beginning of November till the middle of April. Then it became a desert in the summer, and no guests were seen there, till the pink coats flocked down again into the shires. "How many days do you mean to give us?" said Lord Chiltern, as he helped his friend to a devilled leg of turkey. "I must go back on Wednesday," said Phineas. "That means Wednesday night. I'll tell you what we'll do. We've the Cottesmore to-morrow. We'll get into Tailby's country on Tuesday, and Fitzwilliam will be only twelve miles off on Wednesday. We shall be rather short of horses." "Pray don't let me put you out. I can hire something here, I suppose?" "You won't put me out at all. There'll be three between us each day, and we'll run our luck. The horses have gone on to Empingham for to-morrow. Tailby is rather a way off,--at Somerby; but we'll manage it. If the worst comes to the worst, we can get back to Stamford by rail. On Wednesday we shall have everything very comfortable. They're out beyond Stilton and will draw home our way. I've planned it all out. I've a trap with a fast stepper, and if we start to-morrow at half-past nine, we shall be in plenty of time. You shall ride Meg Merrilies, and if she don't carry you, you may shoot her." "Is she one of the pulling ones?" "She is heavy in hand if you are heavy at her, but leave her mouth alone and she'll go like flowing water. You'd better not ride more in a crowd than you can help. Now what'll you drink?" They sat up half the night smoking and talking, and Phineas learned more about Lord Chiltern then than ever he had learned before. There was brandy and water before them, but neither of them drank. Lord Chiltern, indeed, had a pint of beer by his side from which he sipped occasionally. "I've taken to beer," he said, "as being the best drink going. When a man hunts six days a week he can afford to drink beer. I'm on an allowance,--three pints a day. That's not too much." "And you drink nothing else?" "Nothing when I'm alone,--except a little cherry-brandy when I'm out. I never cared for drink;--never in my life. I do like excitement, and have been less careful than I ought to have been as to what it has come from. I could give up drink to-morrow, without a struggle,--if it were worth my while to make up my mind to do it. And it's the same with gambling. I never do gamble now, because I've got no money; but I own I like it better than anything in the world. While you are at it, there is life in it." "You should take to politics, Chiltern." "And I would have done so, but my father would not help me. Never mind, we will not talk about him. How does Laura get on with her husband?" "Very happily, I should say." "I don't believe it," said Lord Chiltern. "Her temper is too much like mine to allow her to be happy with such a log of wood as Robert Kennedy. It is such men as he who drive me out of the pale of decent life. If that is decency, I'd sooner be indecent. You mark my words. They'll come to grief. She'll never be able to stand it." "I should think she had her own way in everything," said Phineas. "No, no. Though he's a prig, he's a man; and she will not find it easy to drive him." "But she may bend him." "Not an inch;--that is if I understand his character. I suppose you see a good deal of them?" "Yes,--pretty well. I'm not there so often as I used to be in the Square." "You get sick of it, I suppose. I should. Do you see my father often?" "Only occasionally. He is always very civil when I do see him." "He is the very pink of civility when he pleases, but the most unjust man I ever met." "I should not have thought that." "Yes, he is," said the Earl's son, "and all from lack of judgment to discern the truth. He makes up his mind to a thing on insufficient proof, and then nothing will turn him. He thinks well of you,--would probably believe your word on any indifferent subject without thought of a doubt; but if you were to tell him that I didn't get drunk every night of my life and spend most of my time in thrashing policemen, he would not believe you. He would smile incredulously and make you a little bow. I can see him do it." "You are too hard on him, Chiltern." "He has been too hard on me, I know. Is Violet Effingham still in Grosvenor Place?" "No; she's with Lady Baldock." "That old grandmother of evil has come to town,--has she? Poor Violet! When we were young together we used to have such fun about that old woman." "The old woman is an ally of mine now," said Phineas. "You make allies everywhere. You know Violet Effingham of course?" "Oh yes. I know her." "Don't you think her very charming?" said Lord Chiltern. "Exceedingly charming." "I have asked that girl to marry me three times, and I shall never ask her again. There is a point beyond which a man shouldn't go. There are many reasons why it would be a good marriage. In the first place, her money would be serviceable. Then it would heal matters in our family, for my father is as prejudiced in her favour as he is against me. And I love her dearly. I've loved her all my life,--since I used to buy cakes for her. But I shall never ask her again." "I would if I were you," said Phineas,--hardly knowing what it might be best for him to say. "No; I never will. But I'll tell you what. I shall get into some desperate scrape about her. Of course she'll marry, and that soon. Then I shall make a fool of myself. When I hear that she is engaged I shall go and quarrel with the man, and kick him,--or get kicked. All the world will turn against me, and I shall be called a wild beast." "A dog in the manger is what you should be called." "Exactly;--but how is a man to help it? If you loved a girl, could you see another man take her?" Phineas remembered of course that he had lately come through this ordeal. "It is as though he were to come and put his hand upon me, and wanted my own heart out of me. Though I have no property in her at all, no right to her,--though she never gave me a word of encouragement, it is as though she were the most private thing in the world to me. I should be half mad, and in my madness I could not master the idea that I was being robbed. I should resent it as a personal interference." "I suppose it will come to that if you give her up yourself," said Phineas. "It is no question of giving up. Of course I cannot make her marry me. Light another cigar, old fellow." Phineas, as he lit the other cigar, remembered that he owed a certain duty in this matter to Lady Laura. She had commissioned him to persuade her brother that his suit with Violet Effingham would not be hopeless, if he could only restrain himself in his mode of conducting it. Phineas was disposed to do his duty, although he felt it to be very hard that he should be called upon to be eloquent against his own interest. He had been thinking for the last quarter of an hour how he must bear himself if it might turn out that he should be the man whom Lord Chiltern was resolved to kick. He looked at his friend and host, and became aware that a kicking-match with such a one would not be pleasant pastime. Nevertheless, he would be happy enough to be subject to Lord Chiltern's wrath for such a reason. He would do his duty by Lord Chiltern; and then, when that had been adequately done, he would, if occasion served, fight a battle for himself. "You are too sudden with her, Chiltern," he said, after a pause. "What do you mean by too sudden?" said Lord Chiltern, almost angrily. "You frighten her by being so impetuous. You rush at her as though you wanted to conquer her by a single blow." "So I do." "You should be more gentle with her. You should give her time to find out whether she likes you or not." "She has known me all her life, and has found that out long ago. Not but what you are right. I know you are right. If I were you, and had your skill in pleasing, I should drop soft words into her ear till I had caught her. But I have no gifts in that way. I am as awkward as a pig at what is called flirting. And I have an accursed pride which stands in my own light. If she were in this house this moment, and if I knew she were to be had for asking, I don't think I could bring myself to ask again. But we'll go to bed. It's half-past two, and we must be off at half-past nine, if we're to be at Exton Park gates at eleven." Phineas, as he went up-stairs, assured himself that he had done his duty. If there ever should come to be anything between him and Violet Effingham, Lord Chiltern might quarrel with him,--might probably attempt that kicking encounter to which allusion had been made,--but nobody could justly say that he had not behaved honourably to his friend. On the next morning there was a bustle and a scurry, as there always is on such occasions, and the two men got off about ten minutes after time. But Lord Chiltern drove hard, and they reached the meet before the master had moved off. They had a fair day's sport with the Cottesmore; and Phineas, though he found that Meg Merrilies did require a good deal of riding, went through his day's work with credit. He had been riding since he was a child, as is the custom with all boys in Munster, and had an Irishman's natural aptitude for jumping. When they got back to the Willingford Bull he felt pleased with the day and rather proud of himself. "It wasn't fast, you know," said Chiltern, "and I don't call that a stiff country. Besides, Meg is very handy when you've got her out of the crowd. You shall ride Bonebreaker to-morrow at Somerby, and you'll find that better fun." "Bonebreaker? Haven't I heard you say he rushes like mischief?" "Well, he does rush. But, by George! you want a horse to rush in that country. When you have to go right through four or five feet of stiff green wood, like a bullet through a target, you want a little force, or you're apt to be left up a tree." "And what do you ride?" "A brute I never put my leg on yet. He was sent down to Wilcox here, out of Lincolnshire, because they couldn't get anybody to ride him there. They say he goes with his head up in the air, and won't look at a fence that isn't as high as his breast. But I think he'll do here. I never saw a better made beast, or one with more power. Do you look at his shoulders. He's to be had for seventy pounds, and these are the sort of horses I like to buy." Again they dined alone, and Lord Chiltern explained to Phineas that he rarely associated with the men of either of the hunts in which he rode. "There is a set of fellows down here who are poison to me, and there is another set, and I am poison to them. Everybody is very civil, as you see, but I have no associates. And gradually I am getting to have a reputation as though I were the devil himself. I think I shall come out next year dressed entirely in black." "Are you not wrong to give way to that kind of thing?" "What the deuce am I to do? I can't make civil little speeches. When once a man gets a reputation as an ogre, it is the most difficult thing in the world to drop it. I could have a score of men here every day if I liked it,--my title would do that for me;--but they would be men I should loathe, and I should be sure to tell them so, even though I did not mean it. Bonebreaker, and the new horse, and another, went on at twelve to-day. You must expect hard work to-morrow, as I daresay we shan't be home before eight." The next day's meet was in Leicestershire, not far from Melton, and they started early. Phineas, to tell the truth of him, was rather afraid of Bonebreaker, and looked forward to the probability of an accident. He had neither wife nor child, and nobody had a better right to risk his neck. "We'll put a gag on 'im," said the groom, "and you'll ride 'im in a ring,--so that you may well-nigh break his jaw; but he is a rum un, sir." "I'll do my best," said Phineas. "He'll take all that," said the groom. "Just let him have his own way at everything," said Lord Chiltern, as they moved away from the meet to Pickwell Gorse; "and if you'll only sit on his back, he'll carry you through as safe as a church." Phineas could not help thinking that the counsels of the master and of the groom were very different. "My idea is," continued Lord Chiltern, "that in hunting you should always avoid a crowd. I don't think a horse is worth riding that will go in a crowd. It's just like yachting,--you should have plenty of sea-room. If you're to pull your horse up at every fence till somebody else is over, I think you'd better come out on a donkey." And so they went away to Pickwell Gorse. There were over two hundred men out, and Phineas began to think that it might not be so easy to get out of the crowd. A crowd in a fast run no doubt quickly becomes small by degrees and beautifully less; but it is very difficult, especially for a stranger, to free himself from the rush at the first start. Lord Chiltern's horse plunged about so violently, as they stood on a little hill-side looking down upon the cover, that he was obliged to take him to a distance, and Phineas followed him. "If he breaks down wind," said Lord Chiltern, "we can't be better than we are here. If he goes up wind, he must turn before long, and we shall be all right." As he spoke an old hound opened true and sharp,--an old hound whom all the pack believed,--and in a moment there was no doubt that the fox had been found. "There are not above eight or nine acres in it," said Lord Chiltern, "and he can't hang long. Did you ever see such an uneasy brute as this in your life? But I feel certain he'll go well when he gets away." Phineas was too much occupied with his own horse to think much of that on which Lord Chiltern was mounted. Bonebreaker, the very moment that he heard the old hound's note, stretched out his head, and put his mouth upon the bit, and began to tremble in every muscle. "He's a great deal more anxious for it than you and I are," said Lord Chiltern. "I see they've given you that gag. But don't you ride him on it till he wants it. Give him lots of room, and he'll go in the snaffle." All which caution made Phineas think that any insurance office would charge very dear on his life at the present moment. The fox took two rings of the gorse, and then he went,--up wind. "It's not a vixen, I'll swear," said Lord Chiltern. "A vixen in cub never went away like that yet. Now then, Finn, my boy, keep to the right." And Lord Chiltern, with the horse out of Lincolnshire, went away across the brow of the hill, leaving the hounds to the left, and selected, as his point of exit into the next field, a stiff rail, which, had there been an accident, must have put a very wide margin of ground between the rider and his horse. "Go hard at your fences, and then you'll fall clear," he had said to Phineas. I don't think, however, that he would have ridden at the rail as he did, but that there was no help for him. "The brute began in his own way, and carried on after in the same fashion all through," he said afterwards. Phineas took the fence a little lower down, and what it was at which he rode he never knew. Bonebreaker sailed over it, whatever it was, and he soon found himself by his friend's side. The ruck of the men were lower down than our two heroes, and there were others far away to the left, and others, again, who had been at the end of the gorse, and were now behind. Our friends were not near the hounds, not within two fields of them, but the hounds were below them, and therefore could be seen. "Don't be in a hurry, and they'll be round upon us," Lord Chiltern said. "How the deuce is one to help being in a hurry?" said Phineas, who was doing his very best to ride Bonebreaker with the snaffle, but had already began to feel that Bonebreaker cared nothing for that weak instrument. "By George, I should like to change with you," said Lord Chiltern. The Lincolnshire horse was going along with his head very low, boring as he galloped, but throwing his neck up at his fences, just when he ought to have kept himself steady. After this, though Phineas kept near Lord Chiltern throughout the run, they were not again near enough to exchange words; and, indeed, they had but little breath for such purpose. Lord Chiltern rode still a little in advance, and Phineas, knowing his friend's partiality for solitude when taking his fences, kept a little to his left. He began to find that Bonebreaker knew pretty well what he was about. As for not using the gag rein, that was impossible. When a horse puts out what strength he has against a man's arm, a man must put out what strength he has against the horse's mouth. But Bonebreaker was cunning, and had had a gag rein on before. He contracted his lip here, and bent out his jaw there, till he had settled it to his mind, and then went away after his own fashion. He seemed to have a passion for smashing through big, high-grown ox-fences, and by degrees his rider came to feel that if there was nothing worse coming, the fun was not bad. The fox ran up wind for a couple of miles or so, as Lord Chiltern had prophesied, and then turned,--not to the right, as would best have served him and Phineas, but to the left,--so that they were forced to make their way through the ruck of horses before they could place themselves again. Phineas found himself crossing a road, in and out of it, before he knew where he was, and for a while he lost sight of Lord Chiltern. But in truth he was leading now, whereas Lord Chiltern had led before. The two horses having been together all the morning, and on the previous day, were willing enough to remain in company, if they were allowed to do so. They both crossed the road, not very far from each other, going in and out amidst a crowd of horses, and before long were again placed well, now having the hunt on their right, whereas hitherto it had been on their left. They went over large pasture fields, and Phineas began to think that as long as Bonebreaker would be able to go through the thick grown-up hedges, all would be right. Now and again he came to a cut fence, a fence that had been cut and laid, and these were not so pleasant. Force was not sufficient for them, and they admitted of a mistake. But the horse, though he would rush at them unpleasantly, took them when they came without touching them. It might be all right yet,--unless the beast should tire with him; and then, Phineas thought, a misfortune might probably occur. He remembered, as he flew over one such impediment, that he rode a stone heavier than his friend. At the end of forty-five minutes Bonebreaker also might become aware of the fact. The hounds were running well in sight to their right, and Phineas began to feel some of that pride which a man indulges when he becomes aware that he has taken his place comfortably, has left the squad behind, and is going well. There were men nearer the hounds than he was, but he was near enough even for ambition. There had already been enough of the run to make him sure that it would be a "good thing", and enough to make him aware also that probably it might be too good. When a run is over, men are very apt to regret the termination, who a minute or two before were anxiously longing that the hounds might pull down their game. To finish well is everything in hunting. To have led for over an hour is nothing, let the pace and country have been what they might, if you fall away during the last half mile. Therefore it is that those behind hope that the fox may make this or that cover, while the forward men long to see him turned over in every field. To ride to hounds is very glorious; but to have ridden to hounds is more glorious still. They had now crossed another road, and a larger one, and had got into a somewhat closer country. The fields were not so big, and the fences were not so high. Phineas got a moment to look about him, and saw Lord Chiltern riding without his cap. He was very red in the face, and his eyes seemed to glare, and he was tugging at his horse with all his might. But the animal seemed still to go with perfect command of strength, and Phineas had too much work on his own hands to think of offering Quixotic assistance to any one else. He saw some one, a farmer, as he thought, speak to Lord Chiltern as they rode close together; but Chiltern only shook his head and pulled at his horse. There were brooks in those parts. The river Eye forms itself thereabouts, or some of its tributaries do so; and these tributaries, though small as rivers, are considerable to men on one side who are called by the exigencies of the occasion to place themselves quickly on the other. Phineas knew nothing of these brooks; but Bonebreaker had gone gallantly over two, and now that there came a third in the way, it was to be hoped that he might go gallantly over that also. Phineas, at any rate, had no power to decide otherwise. As long as the brute would go straight with him he could sit him; but he had long given up the idea of having a will of his own. Indeed, till he was within twenty yards of the brook, he did not see that it was larger than the others. He looked around, and there was Chiltern close to him, still fighting with his horse;--but the farmer had turned away. He thought that Chiltern nodded to him, as much as to tell him to go on. On he went at any rate. The brook, when he came to it, seemed to be a huge black hole, yawning beneath him. The banks were quite steep, and just where he was to take off there was an ugly stump. It was too late to think of anything. He stuck his knees against his saddle,--and in a moment was on the other side. The brute, who had taken off a yard before the stump, knowing well the danger of striking it with his foot, came down with a grunt, and did, I think, begin to feel the weight of that extra stone. Phineas, as soon as he was safe, looked back, and there was Lord Chiltern's horse in the very act of his spring,--higher up the rivulet, where it was even broader. At that distance Phineas could see that Lord Chiltern was wild with rage against the beast. But whether he wished to take the leap or wished to avoid it, there was no choice left to him. The animal rushed at the brook, and in a moment the horse and horseman were lost to sight. It was well then that that extra stone should tell, as it enabled Phineas to arrest his horse and to come back to his friend. The Lincolnshire horse had chested the further bank, and of course had fallen back into the stream. When Phineas got down he found that Lord Chiltern was wedged in between the horse and the bank, which was better, at any rate, than being under the horse in the water. "All right, old fellow," he said, with a smile, when he saw Phineas. "You go on; it's too good to lose." But he was very pale, and seemed to be quite helpless where he lay. The horse did not move,--and never did move again. He had smashed his shoulder to pieces against a stump on the bank, and was afterwards shot on that very spot. When Phineas got down he found that there was but little water where the horse lay. The depth of the stream had been on the side from which they had taken off, and the thick black mud lay within a foot of the surface, close to the bank against which Lord Chiltern was propped. "That's the worst one I ever was on," said Lord Chiltern; "but I think he's gruelled now." "Are you hurt?" "Well;--I fancy there is something amiss. I can't move my arms; and I catch my breath. My legs are all right if I could get away from this accursed brute." "I told you so," said the farmer, coming and looking down upon them from the bank. "I told you so, but you wouldn't be said." Then he too got down, and between them both they extricated Lord Chiltern from his position, and got him on to the bank. "That un's a dead un," said the farmer, pointing to the horse. "So much the better," said his lordship. "Give us a drop of sherry, Finn." He had broken his collar-bone and three of his ribs. They got a farmer's trap from Wissindine and took him into Oakham. When there, he insisted on being taken on through Stamford to the Willingford Bull before he would have his bones set,--picking up, however, a surgeon at Stamford. Phineas remained with him for a couple of days, losing his run with the Fitzwilliams and a day at the potted peas, and became very fond of his patient as he sat by his bedside. "That was a good run, though, wasn't it?" said Lord Chiltern as Phineas took his leave. "And, by George, Phineas, you rode Bonebreaker so well, that you shall have him as often as you'll come down. I don't know how it is, but you Irish fellows always ride." CHAPTER XXV Mr. Turnbull's Carriage Stops the Way When Phineas got back to London, a day after his time, he found that there was already a great political commotion in the metropolis. He had known that on Easter Monday and Tuesday there was to be a gathering of the people in favour of the ballot, and that on Wednesday there was to be a procession with a petition which Mr. Turnbull was to receive from the hands of the people on Primrose Hill. It had been at first intended that Mr. Turnbull should receive the petition at the door of Westminster Hall on the Thursday; but he had been requested by the Home Secretary to put aside this intention, and he had complied with the request made to him. Mr. Mildmay was to move the second reading of his Reform Bill on that day, the preliminary steps having been taken without any special notice; but the bill of course included no clause in favour of the ballot; and this petition was the consequence of that omission. Mr. Turnbull had predicted evil consequences, both in the House and out of it, and was now doing the best in his power to bring about the verification of his own prophecies. Phineas, who reached his lodgings late on the Thursday, found that the town had been in a state of ferment for three days, that on the Wednesday forty or fifty thousand persons had been collected at Primrose Hill, and that the police had been forced to interfere,--and that worse was expected on the Friday. Though Mr. Turnbull had yielded to the Government as to receiving the petition, the crowd was resolved that they would see the petition carried into the House. It was argued that the Government would have done better to have refrained from interfering as to the previously intended arrangement. It would have been easier to deal with a procession than with a mob of men gathered together without any semblance of form. Mr. Mildmay had been asked to postpone the second reading of his bill; but the request had come from his opponents, and he would not yield to it. He said that it would be a bad expedient to close Parliament from fear of the people. Phineas found at the Reform Club on the Thursday evening that members of the House of Commons were requested to enter on the Friday by the door usually used by the peers, and to make their way thence to their own House. He found that his landlord, Mr. Bunce, had been out with the people during the entire three days;--and Mrs. Bunce, with a flood of tears, begged Phineas to interfere as to the Friday. "He's that headstrong that he'll be took if anybody's took; and they say that all Westminster is to be lined with soldiers." Phineas on the Friday morning did have some conversation with his landlord; but his first work on reaching London was to see Lord Chiltern's friends, and tell them of the accident. The potted peas Committee sat on the Thursday, and he ought to have been there. His absence, however, was unavoidable, as he could not have left his friend's bed-side so soon after the accident. On the Wednesday he had written to Lady Laura, and on the Thursday evening he went first to Portman Square and then to Grosvenor Place. "Of course he will kill himself some day," said the Earl,--with a tear, however, in each eye. "I hope not, my lord. He is a magnificent horseman; but accidents of course will happen." "How many of his bones are there not broken, I wonder?" said the father. "It is useless to talk, of course. You think he is not in danger?" "Certainly not." "I should fear that he would be so liable to inflammation." "The doctor says that there is none. He has been taking an enormous deal of exercise," said Phineas, "and drinking no wine. All that is in his favour." "What does he drink, then?" asked the Earl. "Nothing. I rather think, my lord, you are mistaken a little about his habits. I don't fancy he ever drinks unless he is provoked to do it." "Provoked! Could anything provoke you to make a brute of yourself? But I am glad that he is in no danger. If you hear of him, let me know how he goes on." Lady Laura was of course full of concern. "I wanted to go down to him," she said, "but Mr. Kennedy thought that there was no occasion." "Nor is there any;--I mean in regard to danger. He is very solitary there." "You must go to him again. Mr. Kennedy will not let me go unless I can say that there is danger. He seems to think that because Oswald has had accidents before, it is nothing. Of course I cannot leave London without his leave." "Your brother makes very little of it, you know." "Ah;--he would make little of anything. But if I were ill he would be in London by the first train." "Kennedy would let you go if you asked him." "But he advises me not to go. He says my duty does not require it, unless Oswald be in danger. Don't you know, Mr. Finn, how hard it is for a wife not to take advice when it is so given?" This she said, within six months of her marriage, to the man who had been her husband's rival! Phineas asked her whether Violet had heard the news, and learned that she was still ignorant of it. "I got your letter only this morning, and I have not seen her," said Lady Laura. "Indeed, I am so angry with her that I hardly wish to see her." Thursday was Lady Baldock's night, and Phineas went from Grosvenor Place to Berkeley Square. There he saw Violet, and found that she had heard of the accident. "I am so glad to see you, Mr. Finn," she said. "Do tell me;--is it much?" "Much in inconvenience, certainly; but not much in danger." "I think Laura was so unkind not to send me word! I only heard it just now. Did you see it?" "I was close to him, and helped him up. The horse jumped into a river with him, and crushed him up against the bank." "How lucky that you should be there! Had you jumped the river?" "Yes;--almost unintentionally, for my horse was rushing so that I could not hold him. Chiltern was riding a brute that no one should have ridden. No one will again." "Did he destroy himself?" "He had to be killed afterwards. He broke his shoulder." "How very lucky that you should have been near him,--and, again, how lucky that you should not have been hurt yourself!" "It was not likely that we should both come to grief at the same fence." "But it might have been you. And you think there is no danger?" "None whatever,--if I may believe the doctor. His hunting is done for this year, and he will be very desolate. I shall go down again to him in a few days, and try to bring him up to town." "Do;--do. If he is laid up in his father's house, his father must see him." Phineas had not looked at the matter in that light; but he thought that Miss Effingham might probably be right. Early on the next morning he saw Mr. Bunce, and used all his eloquence to keep that respectable member of society at home;--but in vain. "What good do you expect to do, Mr. Bunce?" he said, with perhaps some little tone of authority in his voice. "To carry my point," said Bunce. "And what is your point?" "My present point is the ballot, as a part of the Government measure." "And you expect to carry that by going out into the streets with all the roughs of London, and putting yourself in direct opposition to the authority of the magistrates? Do you really believe that the ballot will become the law of the land any sooner because you incur this danger and inconvenience?" "Look here, Mr. Finn; I don't believe the sea will become any fuller because the Piddle runs into it out of the Dorsetshire fields; but I do believe that the waters from all the countries is what makes the ocean. I shall help; and it's my duty to help." "It's your duty as a respectable citizen, with a wife and family, to stay at home." "If everybody with a wife and family was to say so, there'd be none there but roughs, and then where should we be? What would the Government people say to us then? If every man with a wife and family was to show hisself in the streets to-night, we should have the ballot before Parliament breaks up, and if none of 'em don't do it, we shall never have the ballot. Ain't that so?" Phineas, who intended to be honest, was not prepared to dispute the assertion on the spur of the moment. "If that's so," said Bunce, triumphantly, "a man's duty's clear enough. He ought to go, though he'd two wives and families." And he went. The petition was to be presented at six o'clock, but the crowd, who collected to see it carried into Westminster Hall, began to form itself by noon. It was said afterwards that many of the houses in the neighbourhood of Palace Yard and the Bridge were filled with soldiers; but if so, the men did not show themselves. In the course of the evening three or four companies of the Guards in St. James's Park did show themselves, and had some rough work to do, for many of the people took themselves away from Westminster by that route. The police, who were very numerous in Palace Yard, had a hard time of it all the afternoon, and it was said afterwards that it would have been much better to have allowed the petition to have been brought up by the procession on Wednesday. A procession, let it be who it will that proceeds, has in it, of its own nature something of order. But now there was no order. The petition, which was said to fill fifteen cabs,--though the absolute sheets of signatures were carried into the House by four men,--was being dragged about half the day and it certainly would have been impossible for a member to have made his way into the House through Westminster Hall between the hours of four and six. To effect an entrance at all they were obliged to go round at the back of the Abbey, as all the spaces round St. Margaret's Church and Canning's monument were filled with the crowd. Parliament Street was quite impassable at five o clock, and there was no traffic across the bridge from that hour till after eight. As the evening went on, the mob extended itself to Downing Street and the front of the Treasury Chambers, and before the night was over all the hoardings round the new Government offices had been pulled down. The windows also of certain obnoxious members of Parliament were broken, when those obnoxious members lived within reach. One gentleman who unfortunately held a house in Richmond Terrace, and who was said to have said that the ballot was the resort of cowards, fared very badly;--for his windows were not only broken, but his furniture and mirrors were destroyed by the stones that were thrown. Mr. Mildmay, I say, was much blamed. But after all, it may be a doubt whether the procession on Wednesday might not have ended worse. Mr. Turnbull was heard to say afterwards that the number of people collected would have been much greater. Mr. Mildmay moved the second reading of his bill, and made his speech. He made his speech with the knowledge that the Houses of Parliament were surrounded by a mob, and I think that the fact added to its efficacy. It certainly gave him an appropriate opportunity for a display which was not difficult. His voice faltered on two or three occasions, and faltered through real feeling; but this sort of feeling, though it be real, is at the command of orators on certain occasions, and does them yeoman's service. Mr. Mildmay was an old man, nearly worn out in the service of his country, who was known to have been true and honest, and to have loved his country well,--though there were of course they who declared that his hand had been too weak for power, and that his services had been naught;--and on this evening his virtues were remembered. Once when his voice failed him the whole House got up and cheered. The nature of a Whig Prime Minister's speech on such an occasion will be understood by most of my readers without further indication. The bill itself had been read before, and it was understood that no objection would be made to the extent of the changes provided in it by the liberal side of the House. The opposition coming from liberal members was to be confined to the subject of the ballot. And even as yet it was not known whether Mr. Turnbull and his followers would vote against the second reading, or whether they would take what was given, and declare their intention of obtaining the remainder on a separate motion. The opposition of a large party of Conservatives was a matter of certainty; but to this party Mr. Mildmay did not conceive himself bound to offer so large an amount of argument as he would have given had there been at the moment no crowd in Palace Yard. And he probably felt that that crowd would assist him with his old Tory enemies. When, in the last words of his speech, he declared that under no circumstances would he disfigure the close of his political career by voting for the ballot,--not though the people, on whose behalf he had been fighting battles all his life, should be there in any number to coerce him,--there came another round of applause from the opposition benches, and Mr. Daubeny began to fear that some young horses in his team might get loose from their traces. With great dignity Mr. Daubeny had kept aloof from Mr. Turnbull and from Mr. Turnbull's tactics; but he was not the less alive to the fact that Mr. Turnbull, with his mob and his big petition, might be of considerable assistance to him in this present duel between himself and Mr. Mildmay. I think Mr. Daubeny was in the habit of looking at these contests as duels between himself and the leader on the other side of the House,--in which assistance from any quarter might be accepted if offered. Mr. Mildmay's speech did not occupy much over an hour, and at half-past seven Mr. Turnbull got up to reply. It was presumed that he would do so, and not a member left his place, though that time of the day is an interesting time, and though Mr. Turnbull was accustomed to be long. There soon came to be but little ground for doubting what would be the nature of Mr. Turnbull's vote on the second reading. "How may I dare," said he, "to accept so small a measure of reform as this with such a message from the country as is now conveyed to me through the presence of fifty thousand of my countrymen, who are at this moment demanding their measure of reform just beyond the frail walls of this chamber? The right honourable gentleman has told us that he will never be intimidated by a concourse of people. I do not know that there was any need that he should speak of intimidation. No one has accused the right honourable gentleman of political cowardice. But, as he has so said, I will follow in his footsteps. Neither will I be intimidated by the large majority which this House presented the other night against the wishes of the people. I will support no great measure of reform which does not include the ballot among its clauses." And so Mr. Turnbull threw down the gauntlet. Mr. Turnbull spoke for two hours, and then the debate was adjourned till the Monday. The adjournment was moved by an independent member, who, as was known, would support the Government, and at once received Mr. Turnbull's assent. There was no great hurry with the bill, and it was felt that it would be well to let the ferment subside. Enough had been done for glory when Mr. Mildmay moved the second reading, and quite enough in the way of debate,--with such an audience almost within hearing,--when Mr. Turnbull's speech had been made. Then the House emptied itself at once. The elderly, cautious members made their exit through the peers' door. The younger men got out into the crowd through Westminster Hall, and were pushed about among the roughs for an hour or so. Phineas, who made his way through the hall with Laurence Fitzgibbon, found Mr. Turnbull's carriage waiting at the entrance with a dozen policemen round it. "I hope he won't get home to dinner before midnight," said Phineas. "He understands all about it," said Laurence. "He had a good meal at three, before he left home, and you'd find sandwiches and sherry in plenty if you were to search his carriage. He knows how to remedy the costs of mob popularity." At that time poor Bunce was being hustled about in the crowd in the vicinity of Mr. Turnbull's carriage. Phineas and Fitzgibbon made their way out, and by degrees worked a passage for themselves into Parliament Street. Mr. Turnbull had been somewhat behind them in coming down the hall, and had not been without a sense of enjoyment in the ovation which was being given to him. There can be no doubt that he was wrong in what he was doing. That affair of the carriage was altogether wrong, and did Mr. Turnbull much harm for many a day afterwards. When he got outside the door, where were the twelve policemen guarding his carriage, a great number of his admirers endeavoured to shake hands with him. Among them was the devoted Bunce. But the policemen seemed to think that Mr. Turnbull was to be guarded, even from the affection of his friends, and were as careful that he should be ushered into his carriage untouched, as though he had been the favourite object of political aversion for the moment. Mr. Turnbull himself, when he began to perceive that men were crowding close upon the gates, and to hear the noise, and to feel, as it were, the breath of the mob, stepped on quickly into his carriage. He said a word or two in a loud voice. "Thank you, my friends. I trust you may obtain all your just demands." But he did not pause to speak. Indeed, he could hardly have done so, as the policemen were manifestly in a hurry. The carriage was got away at a snail's pace;--but there remained in the spot where the carriage had stood the makings of a very pretty street row. Bunce had striven hard to shake hands with his hero,--Bunce and some other reformers as ardent and as decent as himself. The police were very determinate that there should be no such interruption to their programme for getting Mr. Turnbull off the scene. Mr. Bunce, who had his own ideas as to his right to shake hands with any gentleman at Westminster Hall who might choose to shake hands with him, became uneasy under the impediments that were placed in his way, and expressed himself warmly as to his civil rights. Now a London policeman in a political row is, I believe, the most forbearing of men. So long as he meets with no special political opposition, ordinary ill-usage does not even put him out of temper. He is paid for rough work among roughs, and takes his rubs gallantly. But he feels himself to be an instrument for the moment of despotic power as opposed to civil rights, and he won't stand what he calls "jaw." Trip up a policeman in such a scramble, and he will take it in good spirit; but mention the words "Habeas Corpus," and he'll lock you up if he can. As a rule, his instincts are right; for the man who talks about "Habeas Corpus" in a political crowd will generally do more harm than can be effected by the tripping up of any constable. But these instincts may be the means of individual injustice. I think they were so when Mr. Bunce was arrested and kept a fast prisoner. His wife had shown her knowledge of his character when she declared that he'd be "took" if any one was "took." Bunce was taken into custody with some three or four others like himself,--decent men, who meant no harm, but who thought that as men they were bound to show their political opinions, perhaps at the expense of a little martyrdom,--and was carried into a temporary stronghold, which had been provided for the necessities of the police, under the clock-tower. "Keep me, at your peril!" said Bunce, indignantly. "We means it," said the sergeant who had him in custody. "I've done no ha'porth to break the law," said Bunce. "You was breaking the law when you was upsetting my men, as I saw you," said the sergeant. "I've upset nobody," said Bunce. "Very well," rejoined the sergeant; "you can say it all before the magistrate, to-morrow." "And am I to be locked up all night?" said Bunce. "I'm afraid you will," replied the sergeant. Bunce, who was not by nature a very talkative man, said no more; but he swore in his heart that there should be vengeance. Between eleven and twelve he was taken to the regular police-station, and from thence he was enabled to send word to his wife. "Bunce has been taken," said she, with something of the tragic queen, and something also of the injured wife in the tone of her voice, as soon as Phineas let himself in with the latchkey between twelve and one. And then, mingled with, and at last dominant over, those severer tones, came the voice of the loving woman whose beloved one was in trouble. "I knew how it'd be, Mr. Finn. Didn't I? And what must we do? I don't suppose he'd had a bit to eat from the moment he went out;--and as for a drop of beer, he never thinks of it, except what I puts down for him at his meals. Them nasty police always take the best. That's why I was so afeard." Phineas said all that he could to comfort her, and promised to go to the police-office early in the morning and look after Bunce. No serious evil would, he thought, probably come of it; but still Bunce had been wrong to go. "But you might have been took yourself," argued Mrs. Bunce, "just as well as he." Then Phineas explained that he had gone forth in the execution of a public duty. "You might have been took, all the same," said Mrs. Bunce, "for I'm sure Bunce didn't do nothing amiss." CHAPTER XXVI "The First Speech" On the following morning, which was Saturday, Phineas was early at the police-office at Westminster looking after the interests of his landlord; but there had been a considerable number of men taken up during the row, and our friend could hardly procure that attention for Mr. Bunce's case to which he thought the decency of his client and his own position as a member of Parliament were entitled. The men who had been taken up were taken in batches before the magistrates; but as the soldiers in the park had been maltreated, and a considerable injury had been done in the neighbourhood of Downing Street, there was a good deal of strong feeling against the mob, and the magistrates were disposed to be severe. If decent men chose to go out among such companions, and thereby get into trouble, decent men must take the consequences. During the Saturday and Sunday a very strong feeling grew up against Mr. Turnbull. The story of the carriage was told, and he was declared to be a turbulent demagogue, only desirous of getting popularity. And together with this feeling there arose a general verdict of "Serve them right" against all who had come into contact with the police in the great Turnbull row; and thus it came to pass that Mr. Bunce had not been liberated up to the Monday morning. On the Sunday Mrs. Bunce was in hysterics, and declared her conviction that Mr. Bunce would be imprisoned for life. Poor Phineas had an unquiet time with her on the morning of that day. In every ecstasy of her grief she threw herself into his arms, either metaphorically or materially, according to the excess of her agony at the moment, and expressed repeatedly an assured conviction that all her children would die of starvation, and that she herself would be picked up under the arches of one of the bridges. Phineas, who was soft-hearted, did what he could to comfort her, and allowed himself to be worked up to strong parliamentary anger against the magistrates and police. "When they think that they have public opinion on their side, there is nothing in the way or arbitrary excess which is too great for them." This he said to Barrington Erle, who angered him and increased the warmth of his feeling by declaring that a little close confinement would be good for the Bunces of the day. "If we don't keep the mob down, the mob will keep us down," said the Whig private secretary. Phineas had no opportunity of answering this, but declared to himself that Barrington Erle was no more a Liberal at heart than was Mr. Daubeny. "He was born on that side of the question, and has been receiving Whig wages all his life. That is the history of his politics!" On the Sunday afternoon Phineas went to Lord Brentford's in Portman Square, intending to say a word or two about Lord Chiltern, and meaning also to induce, if possible, the Cabinet Minister to take part with him against the magistrates,--having a hope also, in which he was not disappointed, that he might find Lady Laura Kennedy with her father. He had come to understand that Lady Laura was not to be visited at her own house on Sundays. So much indeed she had told him in so many words. But he had come to understand also, without any plain telling, that she rebelled in heart against this Sabbath tyranny,--and that she would escape from it when escape was possible. She had now come to talk to her father about her brother, and had brought Violet Effingham with her. They had walked together across the park after church, and intended to walk back again. Mr. Kennedy did not like to have any carriage out on a Sunday, and to this arrangement his wife made no objection. Phineas had received a letter from the Stamford surgeon, and was able to report favourably of Lord Chiltern. "The man says that he had better not be moved for a month," said Phineas. "But that means nothing. They always say that." "Will it not be best for him to remain where he is?" said the Earl. "He has not a soul to speak to," said Phineas. "I wish I were with him," said his sister. "That is, of course, out of the question," said the Earl. "They know him at that inn, and it really seems to me best that he should stay there. I do not think he would be so much at his ease here." "It must be dreadful for a man to be confined to his room without a creature near him, except the servants," said Violet. The Earl frowned, but said nothing further. They all perceived that as soon as he had learned that there was no real danger as to his son's life, he was determined that this accident should not work him up to any show of tenderness. "I do so hope he will come up to London," continued Violet, who was not afraid of the Earl, and was determined not to be put down. "You don't know what you are talking about, my dear," said Lord Brentford. After this Phineas found it very difficult to extract any sympathy from the Earl on behalf of the men who had been locked up. He was moody and cross, and could not be induced to talk on the great subject of the day. Violet Effingham declared that she did not care how many Bunces were locked up; nor for how long,--adding, however, a wish that Mr. Turnbull himself had been among the number of the prisoners. Lady Laura was somewhat softer than this, and consented to express pity in the case of Mr. Bunce himself; but Phineas perceived that the pity was awarded to him and not to the sufferer. The feeling against Mr. Turnbull was at the present moment so strong among all the upper classes, that Mr. Bunce and his brethren might have been kept in durance for a week without commiseration from them. "It is very hard certainly on a man like Mr. Bunce," said Lady Laura. "Why did not Mr. Bunce stay at home and mind his business?" said the Earl. Phineas spent the remainder of that day alone, and came to a resolution that on the coming occasion he certainly would speak in the House. The debate would be resumed on the Monday, and he would rise to his legs on the very first moment that it became possible for him to do so. And he would do nothing towards preparing a speech;--nothing whatever. On this occasion he would trust entirely to such words as might come to him at the moment;--ay, and to such thoughts. He had before burdened his memory with preparations, and the very weight of the burden had been too much for his mind. He had feared to trust himself to speak, because he had felt that he was not capable of performing the double labour of saying his lesson by heart, and of facing the House for the first time. There should be nothing now for him to remember. His thoughts were full of his subject. He would support Mr. Mildmay's bill with all his eloquence, but he would implore Mr. Mildmay, and the Home Secretary, and the Government generally, to abstain from animosity against the populace of London, because they desired one special boon which Mr. Mildmay did not think that it was his duty to give them. He hoped that ideas and words would come to him. Ideas and words had been free enough with him in the old days of the Dublin debating society. If they failed him now, he must give the thing up, and go back to Mr. Low. On the Monday morning Phineas was for two hours at the police-court in Westminster, and at about one on that day Mr. Bunce was liberated. When he was brought up before the magistrate, Mr. Bunce spoke his mind very freely as to the usage he had received, and declared his intention of bringing an action against the sergeant who had detained him. The magistrate, of course, took the part of the police, and declared that, from the evidence of two men who were examined, Bunce had certainly used such violence in the crowd as had justified his arrest. "I used no violence," said Bunce. "According to your own showing, you endeavoured to make your way up to Mr. Turnbull's carriage," said the magistrate. "I was close to the carriage before the police even saw me," said Bunce. "But you tried to force your way round to the door." "I used no force till a man had me by the collar to push me back; and I wasn't violent, not then. I told him I was doing what I had a right to do,--and it was that as made him hang on to me." "You were not doing what you had a right to do. You were assisting to create a riot," said the magistrate, with that indignation which a London magistrate should always know how to affect. Phineas, however, was allowed to give evidence as to his landlord's character, and then Bunce was liberated. But before he went he again swore that that should not be the last of it, and he told the magistrate that he had been ill-used. When liberated, he was joined by a dozen sympathising friends, who escorted him home, and among them were one or two literary gentlemen, employed on those excellent penny papers, the _People's Banner_ and the _Ballot-box_. It was their intention that Mr. Bunce's case should not be allowed to sleep. One of these gentlemen made a distinct offer to Phineas Finn of unbounded popularity during life and of immortality afterwards, if he, as a member of Parliament, would take up Bunce's case with vigour. Phineas, not quite understanding the nature of the offer, and not as yet knowing the profession of the gentleman, gave some general reply. "You come out strong, Mr. Finn, and we'll see that you are properly reported. I'm on the _Banner_, sir, and I'll answer for that." Phineas, who had been somewhat eager in expressing his sympathy with Bunce, and had not given very close attention to the gentleman who was addressing him, was still in the dark. The nature of the _Banner_, which the gentleman was on, did not at once come home to him. "Something ought to be done, certainly," said Phineas. "We shall take it up strong," said the gentleman, "and we shall be happy to have you among us. You'll find, Mr. Finn, that in public life there's nothing like having a horgan to back you. What is the most you can do in the 'Ouse? Nothing, if you're not reported. You're speaking to the country;--ain't you? And you can't do that without a horgan, Mr. Finn. You come among us on the _Banner_, Mr. Finn. You can't do better." Then Phineas understood the nature of the offer made to him. As they parted, the literary gentleman gave our hero his card. "Mr. Quintus Slide." So much was printed. Then, on the corner of the card was written, "_Banner_ Office, 137, Fetter Lane." Mr. Quintus Slide was a young man, under thirty, not remarkable for clean linen, and who always talked of the "'Ouse." But he was a well-known and not undistinguished member of a powerful class of men. He had been a reporter, and as such knew the "'Ouse" well, and was a writer for the press. And, though he talked of "'Ouses" and "horgans", he wrote good English with great rapidity, and was possessed of that special sort of political fervour which shows itself in a man's work rather than in his conduct. It was Mr. Slide's taste to be an advanced reformer, and in all his operations on behalf of the _People's Banner_ he was a reformer very much advanced. No man could do an article on the people's indefeasible rights with more pronounced vigour than Mr. Slide. But it had never occurred to him as yet that he ought to care for anything else than the fight,--than the advantage of having a good subject on which to write slashing articles. Mr. Slide was an energetic but not a thoughtful man; but in his thoughts on politics, as far as they went with him, he regarded the wrongs of the people as being of infinitely greater value than their rights. It was not that he was insincere in all that he was daily saying;--but simply that he never thought about it. Very early in life he had fallen among "people's friends," and an opening on the liberal press had come in his way. To be a "people's friend" suited the turn of his ambition, and he was a "people's friend." It was his business to abuse Government, and to express on all occasions an opinion that as a matter of course the ruling powers were the "people's enemies." Had the ruling powers ceased to be the "people's enemies," Mr. Slide's ground would have been taken from under his feet. But such a catastrophe was out of the question. That excellent old arrangement that had gone on since demagogues were first invented was in full vigour. There were the ruling powers and there were the people,--devils on one side and angels on the other,--and as long as a people's friend had a pen in his hand all was right. Phineas, when he left the indignant Bunce to go among his friends, walked to the House thinking a good deal of what Mr. Slide had said to him. The potted peas Committee was again on, and he had intended to be in the Committee Room by twelve punctually: but he had been unable to leave Mr. Bunce in the lurch, and it was now past one. Indeed, he had, from one unfortunate circumstance after another, failed hitherto in giving to the potted peas that resolute attention which the subject demanded. On the present occasion his mind was full of Mr. Quintus Slide and the _People's Banner_. After all, was there not something in Mr. Slide's proposition? He, Phineas, had come into Parliament as it were under the wing of a Government pack, and his friendships, which had been very successful, had been made with Ministers, and with the friends of Ministers. He had made up his mind to be Whig Ministerial, and to look for his profession in that line. He had been specially fortified in this resolution by his dislike to the ballot,--which dislike had been the result of Mr. Monk's teaching. Had Mr. Turnbull become his friend instead, it may well be that he would have liked the ballot. On such subjects men must think long, and be sure that they have thought in earnest, before they are justified in saying that their opinions are the results of their own thoughts. But now he began to reflect how far this ministerial profession would suit him. Would it be much to be a Lord of the Treasury, subject to the dominion of Mr. Ratler? Such lordship and such subjection would be the result of success. He told himself that he was at heart a true Liberal. Would it not be better for him to abandon the idea of office trammels, and go among them on the _People's Banner_? A glow of enthusiasm came over him as he thought of it. But what would Violet Effingham say to the _People's Banner_ and Mr. Quintus Slide? And he would have liked the _Banner_ better had not Mr. Slide talked about the 'Ouse. From the Committee Room, in which, alas! he took no active part in reference to the potted peas, he went down to the House, and was present when the debate was resumed. Not unnaturally, one speaker after another made some allusion to the row in the streets, and the work which had fallen to the lot of the magistrates. Mr. Turnbull had declared that he would vote against the second reading of Mr. Mildmay's bill, and had explained that he would do so because he could consent to no Reform Bill which did not include the ballot as one of its measures. The debate fashioned itself after this speech of Mr. Turnbull's, and turned again very much upon the ballot,--although it had been thought that the late debate had settled that question. One or two of Mr. Turnbull's followers declared that they also would vote against the bill,--of course, as not going far enough; and one or two gentlemen from the Conservative benches extended a spoken welcome to these new colleagues. Then Mr. Palliser got up and addressed the House for an hour, struggling hard to bring back the real subject, and to make the House understand that the ballot, whether good or bad, had been knocked on the head, and that members had no right at the present moment to consider anything but the expediency or inexpediency of so much Reform as Mr. Mildmay presented to them in the present bill. Phineas was determined to speak, and to speak on this evening if he could catch the Speaker's eye. Again the scene before him was going round before him; again things became dim, and again he felt his blood beating hard at his heart. But things were not so bad with him as they had been before, because he had nothing to remember. He hardly knew, indeed, what he intended to say. He had an idea that he was desirous of joining in earnest support of the measure, with a vehement protest against the injustice which had been done to the people in general, and to Mr. Bunce in particular. He had firmly resolved that no fear of losing favour with the Government should induce him to hold his tongue as to the Buncean cruelties. Sooner than do so he would certainly "go among them" at the _Banner_ office. He started up, wildly, when Mr. Palliser had completed his speech; but the Speaker's eye, not unnaturally, had travelled to the other side of the House, and there was a Tory of the old school upon his legs,--Mr. Western, the member for East Barsetshire, one of the gallant few who dared to vote against Sir Robert Peel's bill for repealing the Corn Laws in 1846. Mr. Western spoke with a slow, ponderous, unimpressive, but very audible voice, for some twenty minutes, disdaining to make reference to Mr. Turnbull and his politics, but pleading against any Reform, with all the old arguments. Phineas did not hear a word that he said;--did not attempt to hear. He was keen in his resolution to make another attempt at the Speaker's eye, and at the present moment was thinking of that, and of that only. He did not even give himself a moment's reflection as to what his own speech should be. He would dash at it and take his chance, resolved that at least he would not fail in courage. Twice he was on his legs before Mr. Western had finished his slow harangue, and twice he was compelled to reseat himself,--thinking that he had subjected himself to ridicule. At last the member for East Barset sat down, and Phineas was conscious that he had lost a moment or two in presenting himself again to the Speaker. He held his ground, however, though he saw that he had various rivals for the right of speech. He held his ground, and was instantly aware that he had gained his point. There was a slight pause, and as some other urgent member did not reseat himself, Phineas heard the president of that august assembly call upon himself to address the House. The thing was now to be done. There he was with the House of Commons at his feet,--a crowded House, bound to be his auditors as long as he should think fit to address them, and reporters by tens and twenties in the gallery ready and eager to let the country know what the young member for Loughshane would say in this his maiden speech. Phineas Finn had sundry gifts, a powerful and pleasant voice, which he had learned to modulate, a handsome presence, and a certain natural mixture of modesty and self-reliance, which would certainly protect him from the faults of arrogance and pomposity, and which, perhaps, might carry him through the perils of his new position. And he had also the great advantage of friends in the House who were anxious that he should do well. But he had not that gift of slow blood which on the former occasion would have enabled him to remember his prepared speech, and which would now have placed all his own resources within his own reach. He began with the expression of an opinion that every true reformer ought to accept Mr. Mildmay's bill, even if it were accepted only as an instalment,--but before he had got through these sentences, he became painfully conscious that he was repeating his own words. He was cheered almost from the outset, and yet he knew as he went on that he was failing. He had certain arguments at his fingers' ends,--points with which he was, in truth, so familiar that he need hardly have troubled himself to arrange them for special use,--and he forgot even these. He found that he was going on with one platitude after another as to the benefit of reform, in a manner that would have shamed him six or seven years ago at a debating club. He pressed on, fearing that words would fail him altogether if he paused;--but he did in truth speak very much too fast, knocking his words together so that no reporter could properly catch them. But he had nothing to say for the bill except what hundreds had said before, and hundreds would say again. Still he was cheered, and still he went on; and as he became more and more conscious of his failure there grew upon him the idea,--the dangerous hope, that he might still save himself from ignominy by the eloquence of his invective against the police. He tried it, and succeeded thoroughly in making the House understand that he was very angry,--but he succeeded in nothing else. He could not catch the words to express the thoughts of his mind. He could not explain his idea that the people out of the House had as much right to express their opinion in favour of the ballot as members in the House had to express theirs against it; and that animosity had been shown to the people by the authorities because they had so expressed their opinion. Then he attempted to tell the story of Mr. Bunce in a light and airy way, failed, and sat down in the middle of it. Again he was cheered by all around him,--cheered as a new member is usually cheered,--and in the midst of the cheer would have blown out his brains had there been a pistol there ready for such an operation. That hour with him was very bad. He did not know how to get up and go away, or how to keep his place. For some time he sat with his hat off, forgetful of his privilege of wearing it; and then put it on hurriedly, as though the fact of his not wearing it must have been observed by everybody. At last, at about two, the debate was adjourned, and then as he was slowly leaving the House, thinking how he might creep away without companionship, Mr. Monk took him by the arm. "Are you going to walk?" said Mr. Monk. "Yes", said Phineas; "I shall walk." "Then we may go together as far as Pall Mall. Come along." Phineas had no means of escape, and left the House hanging on Mr. Monk's arm, without a word. Nor did Mr. Monk speak till they were out in Palace Yard. "It was not much amiss," said Mr. Monk; "but you'll do better than that yet." "Mr. Monk," said Phineas, "I have made an ass of myself so thoroughly, that there will at any rate be this good result, that I shall never make an ass of myself again after the same fashion." "Ah!--I thought you had some such feeling as that, and therefore I was determined to speak to you. You may be sure, Finn, that I do not care to flatter you, and I think you ought to know that, as far as I am able, I will tell you the truth. Your speech, which was certainly nothing great, was about on a par with other maiden speeches in the House of Commons. You have done yourself neither good nor harm. Nor was it desirable that you should. My advice to you now is, never to avoid speaking on any subject that interests you, but never to speak for above three minutes till you find yourself as much at home on your legs as you are when sitting. But do not suppose that you have made an ass of yourself,--that is, in any special degree. Now, good-night." CHAPTER XXVII Phineas Discussed Lady Laura Kennedy heard two accounts of her friend's speech,--and both from men who had been present. Her husband was in his place, in accordance with his constant practice, and Lord Brentford had been seated, perhaps unfortunately, in the peers' gallery. "And you think it was a failure?" Lady Laura said to her husband. "It certainly was not a success. There was nothing particular about it. There was a good deal of it you could hardly hear." After that she got the morning newspapers, and turned with great interest to the report. Phineas Finn had been, as it were, adopted by her as her own political offspring,--or at any rate as her political godchild. She had made promises on his behalf to various personages of high political standing,--to her father, to Mr. Monk, to the Duke of St. Bungay, and even to Mr. Mildmay himself. She had thoroughly intended that Phineas Finn should be a political success from the first; and since her marriage, she had, I think, been more intent upon it than before. Perhaps there was a feeling on her part that having wronged him in one way, she would repay him in another. She had become so eager for his success,--for a while scorning to conceal her feeling,--that her husband had unconsciously begun to entertain a dislike to her eagerness. We know how quickly women arrive at an understanding of the feelings of those with whom they live; and now, on that very occasion, Lady Laura perceived that her husband did not take in good part her anxiety on behalf of her friend. She saw that it was so as she turned over the newspaper looking for the report of the speech. It was given in six lines, and at the end of it there was an intimation,--expressed in the shape of advice,--that the young orator had better speak more slowly if he wished to be efficacious either with the House or with the country. "He seems to have been cheered a good deal," said Lady Laura. "All members are cheered at their first speech," said Mr. Kennedy. "I've no doubt he'll do well yet," said Lady Laura. "Very likely," said Mr. Kennedy. Then he turned to his newspaper, and did not take his eyes off it as long as his wife remained with him. Later in the day Lady Laura saw her father, and Miss Effingham was with her at the time. Lord Brentford said something which indicated that he had heard the debate on the previous evening, and Lady Laura instantly began to ask him about Phineas. "The less said the better," was the Earl's reply. "Do you mean that it was so bad as that?" asked Lady Laura. "It was not very bad at first;--though indeed nobody could say it was very good. But he got himself into a mess about the police and the magistrates before he had done, and nothing but the kindly feeling always shown to a first effort saved him from being coughed down." Lady Laura had not a word more to say about Phineas to her father; but, womanlike, she resolved that she would not abandon him. How many first failures in the world had been the precursors of ultimate success! "Mildmay will lose his bill," said the Earl, sorrowfully. "There does not seem to be a doubt about that." "And what will you all do?" asked Lady Laura. "We must go to the country, I suppose," said the Earl. "What's the use? You can't have a more liberal House than you have now," said Lady Laura. "We may have one less liberal,--or rather less radical,--with fewer men to support Mr. Turnbull. I do not see what else we can do. They say that there are no less than twenty-seven men on our side of the House who will either vote with Turnbull against us, or will decline to vote at all." "Every one of them ought to lose his seat," said Lady Laura. "But what can we do? How is the Queen's Government to be carried on?" We all know the sad earnestness which impressed itself on the Earl's brow as he asked these momentous questions. "I don't suppose that Mr. Turnbull can form a Ministry." "With Mr. Daubeny as whipper-in, perhaps he might," said Lady Laura. "And will Mr. Finn lose his seat?" asked Violet Effingham. "Most probably," said the Earl. "He only got it by an accident." "You must find him a seat somewhere in England," said Violet. "That might be difficult," said the Earl, who then left the room. The two women remained together for some quarter of an hour before they spoke again. Then Lady Laura said something about her brother. "If there be a dissolution, I hope Oswald will stand for Loughton." Loughton was a borough close to Saulsby, in which, as regarded its political interests, Lord Brentford was supposed to have considerable influence. To this Violet said nothing. "It is quite time," continued Lady Laura, "that old Mr. Standish should give way. He has had the seat for twenty-five years, and has never done anything, and he seldom goes to the House now." "He is not your uncle, is he?" "No; he is papa's cousin; but he is ever so much older than papa;--nearly eighty, I believe." "Would not that be just the place for Mr. Finn?" said Violet. Then Lady Laura became very serious. "Oswald would of course have a better right to it than anybody else." "But would Lord Chiltern go into Parliament? I have heard him declare that he would not." "If we could get papa to ask him, I think he would change his mind," said Lady Laura. There was again silence for a few moments, after which Violet returned to the original subject of their conversation. "It would be a thousand pities that Mr. Finn should be turned out into the cold. Don't you think so?" "I, for one, should be very sorry." "So should I,--and the more so from what Lord Brentford says about his not speaking well last night. I don't think that it is very much of an accomplishment for a gentleman to speak well. Mr. Turnbull, I suppose, speaks well; and they say that that horrid man, Mr. Bonteen, can talk by the hour together. I don't think that it shows a man to be clever at all. But I believe Mr. Finn would do it, if he set his mind to it, and I shall think it a great shame if they turn him out." "It would depend very much, I suppose, on Lord Tulla." "I don't know anything about Lord Tulla," said Violet; "but I'm quite sure that he might have Loughton, if we manage it properly. Of course Lord Chiltern should have it if he wants it, but I don't think he will stand in Mr. Finn's way." "I'm afraid it's out of the question," said Lady Laura, gravely. "Papa thinks so much about the borough." The reader will remember that both Lord Brentford and his daughter were thorough reformers! The use of a little borough of his own, however, is a convenience to a great peer. "Those difficult things have always to be talked of for a long while, and then they become easy," said Violet. "I believe if you were to propose to Mr. Kennedy to give all his property to the Church Missionaries and emigrate to New Zealand, he'd begin to consider it seriously after a time." "I shall not try, at any rate." "Because you don't want to go to New Zealand;--but you might try about Loughton for poor Mr. Finn." "Violet," said Lady Laura, after a moment's pause;--and she spoke sharply; "Violet, I believe you are in love with Mr. Finn." "That's just like you, Laura." "I never made such an accusation against you before, or against anybody else that I can remember. But I do begin to believe that you are in love with Mr. Finn." "Why shouldn't I be in love with him, if I like?" "I say nothing about that;--only he has not got a penny." "But I have, my dear." "And I doubt whether you have any reason for supposing that he is in love with you." "That would be my affair, my dear." "Then you are in love with him?" "That is my affair also." Lady Laura shrugged her shoulders. "Of course it is; and if you tell me to hold my tongue, of course I will do so. If you ask me whether I think it a good match, of course I must say I do not." "I don't tell you to hold your tongue, and I don't ask you what you think about the match. You are quite welcome to talk as much about me as you please;--but as to Mr. Phineas Finn, you have no business to think anything." "I shouldn't talk to anybody but yourself." "I am growing to be quite indifferent as to what people say. Lady Baldock asked me the other day whether I was going to throw myself away on Mr. Laurence Fitzgibbon." "No!" "Indeed she did." "And what did you answer?" "I told her that it was not quite settled; but that as I had only spoken to him once during the last two years, and then for not more than half a minute, and as I wasn't sure whether I knew him by sight, and as I had reason to suppose he didn't know my name, there might, perhaps, be a delay of a week or two before the thing came off. Then she flounced out of the room." "But what made her ask about Mr. Fitzgibbon?" "Somebody had been hoaxing her. I am beginning to think that Augusta does it for her private amusement. If so, I shall think more highly of my dear cousin than I have hitherto done. But, Laura, as you have made a similar accusation against me, and as I cannot get out of it with you as I do with my aunt, I must ask you to hear my protestation. I am not in love with Mr. Phineas Finn. Heaven help me;--as far as I can tell, I am not in love with any one, and never shall be." Lady Laura looked pleased. "Do you know," continued Violet, "that I think I could be in love with Mr. Phineas Finn, if I could be in love with anybody?" Then Lady Laura looked displeased. "In the first place, he is a gentleman," continued Violet. "Then he is a man of spirit. And then he has not too much spirit;--not that kind of spirit which makes some men think that they are the finest things going. His manners are perfect;--not Chesterfieldian, and yet never offensive. He never browbeats any one, and never toadies any one. He knows how to live easily with men of all ranks, without any appearance of claiming a special status for himself. If he were made Archbishop of Canterbury to-morrow, I believe he would settle down into the place of the first subject in the land without arrogance, and without false shame." "You are his eulogist with a vengeance." "I am his eulogist; but I am not in love with him. If he were to ask me to be his wife to-morrow, I should be distressed, and should refuse him. If he were to marry my dearest friend in the world, I should tell him to kiss me and be my brother. As to Mr. Phineas Finn,--those are my sentiments." "What you say is very odd." "Why odd?" "Simply because mine are the same." "Are they the same? I once thought, Laura, that you did love him;--that you meant to be his wife." Lady Laura sat for a while without making any reply to this. She sat with her elbow on the table and with her face leaning on her hand,--thinking how far it would tend to her comfort if she spoke in true confidence. Violet during the time never took her eyes from her friend's face, but remained silent as though waiting for an answer. She had been very explicit as to her feelings. Would Laura Kennedy be equally explicit? She was too clever to forget that such plainness of speech would be, must be more difficult to Lady Laura than to herself. Lady Laura was a married woman; but she felt that her friend would have been wrong to search for secrets, unless she were ready to tell her own. It was probably some such feeling which made Lady Laura speak at last. "So I did, nearly--" said Lady Laura; "very nearly. You told me just now that you had money, and could therefore do as you pleased. I had no money, and could not do as I pleased." "And you told me also that I had no reason for thinking that he cared for me." "Did I? Well;--I suppose you have no reason. He did care for me. He did love me." "He told you so?" "Yes;--he told me so." "And how did you answer him?" "I had that very morning become engaged to Mr. Kennedy. That was my answer." "And what did he say when you told him?" "I do not know. I cannot remember. But he behaved very well." "And now,--if he were to love me, you would grudge me his love?" "Not for that reason,--not if I know myself. Oh no! I would not be so selfish as that." "For what reason then?" "Because I look upon it as written in heaven that you are to be Oswald's wife." "Heaven's writings then are false," said Violet, getting up and walking away. In the meantime Phineas was very wretched at home. When he reached his lodgings after leaving the House,--after his short conversation with Mr. Monk,--he tried to comfort himself with what that gentleman had said to him. For a while, while he was walking, there had been some comfort in Mr. Monk's words. Mr. Monk had much experience, and doubtless knew what he was saying,--and there might yet be hope. But all this hope faded away when Phineas was in his own rooms. There came upon him, as he looked round them, an idea that he had no business to be in Parliament, that he was an impostor, that he was going about the world under false pretences, and that he would never set himself aright, even unto himself, till he had gone through some terrible act of humiliation. He had been a cheat even to Mr. Quintus Slide of the _Banner_, in accepting an invitation to come among them. He had been a cheat to Lady Laura, in that he had induced her to think that he was fit to live with her. He was a cheat to Violet Effingham, in assuming that he was capable of making himself agreeable to her. He was a cheat to Lord Chiltern when riding his horses, and pretending to be a proper associate for a man of fortune. Why,--what was his income? What his birth? What his proper position? And now he had got the reward which all cheats deserve. Then he went to bed, and as he lay there, he thought of Mary Flood Jones. Had he plighted his troth to Mary, and then worked like a slave under Mr. Low's auspices,--he would not have been a cheat. It seemed to him that he had hardly been asleep when the girl came into his room in the morning. "Sir," said she, "there's that gentleman there." "What gentleman?" "The old gentleman." Then Phineas knew that Mr. Clarkson was in his sitting-room, and that he would not leave it till he had seen the owner of the room. Nay,--Phineas was pretty sure that Mr. Clarkson would come into the bedroom, if he were kept long waiting. "Damn the old gentleman," said Phineas in his wrath;--and the maid-servant heard him say so. In about twenty minutes he went out into the sitting-room, with his slippers on and in his dressing-gown. Suffering under the circumstances of such an emergency, how is any man to go through the work of dressing and washing with proper exactness? As to the prayers which he said on that morning, I think that no question should be asked. He came out with a black cloud on his brow, and with his mind half made up to kick Mr. Clarkson out of the room. Mr. Clarkson, when he saw him, moved his chin round within his white cravat, as was a custom with him, and put his thumb and forefinger on his lips, and then shook his head. "Very bad, Mr. Finn; very bad indeed; very bad, ain't it?" "You coming here in this way at all times in the day is very bad," said Phineas. "And where would you have me go? Would you like to see me down in the lobby of the House?" "To tell you the truth, Mr. Clarkson, I don't want to see you anywhere." "Ah; yes; I daresay! And that's what you call honest, being a Parliament gent! You had my money, and then you tell me you don't want to see me any more!" "I have not had your money," said Phineas. "But let me tell you," continued Mr. Clarkson, "that I want to see you;--and shall go on seeing you till the money is paid." "I've not had any of your money," said Phineas. Mr. Clarkson again twitched his chin about on the top of his cravat and smiled. "Mr. Finn," said he, showing the bill, "is that your name?" "Yes, it is." "Then I want my money." "I have no money to give you." "Do be punctual now. Why ain't you punctual? I'd do anything for you if you were punctual. I would indeed." Mr. Clarkson, as he said this, sat down in the chair which had been placed for our hero's breakfast, and cutting a slice off the loaf, began to butter it with great composure. "Mr. Clarkson," said Phineas, "I cannot ask you to breakfast here. I am engaged." "I'll just take a bit of bread and butter all the same," said Clarkson. "Where do you get your butter? Now I could tell you a woman who'd give it you cheaper and a deal better than this. This is all lard. Shall I send her to you?" "No," said Phineas. There was no tea ready, and therefore Mr. Clarkson emptied the milk into a cup and drank it. "After this," said Phineas, "I must beg, Mr. Clarkson, that you will never come to my room any more. I shall not be at home to you." "The lobby of the House is the same thing to me," said Mr. Clarkson. "They know me there well. I wish you'd be punctual, and then we'd be the best of friends." After that Mr. Clarkson, having finished his bread and butter, took his leave. CHAPTER XXVIII The Second Reading Is Carried The debate on the bill was prolonged during the whole of that week. Lord Brentford, who loved his seat in the Cabinet and the glory of being a Minister, better even than he loved his borough, had taken a gloomy estimate when he spoke of twenty-seven defaulters, and of the bill as certainly lost. Men who were better able than he to make estimates,--the Bonteens and Fitzgibbons on each side of the House, and above all, the Ratlers and Robys, produced lists from day to day which varied now by three names in one direction, then by two in another, and which fluctuated at last by units only. They all concurred in declaring that it would be a very near division. A great effort was made to close the debate on the Friday, but it failed, and the full tide of speech was carried on till the following Monday. On that morning Phineas heard Mr. Ratler declare at the club that, as far as his judgment went, the division at that moment was a fair subject for a bet. "There are two men doubtful in the House," said Ratler, "and if one votes on one side and one on the other, or if neither votes at all, it will be a tie." Mr. Roby, however, the whip on the other side, was quite sure that one at least of these gentlemen would go into his lobby, and that the other would not go into Mr. Ratler's lobby. I am inclined to think that the town was generally inclined to put more confidence in the accuracy of Mr. Roby than in that of Mr. Ratler; and among betting men there certainly was a point given by those who backed the Conservatives. The odds, however, were lost, for on the division the numbers in the two lobbies were equal, and the Speaker gave his casting vote in favour of the Government. The bill was read a second time, and was lost, as a matter of course, in reference to any subsequent action. Mr. Roby declared that even Mr. Mildmay could not go on with nothing but the Speaker's vote to support him. Mr. Mildmay had no doubt felt that he could not go on with his bill from the moment in which Mr. Turnbull had declared his opposition; but he could not with propriety withdraw it in deference to Mr. Turnbull's opinion. During the week Phineas had had his hands sufficiently full. Twice he had gone to the potted peas inquiry; but he had been at the office of the _People's Banner_ more often than that. Bunce had been very resolute in his determination to bring an action against the police for false imprisonment, even though he spent every shilling of his savings in doing so. And when his wife, in the presence of Phineas, begged that bygones might be bygones, reminding him that spilt milk could not be recovered, he called her a mean-spirited woman. Then Mrs. Bunce wept a flood of tears, and told her favourite lodger that for her all comfort in this world was over. "Drat the reformers, I say. And I wish there was no Parliament; so I do. What's the use of all the voting, when it means nothing but dry bread and cross words?" Phineas by no means encouraged his landlord in his litigious spirit, advising him rather to keep his money in his pocket, and leave the fighting of the battle to the columns of the _Banner_,--which would fight it, at any rate, with economy. But Bunce, though he delighted in the _Banner_, and showed an unfortunate readiness to sit at the feet of Mr. Quintus Slide, would have his action at law;--in which resolution Mr. Slide did, I fear, encourage him behind the back of his better friend, Phineas Finn. Phineas went with Bunce to Mr. Low's chambers,--for Mr. Low had in some way become acquainted with the law-stationer's journeyman,--and there some very good advice was given. "Have you asked yourself what is your object, Mr. Bunce?" said Mr. Low. Mr. Bunce declared he had asked himself that question, and had answered it. His object was redress. "In the shape of compensation to yourself," suggested Mr. Low. No; Mr. Bunce would not admit that he personally required any compensation. The redress wanted was punishment to the man. "Is it for vengeance?" asked Mr. Low. No; it was not for vengeance, Mr. Bunce declared. "It ought not to be," continued Mr. Low; "because, though you think that the man exceeded in his duty, you must feel that he was doing so through no personal ill-will to yourself." "What I want is, to have the fellows kept in their proper places," said Mr. Bunce. "Exactly;--and therefore these things, when they occur, are mentioned in the press and in Parliament,--and the attention of a Secretary of State is called to them. Thank God, we don't have very much of that kind of thing in England." "Maybe we shall have more if we don't look to it," said Bunce stoutly. "We always are looking to it," said Mr. Low;--"looking to it very carefully. But I don't think anything is to be done in that way by indictment against a single man, whose conduct has been already approved by the magistrates. If you want notoriety, Mr. Bunce, and don't mind what you pay for it; or have got anybody else to pay for it; then indeed--" "There ain't nobody to pay for it," said Bunce, waxing angry. "Then I certainly should not pay for it myself if I were you," said Mr. Low. But Bunce was not to be counselled out of his intention. When he was out in the square with Phineas he expressed great anger against Mr. Low. "He don't know what patriotism means," said the law scrivener. "And then he talks to me about notoriety! It has always been the same way with 'em. If a man shows a spark of public feeling, it's all hambition. I don't want no notoriety. I wants to earn my bread peaceable, and to be let alone when I'm about my own business. I pays rates for the police to look after rogues, not to haul folks about and lock 'em up for days and nights, who is doing what they has a legal right to do." After that, Bunce went to his attorney, to the great detriment of the business at the stationer's shop, and Phineas visited the office of the _People's Banner_. There he wrote a leading article about Bunce's case, for which he was in due time to be paid a guinea. After all, the _People's Banner_ might do more for him in this way than ever would be done by Parliament. Mr. Slide, however, and another gentleman at the _Banner_ office, much older than Mr. Slide, who announced himself as the actual editor, were anxious that Phineas should rid himself of his heterodox political resolutions about the ballot. It was not that they cared much about his own opinions; and when Phineas attempted to argue with the editor on the merits of the ballot, the editor put him down very shortly. "We go in for it, Mr. Finn," he said. If Mr. Finn would go in for it too, the editor seemed to think that Mr. Finn might make himself very useful at the _Banner_ Office. Phineas stoutly maintained that this was impossible,--and was therefore driven to confine his articles in the service of the people to those open subjects on which his opinions agreed with those of the _People's Banner_. This was his second article, and the editor seemed to think that, backward as he was about the ballot, he was too useful an aid to be thrown aside. A member of Parliament is not now all that he was once, but still there is a prestige in the letters affixed to his name which makes him loom larger in the eyes of the world than other men. Get into Parliament, if it be but for the borough of Loughshane, and the _People's Banners_ all round will be glad of your assistance, as will also companies limited and unlimited to a very marvellous extent. Phineas wrote his article and promised to look in again, and so they went on. Mr. Quintus Slide continued to assure him that a "horgan" was indispensable to him, and Phineas began to accommodate his ears to the sound which had at first been so disagreeable. He found that his acquaintance, Mr. Slide, had ideas of his own as to getting into the 'Ouse at some future time. "I always look upon the 'Ouse as my oyster, and 'ere's my sword," said Mr. Slide, brandishing an old quill pen. "And I feel that if once there I could get along. I do indeed. What is it a man wants? It's only pluck,--that he shouldn't funk because a 'undred other men are looking at him." Then Phineas asked him whether he had any idea of a constituency, to which Mr. Slide replied that he had no absolutely formed intention. Many boroughs, however, would doubtless be set free from aristocratic influence by the redistribution of seats which must take place, as Mr. Slide declared, at any rate in the next session. Then he named the borough of Loughton; and Phineas Finn, thinking of Saulsby, thinking of the Earl, thinking of Lady Laura, and thinking of Violet, walked away disgusted. Would it not be better that the quiet town, clustering close round the walls of Saulsby, should remain as it was, than that it should be polluted by the presence of Mr. Quintus Slide? On the last day of the debate, at a few moments before four o'clock, Phineas encountered another terrible misfortune. He had been at the potted peas since twelve, and had on this occasion targed two or three commissariat officers very tightly with questions respecting cabbages and potatoes, and had asked whether the officers on board a certain ship did not always eat preserved asparagus while the men had not even a bean. I fear that he had been put up to this business by Mr. Quintus Slide, and that he made himself nasty. There was, however, so much nastiness of the kind going, that his little effort made no great difference. The conservative members of the Committee, on whose side of the House the inquiry had originated, did not scruple to lay all manner of charges to officers whom, were they themselves in power, they would be bound to support and would support with all their energies. About a quarter before four the members of the Committee had dismissed their last witness for the day, being desirous of not losing their chance of seats on so important an occasion, and hurried down into the lobby,--so that they might enter the House before prayers. Phineas here was button-holed by Barrington Erle, who said something to him as to the approaching division. They were standing in front of the door of the House, almost in the middle of the lobby, with a crowd of members around them,--on a spot which, as frequenters know, is hallowed ground, and must not be trodden by strangers. He was in the act of answering Erle, when he was touched on the arm, and on turning round, saw Mr. Clarkson. "About that little bill, Mr. Finn," said the horrible man, turning his chin round over his white cravat. "They always tell me at your lodgings that you ain't at home." By this time a policeman was explaining to Mr. Clarkson with gentle violence that he must not stand there,--that he must go aside into one of the corners. "I know all that," said Mr. Clarkson, retreating. "Of course I do. But what is a man to do when a gent won't see him at home?" Mr. Clarkson stood aside in his corner quietly, giving the policeman no occasion for further action against him; but in retreating he spoke loud, and there was a lull of voices around, and twenty members at least had heard what had been said. Phineas Finn no doubt had his privilege, but Mr. Clarkson was determined that the privilege should avail him as little as possible. It was very hard. The real offender, the Lord of the Treasury, the peer's son, with a thousand a year paid by the country was not treated with this cruel persecution. Phineas had in truth never taken a farthing from any one but his father; and though doubtless he owed something at this moment, he had no creditor of his own that was even angry with him. As the world goes he was a clear man,--but for this debt of his friend Fitzgibbon. He left Barrington Erle in the lobby, and hurried into the House, blushing up to the eyes. He looked for Fitzgibbon in his place, but the Lord of the Treasury was not as yet there. Doubtless he would be there for the division, and Phineas resolved that he would speak a bit of his mind before he let his friend out of his sight. There were some great speeches made on that evening. Mr. Gresham delivered an oration of which men said that it would be known in England as long as there were any words remaining of English eloquence. In it he taunted Mr. Turnbull with being a recreant to the people, of whom he called himself so often the champion. But Mr. Turnbull was not in the least moved. Mr. Gresham knew well enough that Mr. Turnbull was not to be moved by any words;--but the words were not the less telling to the House and to the country. Men, who heard it, said that Mr. Gresham forgot himself in that speech, forgot his party, forgot his strategy, forgot his long-drawn schemes,--even his love of applause, and thought only of his cause. Mr. Daubeny replied to him with equal genius, and with equal skill,--if not with equal heart. Mr. Gresham had asked for the approbation of all present and of all future reformers. Mr. Daubeny denied him both,--the one because he would not succeed, and the other because he would not have deserved success. Then Mr. Mildmay made his reply, getting up at about three o'clock, and uttered a prayer,--a futile prayer,--that this his last work on behalf of his countrymen might be successful. His bill was read a second time, as I have said before, in obedience to the casting vote of the Speaker,--but a majority such as that was tantamount to a defeat. There was, of course, on that night no declaration as to what ministers would do. Without a meeting of the Cabinet, and without some further consideration, though each might know that the bill would be withdrawn, they could not say in what way they would act. But late as was the hour, there were many words on the subject before members were in their beds. Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Monk left the House together, and perhaps no two gentlemen in it had in former sessions been more in the habit of walking home arm-in-arm and discussing what each had heard and what each had said in that assembly. Latterly these two men had gone strangely asunder in their paths,--very strangely for men who had for years walked so closely together. And this separation had been marked by violent words spoken against each other,--by violent words, at least, spoken against him in office by the one who had never contaminated his hands by the Queen's shilling. And yet, on such an occasion as this, they were able to walk away from the House arm-in-arm, and did not fly at each other's throat by the way. "Singular enough, is it not," said Mr. Turnbull, "that the thing should have been so close?" "Very odd," said Mr. Monk; "but men have said that it would be so all the week." "Gresham was very fine," said Mr. Turnbull. "Very fine, indeed. I never have heard anything like it before." "Daubeny was very powerful too," said Mr. Turnbull. "Yes;--no doubt. The occasion was great, and he answered to the spur. But Gresham's was the speech of the debate." "Well;--yes; perhaps it was," said Mr. Turnbull, who was thinking of his own flight the other night, and who among his special friends had been much praised for what he had then done. But of course he made no allusion to his own doings,--or to those of Mr. Monk. In this way they conversed for some twenty minutes, till they parted; but neither of them interrogated the other as to what either might be called upon to do in consequence of the division which had just been effected. They might still be intimate friends, but the days of confidence between them were passed. Phineas had seen Laurence Fitzgibbon enter the House,--which he did quite late in the night, so as to be in time for the division. No doubt he had dined in the House, and had been all the evening in the library,--or in the smoking-room. When Mr. Mildmay was on his legs making his reply, Fitzgibbon had sauntered in, not choosing to wait till he might be rung up by the bell at the last moment. Phineas was near him as they passed by the tellers, near him in the lobby, and near him again as they all passed back into the House. But at the last moment he thought that he would miss his prey. In the crowd as they left the House he failed to get his hand upon his friend's shoulder. But he hurried down the members' passage, and just at the gate leading out into Westminster Hall he overtook Fitzgibbon walking arm-in-arm with Barrington Erle. "Laurence," he said, taking hold of his countryman's arm with a decided grasp, "I want to speak to you for a moment, if you please." "Speak away," said Laurence. Then Phineas, looking up into his face, knew very well that he had been--what the world calls, dining. Phineas remembered at the moment that Barrington Erle had been close to him when the odious money-lender had touched his arm and made his inquiry about that "little bill." He much wished to make Erle understand that the debt was not his own,--that he was not in the hands of usurers in reference to his own concerns. But there was a feeling within him that he still,--even still,--owed something to his friendship to Fitzgibbon. "Just give me your arm, and come on with me for a minute," said Phineas. "Erle will excuse us." "Oh, blazes!" said Laurence, "what is it you're after? I ain't good at private conferences at three in the morning. We're all out, and isn't that enough for ye?" "I have been dreadfully annoyed to-night," said Phineas, "and I wished to speak to you about it." "Bedad, Finn, my boy, and there are a good many of us are annoyed;--eh, Barrington?" Phineas perceived clearly that though Fitzgibbon had been dining, there was as much of cunning in all this as of wine, and he was determined not to submit to such unlimited ill-usage. "My annoyance comes from your friend, Mr. Clarkson, who had the impudence to address me in the lobby of the House." "And serve you right, too, Finn, my boy. Why the devil did you sport your oak to him? He has told me all about it. There ain't such a patient little fellow as Clarkson anywhere, if you'll only let him have his own way. He'll look in, as he calls it, three times a week for a whole season, and do nothing further. Of course he don't like to be locked out." "Is that the gentleman with whom the police interfered in the lobby?" Erle inquired. "A confounded bill discounter to whom our friend here has introduced me,--for his own purposes," said Phineas. "A very gentleman-like fellow," said Laurence. "Barrington knows him, I daresay. Look here, Finn, my boy, take my advice. Ask him to breakfast, and let him understand that the house will always be open to him." After this Laurence Fitzgibbon and Barrington Erle got into a cab together, and were driven away. CHAPTER XXIX A Cabinet Meeting And now will the Muses assist me while I sing an altogether new song? On the Tuesday the Cabinet met at the First Lord's official residence in Downing Street, and I will attempt to describe what, according to the bewildered brain of a poor fictionist, was said or might have been said, what was done or might have been done, on so august an occasion. The poor fictionist very frequently finds himself to have been wrong in his description of things in general, and is told so, roughly by the critics, and tenderly by the friends of his bosom. He is moved to tell of things of which he omits to learn the nature before he tells of them--as should be done by a strictly honest fictionist. He catches salmon in October; or shoots his partridges in March. His dahlias bloom in June, and his birds sing in the autumn. He opens the opera-houses before Easter, and makes Parliament sit on a Wednesday evening. And then those terrible meshes of the Law! How is a fictionist, in these excited days, to create the needed biting interest without legal difficulties; and how again is he to steer his little bark clear of so many rocks,--when the rocks and the shoals have been purposely arranged to make the taking of a pilot on board a necessity? As to those law meshes, a benevolent pilot will, indeed, now and again give a poor fictionist a helping hand,--not used, however, generally, with much discretion. But from whom is any assistance to come in the august matter of a Cabinet assembly? There can be no such assistance. No man can tell aught but they who will tell nothing. But then, again, there is this safety, that let the story be ever so mistold,--let the fiction be ever so far removed from the truth, no critic short of a Cabinet Minister himself can convict the narrator of error. It was a large dingy room, covered with a Turkey carpet, and containing a dark polished mahogany dinner-table, on very heavy carved legs, which an old messenger was preparing at two o'clock in the day for the use of her Majesty's Ministers. The table would have been large enough for fourteen guests, and along the side further from the fire, there were placed some six heavy chairs, good comfortable chairs, stuffed at the back as well as the seat,--but on the side nearer to the fire the chairs were placed irregularly; and there were four armchairs,--two on one side and two on the other. There were four windows to the room, which looked on to St. James's Park, and the curtains of the windows were dark and heavy,--as became the gravity of the purposes to which that chamber was appropriated. In old days it had been the dining-room of one Prime Minister after another. To Pitt it had been the abode of his own familiar prandial Penates, and Lord Liverpool had been dull there among his dull friends for long year after year. The Ministers of the present day find it more convenient to live in private homes, and, indeed, not unfrequently carry their Cabinets with them. But, under Mr. Mildmay's rule, the meetings were generally held in the old room at the official residence. Thrice did the aged messenger move each armchair, now a little this way and now a little that, and then look at them as though something of the tendency of the coming meeting might depend on the comfort of its leading members. If Mr. Mildmay should find himself to be quite comfortable, so that he could hear what was said without a struggle to his ear, and see his colleagues' faces clearly, and feel the fire without burning his shins, it might be possible that he would not insist upon resigning. If this were so, how important was the work now confided to the hands of that aged messenger! When his anxious eyes had glanced round the room some half a dozen times, when he had touched each curtain, laid his hand upon every chair, and dusted certain papers which lay upon a side-table,--and which had been lying there for two years, and at which no one ever looked or would look,--he gently crept away and ensconced himself in an easy chair not far from the door of the chamber. For it might be necessary to stop the attempt of a rash intruder on those secret counsels. Very shortly there was heard the ring of various voices in the passages,--the voices of men speaking pleasantly, the voices of men with whom it seemed, from their tone, that things were doing well in the world. And then a cluster of four or five gentlemen entered the room. At first sight they seemed to be as ordinary gentlemen as you shall meet anywhere about Pall Mall on an afternoon. There was nothing about their outward appearance of the august wiggery of statecraft, nothing of the ponderous dignity of ministerial position. That little man in the square-cut coat,--we may almost call it a shooting-coat,--swinging an umbrella and wearing no gloves, is no less a person than the Lord Chancellor,--Lord Weazeling,--who made a hundred thousand pounds as Attorney-General, and is supposed to be the best lawyer of his age. He is fifty, but he looks to be hardly over forty, and one might take him to be, from his appearance,--perhaps a clerk in the War Office, well-to-do, and popular among his brother-clerks. Immediately with him is Sir Harry Coldfoot, also a lawyer by profession, though he has never practised. He has been in the House for nearly thirty years, and is now at the Home Office. He is a stout, healthy, grey-haired gentleman, who certainly does not wear the cares of office on his face. Perhaps, however, no minister gets more bullied than he by the press, and men say that he will be very willing to give up to some political enemy the control of the police, and the onerous duty of judging in all criminal appeals. Behind these come our friend Mr. Monk, young Lord Cantrip from the colonies next door, than whom no smarter young peer now does honour to our hereditary legislature, and Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Why Sir Marmaduke has always been placed in Mr. Mildmay's Cabinets nobody ever knew. As Chancellor of the Duchy he has nothing to do,--and were there anything, he would not do it. He rarely speaks in the House, and then does not speak well. He is a handsome man, or would be but for an assumption of grandeur in the carriage of his eyes, giving to his face a character of pomposity which he himself well deserves. He was in the Guards when young, and has been in Parliament since he ceased to be young. It must be supposed that Mr. Mildmay has found something in him, for he has been included in three successive liberal Cabinets. He has probably the virtue of being true to Mr. Mildmay, and of being duly submissive to one whom he recognises as his superior. Within two minutes afterwards the Duke followed, with Plantagenet Palliser. The Duke, as all the world knows, was the Duke of St. Bungay, the very front and head of the aristocratic old Whigs of the country,--a man who has been thrice spoken of as Prime Minister, and who really might have filled the office had he not known himself to be unfit for it. The Duke has been consulted as to the making of Cabinets for the last five-and-thirty years, and is even now not an old man in appearance;--a fussy, popular, clever, conscientious man, whose digestion has been too good to make politics a burden to him, but who has thought seriously about his country, and is one who will be sure to leave memoirs behind him. He was born in the semi-purple of ministerial influences, and men say of him that he is honester than his uncle, who was Canning's friend, but not so great a man as his grandfather, with whom Fox once quarrelled, and whom Burke loved. Plantagenet Palliser, himself the heir to a dukedom, was the young Chancellor of the Exchequer, of whom some statesmen thought much as the rising star of the age. If industry, rectitude of purpose, and a certain clearness of intellect may prevail, Planty Pall, as he is familiarly called, may become a great Minister. Then came Viscount Thrift by himself;--the First Lord of the Admiralty, with the whole weight of a new iron-clad fleet upon his shoulders. He has undertaken the Herculean task of cleansing the dockyards,--and with it the lesser work of keeping afloat a navy that may be esteemed by his countrymen to be the best in the world. And he thinks that he will do both, if only Mr. Mildmay will not resign;--an industrious, honest, self-denying nobleman, who works without ceasing from morn to night, and who hopes to rise in time to high things,--to the translating of Homer, perhaps, and the wearing of the Garter. Close behind him there was a ruck of Ministers, with the much-honoured grey-haired old Premier in the midst of them. There was Mr. Gresham, the Foreign Minister, said to be the greatest orator in Europe, on whose shoulders it was thought that the mantle of Mr. Mildmay would fall,--to be worn, however, quite otherwise than Mr. Mildmay had worn it. For Mr. Gresham is a man with no feelings for the past, void of historical association, hardly with memories,--living altogether for the future which he is anxious to fashion anew out of the vigour of his own brain. Whereas, with Mr. Mildmay, even his love of reform is an inherited passion for an old-world Liberalism. And there was with them Mr. Legge Wilson, the brother of a peer, Secretary at War, a great scholar and a polished gentleman, very proud of his position as a Cabinet Minister, but conscious that he has hardly earned it by political work. And Lord Plinlimmon is with them, the Comptroller of India,--of all working lords the most jaunty, the most pleasant, and the most popular, very good at taking chairs at dinners, and making becoming speeches at the shortest notice, a man apparently very free and open in his ways of life,--but cautious enough in truth as to every step, knowing well how hard it is to climb and how easy to fall. Mr. Mildmay entered the room leaning on Lord Plinlimmon's arm, and when he made his way up among the armchairs upon the rug before the fire, the others clustered around him with cheering looks and kindly questions. Then came the Privy Seal, our old friend Lord Brentford, last,--and I would say least, but that the words of no councillor could go for less in such an assemblage than will those of Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Mr. Mildmay was soon seated in one of the armchairs, while Lord Plinlimmon leaned against the table close at his elbow. Mr. Gresham stood upright at the corner of the chimney-piece furthest from Mr. Mildmay, and Mr. Palliser at that nearest to him. The Duke took the armchair close at Mr. Mildmay's left hand. Lord Plinlimmon was, as I have said, leaning against the table, but the Lord Chancellor, who was next to him, sat upon it. Viscount Thrift and Mr. Monk occupied chairs on the further side of the table, near to Mr. Mildmay's end, and Mr. Legge Wilson placed himself at the head of the table, thus joining them as it were into a body. The Home Secretary stood before the Lord Chancellor screening him from the fire, and the Chancellor of the Duchy, after waiting for a few minutes as though in doubt, took one of the vacant armchairs. The young lord from the Colonies stood a little behind the shoulders of his great friend from the Foreign Office; and the Privy Seal, after moving about for a while uneasily, took a chair behind the Chancellor of the Duchy. One armchair was thus left vacant, but there was no other comer. "It is not so bad as I thought it would be," said the Duke, speaking aloud, but nevertheless addressing himself specially to his chief. "It was bad enough," said Mr. Mildmay, laughing. "Bad enough indeed," said Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, without any laughter. "And such a good bill lost," said Lord Plinlimmon. "The worst of these failures is, that the same identical bill can never be brought in again." "So that if the lost bill was best, the bill that will not be lost can only be second best," said the Lord Chancellor. "I certainly did think that after the debate before Easter we should not have come to shipwreck about the ballot," said Mr. Mildmay. "It was brewing for us all along," said Mr. Gresham, who then with a gesture of his hand and a pressure of his lips withheld words which he was nearly uttering, and which would not, probably, have been complimentary to Mr. Turnbull. As it was, he turned half round and said something to Lord Cantrip which was not audible to any one else in the room. It was worthy of note, however, that Mr. Turnbull's name was not once mentioned aloud at that meeting. "I am afraid it was brewing all along," said Sir Marmaduke Morecombe gravely. "Well, gentlemen, we must take it as we get it," said Mr. Mildmay, still smiling. "And now we must consider what we shall do at once." Then he paused as though expecting that counsel would come to him first from one colleague and then from another. But no such counsel came, and probably Mr. Mildmay did not in the least expect that it would come. "We cannot stay where we are, of course," said the Duke. The Duke was privileged to say as much as that. But though every man in the room knew that it must be so, no one but the Duke would have said it, before Mr. Mildmay had spoken plainly himself. "No," said Mr. Mildmay; "I suppose that we can hardly stay where we are. Probably none of us wish it, gentlemen." Then he looked round upon his colleagues, and there came a sort of an assent, though there were no spoken words. The sound from Sir Marmaduke Morecombe was louder than that from the others;--but yet from him it was no more than an attesting grunt. "We have two things to consider," continued Mr. Mildmay,--and though he spoke in a very low voice, every word was heard by all present,--"two things chiefly, that is; the work of the country and the Queen's comfort. I propose to see her Majesty this afternoon at five,--that is, in something less than two hours' time, and I hope to be able to tell the House by seven what has taken place between her Majesty and me. My friend, his Grace, will do as much in the House of Lords. If you agree with me, gentlemen, I will explain to the Queen that it is not for the welfare of the country that we should retain our places, and I will place your resignations and my own in her Majesty's hands." "You will advise her Majesty to send for Lord de Terrier," said Mr. Gresham. "Certainly;--there will be no other course open to me." "Or to her," said Mr. Gresham. To this remark from the rising Minister of the day, no word of reply was made; but of those present in the room three or four of the most experienced servants of the Crown felt that Mr. Gresham had been imprudent. The Duke, who had. ever been afraid of Mr. Gresham, told Mr. Palliser afterwards that such an observation should not have been made; and Sir Harry Coldfoot pondered upon it uneasily, and Sir Marmaduke Morecombe asked Mr. Mildmay what he thought about it. "Times change so much, and with the times the feelings of men," said Mr. Mildmay. But I doubt whether Sir Marmaduke quite understood him. There was silence in the room for a moment or two after Mr. Gresham had spoken, and then Mr. Mildmay again addressed his friends. "Of course it may be possible that my Lord de Terrier may foresee difficulties, or may find difficulties which will oblige him, either at once, or after an attempt has been made, to decline the task which her Majesty will probably commit to him. All of us, no doubt, know that the arrangement of a government is not the most easy task in the world; and that it is not made the more easy by an absence of a majority in the House of Commons." "He would dissolve, I presume," said the Duke. "I should say so," continued Mr. Mildmay. "But it may not improbably come to pass that her Majesty will feel herself obliged to send again for some one or two of us, that we may tender to her Majesty the advice which we owe to her;--for me, for instance, or for my friend the Duke. In such a matter she would be much guided probably by what Lord de Terrier might have suggested to her. Should this be so, and should I be consulted, my present feeling is that we should resume our offices so that the necessary business of the session should be completed, and that we should then dissolve Parliament, and thus ascertain the opinion of the country. In such case, however, we should of course meet again." "I quite think that the course proposed by Mr. Mildmay will be the best," said the Duke, who had no doubt already discussed the matter with his friend the Prime Minister in private. No one else said a word either of argument or disagreement, and the Cabinet Council was broken up. The old messenger, who had been asleep in his chair, stood up and bowed as the Ministers walked by him, and then went in and rearranged the chairs. "He has as much idea of giving up as you or I have," said Lord Cantrip to his friend Mr. Gresham, as they walked arm-in-arm together from the Treasury Chambers across St. James's Park towards the clubs. "I am not sure that he is not right," said Mr. Gresham. "Do you mean for himself or for the country?" asked Lord Cantrip. "For his future fame. They who have abdicated and have clung to their abdication have always lost by it. Cincinnatus was brought back again, and Charles V. is felt to have been foolish. The peaches of retired ministers of which we hear so often have generally been cultivated in a constrained seclusion;--or at least the world so believes." They were talking probably of Mr. Mildmay, as to whom some of his colleagues had thought it probable, knowing that he would now resign, that he would have to-day declared his intention of laying aside for ever the cares of office. Mr. Monk walked home alone, and as he went there was something of a feeling of disappointment at heart, which made him ask himself whether Mr. Turnbull might not have been right in rebuking him for joining the Government. But this, I think, was in no way due to Mr. Mildmay's resignation, but rather to a conviction on Mr. Monk's part that that he had contributed but little to his country's welfare by sitting in Mr. Mildmay's Cabinet. CHAPTER XXX Mr. Kennedy's Luck After the holding of that Cabinet Council of which the author has dared to attempt a slight sketch in the last chapter, there were various visits made to the Queen, first by Mr. Mildmay, and then by Lord de Terrier, afterwards by Mr. Mildmay and the Duke together, and then again by Lord de Terrier; and there were various explanations made to Parliament in each House, and rivals were very courteous to each other, promising assistance;--and at the end of it the old men held their seats. The only change made was effected by the retirement of Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, who was raised to the peerage, and by the selection of--Mr. Kennedy to fill his place in the Cabinet. Mr. Kennedy during the late debate had made one of those speeches, few and far between, by which he had created for himself a Parliamentary reputation; but, nevertheless, all men expressed their great surprise, and no one could quite understand why Mr. Kennedy had been made a Cabinet Minister. "It is impossible to say whether he is pleased or not," said Lady Laura, speaking of him to Phineas. "I am pleased, of course." "His ambition must be gratified," said Phineas. "It would be, if he had any," said Lady Laura. "I do not believe in a man lacking ambition." "It is hard to say. There are men who by no means wear their hearts upon their sleeves, and my husband is one of them. He told me that it would be unbecoming in him to refuse, and that was all he said to me about it." The old men held their seats, but they did so as it were only upon further trial. Mr. Mildmay took the course which he had indicated to his colleagues at the Cabinet meeting. Before all the explanations and journeyings were completed, April was over, and the much-needed Whitsuntide holidays were coming on. But little of the routine work of the session had been done; and, as Mr. Mildmay told the House more than once, the country would suffer were the Queen to dissolve Parliament at this period of the year. The old Ministers would go on with the business of the country, Lord de Terrier with his followers having declined to take affairs into their hands; and at the close of the session, which should be made as short as possible, writs should be issued for new elections. This was Mr. Mildmay's programme, and it was one of which no one dared to complain very loudly. Mr. Turnbull, indeed, did speak a word of caution. He told Mr. Mildmay that he had lost his bill, good in other respects, because he had refused to introduce the ballot into his measure. Let him promise to be wiser for the future, and to obey the manifested wishes of the country, and then all would be well with him. In answer to this, Mr. Mildmay declared that to the best of his power of reading the country, his countrymen had manifested no such wish; and that if they did so, if by the fresh election it should be shown that the ballot was in truth desired, he would at once leave the execution of their wishes to abler and younger hands. Mr. Turnbull expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the Minister's answers, and said that the coming election would show whether he or Mr. Mildmay were right. Many men, and among them some of his colleagues, thought that Mr. Mildmay had been imprudent. "No man ought ever to pledge himself to anything," said Sir Harry Coldfoot to the Duke;--"that is, to anything unnecessary." The Duke, who was very true to Mr. Mildmay, made no reply to this, but even he thought that his old friend had been betrayed into a promise too rapidly. But the pledge was given, and some people already began to make much of it. There appeared leader after leader in the _People's Banner_ urging the constituencies to take advantage of the Prime Minister's words, and to show clearly at the hustings that they desired the ballot. "You had better come over to us, Mr. Finn; you had indeed," said Mr. Slide. "Now's the time to do it, and show yourself a people's friend. You'll have to do it sooner or later,--whether or no. Come to us and we'll be your horgan." But in those days Phineas was something less in love with Mr. Quintus Slide than he had been at the time of the great debate, for he was becoming more and more closely connected with people who in their ways of living and modes of expression were very unlike Mr. Slide. This advice was given to him about the end of May, and at that time Lord Chiltern was living with him in the lodgings in Great Marlborough Street. Miss Pouncefoot had temporarily vacated her rooms on the first floor, and the Lord with the broken bones had condescended to occupy them. "I don't know that I like having a Lord," Bunce had said to his wife. "It'll soon come to you not liking anybody decent anywhere," Mrs. Bunce had replied; "but I shan't ask any questions about it. When you're wasting so much time and money at your dirty law proceedings, it's well that somebody should earn something at home." There had been many discussions about the bringing of Lord Chiltern up to London, in all of which Phineas had been concerned. Lord Brentford had thought that his son had better remain down at the Willingford Bull; and although he said that the rooms were at his son's disposal should Lord Chiltern choose to come to London, still he said it in such a way that Phineas, who went down to Willingford, could not tell his friend that he would be made welcome in Portman Square. "I think I shall leave those diggings altogether," Lord Chiltern said to him. "My father annoys me by everything he says and does, and I annoy him by saying and doing nothing." Then there came an invitation to him from Lady Laura and Mr. Kennedy. Would he come to Grosvenor Place? Lady Laura pressed this very much, though in truth Mr. Kennedy had hardly done more than give a cold assent. But Lord Chiltern would not hear of it. "There is some reason for my going to my father's house," said he, "though he and I are not the best friends in the world; but there can be no reason for my going to the house of a man I dislike so much as I do Robert Kennedy." The matter was settled in the manner told above. Miss Pouncefoot's rooms were prepared for him at Mr. Bunce's house, and Phineas Finn went down to Willingford and brought him up. "I've sold Bonebreaker," he said,--"to a young fellow whose neck will certainly be the sacrifice if he attempts to ride him. I'd have given him to you, Phineas, only you wouldn't have known what to do with him." Lord Chiltern when he came up to London was still in bandages, though, as the surgeon said, his bones seemed to have been made to be broken and set again; and his bandages of course were a sufficient excuse for his visiting the house neither of his father nor his brother-in-law. But Lady Laura went to him frequently, and thus became acquainted with our hero's home and with Mrs. Bunce. And there were messages taken from Violet to the man in bandages, some of which lost nothing in the carrying. Once Lady Laura tried to make Violet think that it would be right, or rather not wrong, that they two should go together to Lord Chiltern's rooms. "And would you have me tell my aunt, or would you have me not tell her?" Violet asked. "I would have you do just as you pleased," Lady Laura answered. "So I shall," Violet replied, "but I will do nothing that I should be ashamed to tell any one. Your brother professes to be in love with me." "He is in love with you," said Lady Laura. "Even you do not pretend to doubt his faith." "Very well. In those circumstances a girl should not go to a man's rooms unless she means to consider herself as engaged to him, even with his sister;--not though he had broken every bone in his skin. I know what I may do, Laura, and I know what I mayn't; and I won't be led either by you or by my aunt." "May I give him your love?" "No;--because you'll give it in a wrong spirit. He knows well enough that I wish him well;--but you may tell him that from me, if you please. He has from me all those wishes which one friend owes to another." But there were other messages sent from Violet through Phineas Finn which she worded with more show of affection,--perhaps as much for the discomfort of Phineas as for the consolation of Lord Chiltern. "Tell him to take care of himself," said Violet, "and bid him not to have any more of those wild brutes that are not fit for any Christian to ride. Tell him that I say so. It's a great thing to be brave; but what's the use of being foolhardy?" The session was to be closed at the end of June, to the great dismay of London tradesmen and of young ladies who had not been entirely successful in the early season. But before the old Parliament was closed, and the writs for the new election were despatched, there occurred an incident which was of very much importance to Phineas Finn. Near the end of June, when the remaining days of the session were numbered by three or four, he had been dining at Lord Brentford's house in Portman Square in company with Mr. Kennedy. But Lady Laura had not been there. At this time he saw Lord Brentford not unfrequently, and there was always a word said about Lord Chiltern. The father would ask how the son occupied himself, and Phineas would hope,--though hitherto he had hoped in vain,--that he would induce the Earl to come and see Lord Chiltern. Lord Brentford could never be brought to that; but it was sufficiently evident that he would have done so, had he not been afraid to descend so far from the altitude of his paternal wrath. On this evening, at about eleven, Mr. Kennedy and Phineas left the house together, and walked from the Square through Orchard Street into Oxford Street. Here their ways parted, but Phineas crossed the road with Mr. Kennedy, as he was making some reply to a second invitation to Loughlinter. Phineas, considering what had been said before on the subject, thought that the invitation came late, and that it was not warmly worded. He had, therefore, declined it, and was in the act of declining it, when he crossed the road with Mr. Kennedy. In walking down Orchard Street from the Square he had seen two men standing in the shadow a few yards up a mews or small alley that was there, but had thought nothing of them. It was just that period of the year when there is hardly any of the darkness of night; but at this moment there were symptoms of coming rain, and heavy drops began to fall; and there were big clouds coming and going before the young moon. Mr. Kennedy had said that he would get a cab, but he had seen none as he crossed Oxford Street, and had put up his umbrella as he made his way towards Park Street. Phineas as he left him distinctly perceived the same two figures on the other side of Oxford Street, and then turning into the shadow of a butcher's porch, he saw them cross the street in the wake of Mr. Kennedy. It was now raining in earnest, and the few passengers who were out were scudding away quickly, this way and that. It hardly occurred to Phineas to think that any danger was imminent to Mr. Kennedy from the men, but it did occur to him that he might as well take some notice of the matter. Phineas knew that Mr. Kennedy would make his way down Park Street, that being his usual route from Portman Square towards his own home, and knew also that he himself could again come across Mr. Kennedy's track by going down North Audley Street to the corner of Grosvenor Square, and thence by Brook Street into Park Street. Without much thought, therefore, he went out of his own course down to the corner of the Square, hurrying his steps till he was running, and then ran along Brook Street, thinking as he went of some special word that he might say to Mr. Kennedy as an excuse, should he again come across his late companion. He reached the corner of Park Street before that gentleman could have been there unless he also had run; but just in time to see him as he was coming on,--and also to see in the dark glimmering of the slight uncertain moonlight that the two men were behind him. He retreated a step backwards in the corner, resolving that when Mr. Kennedy came up, they two would go on together; for now it was clear that Mr. Kennedy was followed. But Mr. Kennedy did not reach the corner. When he was within two doors of it, one of the men had followed him up quickly, and had thrown something round his throat from behind him. Phineas understood well now that his friend was in the act of being garrotted, and that his instant assistance was needed. He rushed forward, and as the second ruffian had been close upon the footsteps of the first, there was almost instantaneously a concourse of the four men. But there was no fight. The man who had already nearly succeeded in putting Mr. Kennedy on to his back, made no attempt to seize his prey when he found that so unwelcome an addition had joined the party, but instantly turned to fly. His companion was turning also, but Phineas was too quick for him, and having seized on to his collar, held to him with all his power. "Dash it all," said the man, "didn't yer see as how I was a-hurrying up to help the gen'leman myself?" Phineas, however, hadn't seen this, and held on gallantly, and in a couple of minutes the first ruffian was back again upon the spot in the custody of a policeman. "You've done it uncommon neat, sir," said the policeman, complimenting Phineas upon his performance. "If the gen'leman ain't none the worst for it, it'll have been a very pretty evening's amusement." Mr. Kennedy was now leaning against the railings, and hitherto had been unable to declare whether he was really injured or not, and it was not till a second policeman came up that the hero of the night was at liberty to attend closely to his friend. Mr. Kennedy, when he was able to speak, declared that for a minute or two he had thought that his neck had been broken; and he was not quite convinced till he found himself in his own house, that nothing more serious had really happened to him than certain bruises round his throat. The policeman was for a while anxious that at any rate Phineas should go with him to the police-office; but at last consented to take the addresses of the two gentlemen. When he found that Mr. Kennedy was a member of Parliament, and that he was designated as Right Honourable, his respect for the garrotter became more great, and he began to feel that the night was indeed a night of great importance. He expressed unbounded admiration at Mr. Finn's success in his own line, and made repeated promises that the men should be forthcoming on the morrow. Could a cab be got? Of course a cab could be got. A cab was got, and within a quarter of an hour of the making of the attack, the two members of Parliament were on their way to Grosvenor Place. There was hardly a word spoken in the cab, for Mr. Kennedy was in pain. When, however, they reached the door in Grosvenor Place, Phineas wanted to go, and leave his friend with the servants, but this the Cabinet Minister would not allow. "Of course you must see my wife," he said. So they went up-stairs into the drawing-room, and then upon the stairs, by the lights of the house, Phineas could perceive that his companion's face was bruised and black with dirt, and that his cravat was gone. "I have been garrotted," said the Cabinet Minister to his wife. "What?" "Simply that;--or should have been, if he had not been there. How he came there, God only knows." The wife's anxiety, and then her gratitude, need hardly be described,--nor the astonishment of the husband, which by no means decreased on reflection, at the opportune re-appearance in the nick of time of the man whom three minutes before the attack he had left in the act of going in the opposite direction. "I had seen the men, and thought it best to run round by the corner of Grosvenor Square," said Phineas. "May God bless you," said Lady Laura. "Amen," said the Cabinet Minister. "I think he was born to be my friend," said Lady Laura. The Cabinet Minister said nothing more that night. He was never given to much talking, and the little accident which had just occurred to him did not tend to make words easy to him. But he pressed our hero's hand, and Lady Laura said that of course Phineas would come to them on the morrow. Phineas remarked that his first business must be to go to the police-office, but he promised that he would come down to Grosvenor Place immediately afterwards. Then Lady Laura also pressed his hand, and looked--; she looked, I think, as though she thought that Phineas would only have done right had he repeated the offence which he had committed under the waterfall of Loughlinter. "Garrotted!" said Lord Chiltern, when Phineas told him the story before they went to bed that night. He had been smoking, sipping brandy-and-water, and waiting for Finn's return. "Robert Kennedy garrotted!" "The fellow was in the act of doing it." "And you stopped him?" "Yes;--I got there just in time. Wasn't it lucky?" "You ought to be garrotted yourself. I should have lent the man a hand had I been there." "How can you say anything so horrible? But you are drinking too much, old fellow, and I shall lock the bottle up." "If there were no one in London drank more than I do, the wine merchants would have a bad time of it. And so the new Cabinet Minister has been garrotted in the street. Of course I'm sorry for poor Laura's sake." "Luckily he's not much the worse for it;--only a little bruised." "I wonder whether it's on the cards he should be improved by it;--worse, except in the way of being strangled, he could not be. However, as he's my brother-in-law, I'm obliged to you for rescuing him. Come, I'll go to bed. I must say, if he was to be garrotted I should like to have been there to see it." That was the manner in which Lord Chiltern received the tidings of the terrible accident which had occurred to his near relative. CHAPTER XXXI Finn for Loughton By three o'clock in the day after the little accident which was told in the last chapter, all the world knew that Mr. Kennedy, the new Cabinet Minister, had been garrotted, or half garrotted, and that that child of fortune, Phineas Finn, had dropped upon the scene out of heaven at the exact moment of time, had taken the two garrotters prisoners, and saved the Cabinet Minister's neck and valuables,--if not his life. "Bedad," said Laurence Fitzgibbon, when he came to hear this, "that fellow'll marry an heiress, and be Secretary for Oireland yet." A good deal was said about it to Phineas at the clubs, but a word or two that was said to him by Violet Effingham was worth all the rest. "Why, what a Paladin you are! But you succour men in distress instead of maidens." "That's my bad luck," said Phineas. "The other will come no doubt in time," Violet replied; "and then you'll get your reward." He knew that such words from a girl mean nothing,--especially from such a girl as Violet Effingham; but nevertheless they were very pleasant to him. "Of course you will come to us at Loughlinter when Parliament is up?" Lady Laura said the same day. "I don't know really. You see I must go over to Ireland about my re-election." "What has that to do with it? You are only making out excuses. We go down on the first of July, and the English elections won't begin till the middle of the month. It will be August before the men of Loughshane are ready for you." "To tell you the truth, Lady Laura," said Phineas, "I doubt whether the men of Loughshane,--or rather the man of Loughshane, will have anything more to say to me." "What man do you mean?" "Lord Tulla. He was in a passion with his brother before, and I got the advantage of it. Since that he has paid his brother's debts for the fifteenth time, and of course is ready to fight any battle for the forgiven prodigal. Things are not as they were, and my father tells me that he thinks I shall be beaten." "That is bad news." "It is what I have a right to expect." Every word of information that had come to Phineas about Loughshane since Mr. Mildmay had decided upon a dissolution, had gone towards making him feel at first that there was a great doubt as to his re-election, and at last that there was almost a certainty against him. And as these tidings reached him they made him very unhappy. Since he had been in Parliament he had very frequently regretted that he had left the shades of the Inns of Court for the glare of Westminster; and he had more than once made up his mind that he would desert the glare and return to the shade. But now, when the moment came in which such desertion seemed to be compulsory on him, when there would be no longer a choice, the seat in Parliament was dearer to him than ever. If he had gone of his own free will,--so he told himself,--there would have been something of nobility in such going. Mr. Low would have respected him, and even Mrs. Low might have taken him back to the friendship of her severe bosom. But he would go back now as a cur with his tail between his legs,--kicked out, as it were, from Parliament. Returning to Lincoln's Inn soiled with failure, having accomplished nothing, having broken down on the only occasion on which he had dared to show himself on his legs, not having opened a single useful book during the two years in which he had sat in Parliament, burdened with Laurence Fitzgibbon's debt, and not quite free from debt of his own, how could he start himself in any way by which he might even hope to win success? He must, he told himself, give up all thought of practising in London and betake himself to Dublin. He could not dare to face his friends in London as a young briefless barrister. On this evening, the evening subsequent to that on which Mr. Kennedy had been attacked, the House was sitting in Committee of Ways and Means, and there came on a discussion as to a certain vote for the army. It had been known that there would be such discussion; and Mr. Monk having heard from Phineas a word or two now and again about the potted peas, had recommended him to be ready with a few remarks if he wished to support the Government in the matter of that vote. Phineas did so wish, having learned quite enough in the Committee Room up-stairs to make him believe that a large importation of the potted peas from Holstein would not be for the advantage of the army or navy,--or for that of the country at large. Mr. Monk had made his suggestion without the slightest allusion to the former failure,--just as though Phineas were a practised speaker accustomed to be on his legs three or four times a week. "If I find a chance, I will," said Phineas, taking the advice just as it was given. Soon after prayers, a word was said in the House as to the ill-fortune which had befallen the new Cabinet Minister. Mr. Daubeny had asked Mr. Mildmay whether violent hands had not been laid in the dead of night on the sacred throat,--the throat that should have been sacred,--of the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and had expressed regret that the Ministry,--which was, he feared, in other respects somewhat infirm,--should now have been further weakened by this injury to that new bulwark with which it had endeavoured to support itself. The Prime Minister, answering his old rival in the same strain, said that the calamity might have been very severe, both to the country and to the Cabinet; but that fortunately for the community at large, a gallant young member of that House,--and he was proud to say a supporter of the Government,--had appeared upon the spot at the nick of time;--"As a god out of a machine," said Mr. Daubeny, interrupting him;--"By no means as a god out of a machine," continued Mr. Mildmay, "but as a real help in a very real trouble, and succeeded not only in saving my right honourable friend, the Chancellor of the Duchy, but in arresting the two malefactors who attempted to rob him in the street." Then there was a cry of "name;" and Mr. Mildmay of course named the member for Loughshane. It so happened that Phineas was not in the House, but he heard it all when he came down to attend the Committee of Ways and Means. Then came on the discussion about provisions in the army, the subject being mooted by one of Mr. Turnbull's close allies. The gentleman on the other side of the House who had moved for the Potted Peas Committee, was silent on the occasion, having felt that the result of that committee had not been exactly what he had expected. The evidence respecting such of the Holstein potted peas as had been used in this country was not very favourable to them. But, nevertheless, the rebound from that committee,--the very fact that such a committee had been made to sit,--gave ground for a hostile attack. To attack is so easy, when a complete refutation barely suffices to save the Minister attacked,--does not suffice to save him from future dim memories of something having been wrong,--and brings down no disgrace whatsoever on the promoter of the false charge. The promoter of the false charge simply expresses his gratification at finding that he had been misled by erroneous information. It is not customary for him to express gratification at the fact, that out of all the mud which he has thrown, some will probably stick! Phineas, when the time came, did get on his legs, and spoke perhaps two or three dozen words. The doing so seemed to come to him quite naturally. He had thought very little about it beforehand,--having resolved not to think of it. And indeed the occasion was one of no great importance. The Speaker was not in the chair, and the House was thin, and he intended to make no speech,--merely to say something which he had to say. Till he had finished he hardly remembered that he was doing that, in attempting to do which he had before failed so egregiously. It was not till he sat down that he began to ask himself whether the scene was swimming before his eyes as it had done on former occasions; as it had done even when he had so much as thought of making a speech. Now he was astonished at the easiness of the thing, and as he left the House told himself that he had overcome the difficulty just when the victory could be of no avail to him. Had he been more eager, more constant in his purpose, he might at any rate have shown the world that he was fit for the place which he had presumed to take before he was cast out of it. On the next morning he received a letter from his father. Dr. Finn had seen Lord Tulla, having been sent for to relieve his lordship in a fit of the gout, and had been informed by the Earl that he meant to fight the borough to the last man;--had he said to the last shilling he would have spoken with perhaps more accuracy. "You see, doctor, your son has had it for two years, as you may say for nothing, and I think he ought to give way. He can't expect that he's to go on there as though it were his own." And then his lordship, upon whom this touch of the gout had come somewhat sharply, expressed himself with considerable animation. The old doctor behaved with much spirit. "I told the Earl," he said, "that I could not undertake to say what you might do; but that as you had come forward at first with my sanction, I could not withdraw it now. He asked me if I should support you with money; I said that I should to a moderate extent. 'By G----,' said the Earl, 'a moderate extent will go a very little way, I can tell you.' Since that he has had Duggin with him; so, I suppose, I shall not see him any more. You can do as you please now; but, from what I hear, I fear you will have no chance." Then with much bitterness of spirit Phineas resolved that he would not interfere with Lord Tulla at Loughshane. He would go at once to the Reform Club and explain his reasons to Barrington Erle and others there who would be interested. But he first went to Grosvenor Place. Here he was shown up into Mr. Kennedy's room. Mr. Kennedy was up and seated in an arm-chair by an open window looking over into the Queen's garden; but he was in his dressing-gown, and was to be regarded as an invalid. And indeed as he could not turn his neck, or thought that he could not do so, he was not very fit to go out about his work. Let us hope that the affairs of the Duchy of Lancaster did not suffer materially by his absence. We may take it for granted that with a man so sedulous as to all his duties there was no arrear of work when the accident took place. He put out his hand to Phineas, and said some word in a whisper,--some word or two among which Phineas caught the sound of "potted peas,"--and then continued to look out of the window. There are men who are utterly prostrated by any bodily ailment, and it seemed that Mr. Kennedy was one of them. Phineas, who was full of his own bad news, had intended to tell his sad story at once. But he perceived that the neck of the Chancellor of the Duchy was too stiff to allow of his taking any interest in external matters, and so he refrained. "What does the doctor say about it?" said Phineas, perceiving that just for the present there could be only one possible subject for remark. Mr. Kennedy was beginning to describe in a long whisper what the doctor did think about it, when Lady Laura came into the room. Of course they began at first to talk about Mr. Kennedy. It would not have been kind to him not to have done so. And Lady Laura made much of the injury, as it behoves a wife to do in such circumstances for the sake both of the sufferer and of the hero. She declared her conviction that had Phineas been a moment later her husband's neck would have been irredeemably broken. "I don't think they ever do kill the people," said Phineas. "At any rate they don't mean to do so." "I thought they did," said Lady Laura. "I fancy not," said Phineas, eager in the cause of truth. "I think this man was very clumsy," whispered Mr. Kennedy. "Perhaps he was a beginner," said Phineas, "and that may make a difference. If so, I'm afraid we have interfered with his education." Then, by degrees, the conversation got away to other things, and Lady Laura asked him after Loughshane. "I've made up my mind to give it up," said he, smiling as he spoke. "I was afraid there was but a bad chance," said Lady Laura, smiling also. "My father has behaved so well!" said Phineas. "He has written to say he'll find the money, if I determine to contest the borough. I mean to write to him by to-night's post to decline the offer. I have no right to spend the money, and I shouldn't succeed if I did spend it. Of course it makes me a little down in the mouth." And then he smiled again. "I've got a plan of my own," said Lady Laura. "What plan?" "Or rather it isn't mine, but papa's. Old Mr. Standish is going to give up Loughton, and papa wants you to come and try your luck there." "Lady Laura!" "It isn't quite a certainty, you know, but I suppose it's as near a certainty as anything left." And this came from a strong Radical Reformer! "Lady Laura, I couldn't accept such a favour from your father." Then Mr. Kennedy nodded his head very slightly and whispered, "Yes, yes." "I couldn't think of it," said Phineas Finn. "I have no right to such a favour." "That is a matter entirely for papa's consideration," said Lady Laura, with an affectation of solemnity in her voice. "I think it has always been felt that any politician may accept such an offer as that when it is made to him, but that no politician should ask for it. My father feels that he has to do the best he can with his influence in the borough, and therefore he comes to you." "It isn't that," said Phineas, somewhat rudely. "Of course private feelings have their weight," said Lady Laura. "It is not probable that papa would have gone to a perfect stranger. And perhaps, Mr. Finn, I may own that Mr. Kennedy and I would both be very sorry that you should not be in the House, and that that feeling on our part has had some weight with my father." "Of course you'll stand?" whispered Mr. Kennedy, still looking straight out of the window, as though the slightest attempt to turn his neck would be fraught with danger to himself and the Duchy. "Papa has desired me to ask you to call upon him," said Lady Laura. "I don't suppose there is very much to be said, as each of you know so well the other's way of thinking. But you had better see him to-day or to-morrow." Of course Phineas was persuaded before he left Mr. Kennedy's room. Indeed, when he came to think of it, there appeared to him to be no valid reason why he should not sit for Loughton. The favour was of a kind that had prevailed from time out of mind in England, between the most respectable of the great land magnates, and young rising liberal politicians. Burke, Fox, and Canning had all been placed in Parliament by similar influence. Of course he, Phineas Finn, desired earnestly,--longed in his very heart of hearts,--to extinguish all such Parliamentary influence, to root out for ever the last vestige of close borough nominations; but while the thing remained it was better that the thing should contribute to the liberal than to the conservative strength of the House,--and if to the liberal, how was this to be achieved but by the acceptance of such influence by some liberal candidate? And if it were right that it should be accepted by any liberal candidate,--then, why not by him? The logic of this argument seemed to him to be perfect. He felt something like a sting of reproach as he told himself that in truth this great offer was made to him, not on account of the excellence of his politics, but because he had been instrumental in saving Lord Brentford's son-in-law from the violence of garrotters. But he crushed these qualms of conscience as being over-scrupulous, and, as he told himself, not practical. You must take the world as you find it, with a struggle to be something more honest than those around you. Phineas, as he preached to himself this sermon, declared to himself that they who attempted more than this flew too high in the clouds to be of service to men and women upon earth. As he did not see Lord Brentford that day he postponed writing to his father for twenty-four hours. On the following morning he found the Earl at home in Portman Square, having first discussed the matter fully with Lord Chiltern. "Do not scruple about me," said Lord Chiltern; "you are quite welcome to the borough for me." "But if I did not stand, would you do so? There are so many reasons which ought to induce you to accept a seat in Parliament!" "Whether that be true or not, Phineas, I shall not accept my father's interest at Loughton, unless it be offered to me in a way in which it never will be offered. You know me well enough to be sure that I shall not change my mind. Nor will he. And, therefore, you may go down to Loughton with a pure conscience as far as I am concerned." Phineas had his interview with the Earl, and in ten minutes everything was settled. On his way to Portman Square there had come across his mind the idea of a grand effort of friendship. What if he could persuade the father so to conduct himself towards his son, that the son should consent to be a member for the borough? And he did say a word or two to this effect, setting forth that Lord Chiltern would condescend to become a legislator, if only his father would condescend to acknowledge his son's fitness for such work without any comments on the son's past life. But the Earl simply waived the subject away with his hand. He could be as obstinate as his son. Lady Laura had been the Mercury between them on this subject, and Lady Laura had failed. He would not now consent to employ another Mercury. Very little,--hardly a word indeed,--was said between the Earl and Phineas about politics. Phineas was to be the Saulsby candidate at Loughton for the next election, and was to come to Saulsby with the Kennedys from Loughlinter,--either with the Kennedys or somewhat in advance of them. "I do not say that there will be no opposition," said the Earl, "but I expect none." He was very courteous,--nay, he was kind, feeling doubtless that his family owed a great debt of gratitude to the young man with whom he was conversing; but, nevertheless, there was not absent on his part a touch of that high condescension which, perhaps, might be thought to become the Earl, the Cabinet Minister, and the great borough patron. Phineas, who was sensitive, felt this and winced. He had never quite liked Lord Brentford, and could not bring himself to do so now in spite of the kindness which the Earl was showing him. But he was very happy when he sat down to write to his father from the club. His father had told him that the money should be forthcoming for the election at Loughshane, if he resolved to stand, but that the chance of success would be very slight,--indeed that, in his opinion, there would be no chance of success. Nevertheless, his father had evidently believed, when writing, that Phineas would not abandon his seat without a useless and expensive contest. He now thanked his father with many expressions of gratitude,--declared his conviction that his father was right about Lord Tulla, and then, in the most modest language that he could use, went on to say that he had found another borough open to him in England. He was going to stand for Loughton, with the assistance of Lord Brentford, and thought that the election would probably not cost him above a couple of hundred pounds at the outside. Then he wrote a very pretty note to Lord Tulla, thanking him for his former kindness, and telling the Irish Earl that it was not his intention to interfere with the borough of Loughshane at the next election. A few days after this Phineas was very much surprised at a visit that was made to him at his lodgings. Mr. Clarkson, after that scene in the lobby of the House, called again in Great Marlborough Street,--and was admitted. "You had better let him sit in your armchair for half an hour or so," Fitzgibbon had said; and Phineas almost believed that it would be better. The man was a terrible nuisance to him, and he was beginning to think that he had better undertake to pay the debt by degrees. It was, he knew, quite on the cards that Mr. Clarkson should have him arrested while at Saulsby. Since that scene in the lobby Mr. Clarkson had been with him twice, and there had been a preliminary conversation as to real payment. Mr. Clarkson wanted a hundred pounds down, and another bill for two hundred and twenty at three months' date. "Think of my time and trouble in coming here," Mr. Clarkson had urged when Phineas had objected to these terms. "Think of my time and trouble, and do be punctual, Mr. Finn." Phineas had offered him ten pounds a quarter, the payments to be marked on the back of the bill, a tender which Mr. Clarkson had not seemed to regard as strong evidence of punctuality. He had not been angry, but had simply expressed his intention of calling again,--giving Phineas to understand that business would probably take him to the west of Ireland in the autumn. If only business might not take him down either to Loughlinter or to Saulsby! But the strange visitor who came to Phineas in the midst of these troubles put an end to them all. The strange visitor was Miss Aspasia Fitzgibbon. "You'll be very much surprised at my coming to your chambers, no doubt," she said, as she sat down in the chair which Phineas placed for her. Phineas could only say that he was very proud to be so highly honoured, and that he hoped she was well. "Pretty well, I thank you. I have just come about a little business, Mr. Finn, and I hope you'll excuse me." "I'm quite sure that there is no need for excuses," said Phineas. "Laurence, when he hears about it, will say that I've been an impertinent old fool; but I never care what Laurence says, either this way or that. I've been to that Mr. Clarkson, Mr. Finn, and I've paid him the money." "No!" said Phineas. "But I have, Mr. Finn. I happened to hear what occurred that night at the door of the House of Commons." "Who told you, Miss Fitzgibbon?" "Never mind who told me. I heard it. I knew before that you had been foolish enough to help Laurence about money, and so I put two and two together. It isn't the first time I have had to do with Mr. Clarkson. So I sent to him, and I've bought the bill. There it is." And Miss Fitzgibbon produced the document which bore the name of Phineas Finn across the front of it. "And did you pay him two hundred and fifty pounds for it?" "Not quite. I had a very hard tussle, and got it at last for two hundred and twenty pounds." "And did you do it yourself?" "All myself. If I had employed a lawyer I should have had to pay two hundred and forty pounds and five pounds for costs. And now, Mr. Finn, I hope you won't have any more money engagements with my brother Laurence." Phineas said that he thought he might promise that he would have no more. "Because, if you do, I shan't interfere. If Laurence began to find that he could get money out of me in that way, there would be no end to it. Mr. Clarkson would very soon be spending his spare time in my drawing-room. Good-bye, Mr. Finn. If Laurence says anything, just tell him that he'd better come to me." Then Phineas was left looking at the bill. It was certainly a great relief to him,--that he should be thus secured from the domiciliary visits of Mr. Clarkson; a great relief to him to be assured that Mr. Clarkson would not find him out down at Loughton; but nevertheless, he had to suffer a pang of shame as he felt that Miss Fitzgibbon had become acquainted with his poverty and had found herself obliged to satisfy his pecuniary liabilities. CHAPTER XXXII Lady Laura Kennedy's Headache Phineas went down to Loughlinter early in July, taking Loughton in his way. He stayed there one night at the inn, and was introduced to sundry influential inhabitants of the borough by Mr. Grating, the ironmonger, who was known by those who knew Loughton to be a very strong supporter of the Earl's interest. Mr. Grating and about half a dozen others of the tradesmen of the town came to the inn, and met Phineas in the parlour. He told them he was a good sound Liberal and a supporter of Mr. Mildmay's Government, of which their neighbour the Earl was so conspicuous an ornament. This was almost all that was said about the Earl out loud; but each individual man of Loughton then present took an opportunity during the meeting of whispering into Mr. Finn's ear a word or two to show that he also was admitted to the secret councils of the borough,--that he too could see the inside of the arrangement. "Of course we must support the Earl," one said. "Never mind what you hear about a Tory candidate, Mr. Finn," whispered a second; "the Earl can do what he pleases here." And it seemed to Phineas that it was thought by them all to be rather a fine thing to be thus held in the hand by an English nobleman. Phineas could not but reflect much upon this as he lay in his bed at the Loughton inn. The great political question on which the political world was engrossed up in London was the enfranchisement of Englishmen,--of Englishmen down to the rank of artisans and labourers;--and yet when he found himself in contact with individual Englishmen, with men even very much above the artisan and the labourer, he found that they rather liked being bound hand and foot, and being kept as tools in the political pocket of a rich man. Every one of those Loughton tradesmen was proud of his own personal subjection to the Earl! From Loughton he went to Loughlinter, having promised to be back in the borough for the election. Mr. Grating would propose him, and he was to be seconded by Mr. Shortribs, the butcher and grazier. Mention had been made of a Conservative candidate, and Mr. Shortribs had seemed to think that a good stand-up fight upon English principles, with a clear understanding, of course, that victory should prevail on the liberal side, would be a good thing for the borough. But the Earl's man of business saw Phineas on the morning of his departure, and told him not to regard Mr. Shortribs. "They'd all like it," said the man of business; "and I daresay they'll have enough of it when this Reform Bill is passed; but at present no one will be fool enough to come and spend his money here. We have them all in hand too well for that, Mr. Finn!" He found the great house at Loughlinter nearly empty. Mr. Kennedy's mother was there, and Lord Brentford was there, and Lord Brentford's private secretary, and Mr. Kennedy's private secretary. At present that was the entire party. Lady Baldock was expected there, with her daughter and Violet Effingham; but, as well as Phineas could learn, they would not be at Loughlinter until after he had left it. There had come up lately a rumour that there would be an autumn session,--that the Houses would sit through October and a part of November, in order that Mr. Mildmay might try the feeling of the new Parliament. If this were to be so, Phineas had resolved that, in the event of his election at Loughton, he would not return to Ireland till after this autumn session should be over. He gave an account to the Earl, in the presence of the Earl's son-in-law, of what had taken place at Loughton, and the Earl expressed himself as satisfied. It was manifestly a great satisfaction to Lord Brentford that he should still have a borough in his pocket, and the more so because there were so very few noblemen left who had such property belonging to them. He was very careful in his speech, never saying in so many words that the privilege of returning a member was his own; but his meaning was not the less clear. Those were dreary days at Loughlinter. There was fishing,--if Phineas chose to fish; and he was told that he could shoot a deer if he was minded to go out alone. But it seemed as though it were the intention of the host that his guests should spend their time profitably. Mr. Kennedy himself was shut up with books and papers all the morning, and always took up a book after dinner. The Earl also would read a little,--and then would sleep a good deal. Old Mrs. Kennedy slept also, and Lady Laura looked as though she would like to sleep if it were not that her husband's eye was upon her. As it was, she administered tea, Mr. Kennedy not liking the practice of having it handed round by a servant when none were there but members of the family circle, and she read novels. Phineas got hold of a stiff bit of reading for himself, and tried to utilise his time. He took Alison in hand, and worked his way gallantly through a couple of volumes. But even he, more than once or twice, found himself on the very verge of slumber. Then he would wake up and try to think about things. Why was he, Phineas Finn, an Irishman from Killaloe, living in that great house of Loughlinter as though he were one of the family, striving to kill the hours, and feeling that he was in some way subject to the dominion of his host? Would it not be better for him to get up and go away? In his heart of hearts he did not like Mr. Kennedy, though he believed him to be a good man. And of what service to him was it to like Lady Laura, now that Lady Laura was a possession in the hands of Mr. Kennedy? Then he would tell himself that he owed his position in the world entirely to Lady Laura, and that he was ungrateful to feel himself ever dull in her society. And, moreover, there was something to be done in the world beyond making love and being merry. Mr. Kennedy could occupy himself with a blue book for hours together without wincing. So Phineas went to work again with his Alison, and read away till he nodded. In those days he often wandered up and down the Linter and across the moor to the Linn, and so down to the lake. He would take a book with him, and would seat himself down on spots which he loved, and would pretend to read;--but I do not think that he got much advantage from his book. He was thinking of his life, and trying to calculate whether the wonderful success which he had achieved would ever be of permanent value to him. Would he be nearer to earning his bread when he should be member for Loughton than he had been when he was member for Loughshane? Or was there before him any slightest probability that he would ever earn his bread? And then he thought of Violet Effingham, and was angry with himself for remembering at that moment that Violet Effingham was the mistress of a large fortune. Once before when he was sitting beside the Linter he had made up his mind to declare his passion to Lady Laura;--and he had done so on the very spot. Now, within a twelvemonth of that time, he made up his mind on the same spot to declare his passion to Miss Effingham, and he thought his best mode of carrying his suit would be to secure the assistance of Lady Laura. Lady Laura, no doubt, had been very anxious that her brother should marry Violet; but Lord Chiltern, as Phineas knew, had asked for Violet's hand twice in vain; and, moreover, Chiltern himself had declared to Phineas that he would never ask for it again. Lady Laura, who was always reasonable, would surely perceive that there was no hope of success for her brother. That Chiltern would quarrel with him,--would quarrel with him to the knife,--he did not doubt; but he felt that no fear of such a quarrel as that should deter him. He loved Violet Effingham, and he must indeed be pusillanimous if, loving her as he did, he was deterred from expressing his love from any fear of a suitor whom she did not favour. He would not willingly be untrue to his friendship for Lady Laura's brother. Had there been a chance for Lord Chiltern he would have abstained from putting himself forward. But what was the use of his abstaining, when by doing so he could in no wise benefit his friend,--when the result of his doing so would be that some interloper would come in and carry off the prize? He would explain all this to Lady Laura, and, if the prize would be kind to him, he would disregard the anger of Lord Chiltern, even though it might be anger to the knife. As he was thinking of all this Lady Laura stood before him where he was sitting at the top of the falls. At this moment he remembered well all the circumstances of the scene when he had been there with her at his last visit to Loughlinter. How things had changed since then! Then he had loved Lady Laura with all his heart, and he had now already brought himself to regard her as a discreet matron whom to love would be almost as unreasonable as though he were to entertain a passion for the Lord Chancellor. The reader will understand how thorough had been the cure effected by Lady Laura's marriage and the interval of a few months, when the swain was already prepared to make this lady the depositary of his confidence in another matter of love. "You are often here, I suppose?" said Lady Laura, looking down upon him as he sat upon the rock. "Well;--yes; not very often; I come here sometimes because the view down upon the lake is so fine." "It is the prettiest spot about the place. I hardly ever get here now. Indeed this is only the second time that I have been up since we have been at home, and then I came to bring papa here." There was a little wooden seat near to the rock upon which Phineas had been lying, and upon this Lady Laura sat down. Phineas, with his eyes turned upon the lake, was considering how he might introduce the subject of his love for Violet Effingham; but he did not find the matter very easy. He had just resolved to begin by saying that Violet would certainly never accept Lord Chiltern, when Lady Laura spoke a word or two which stopped him altogether. "How well I remember," she said, "the day when you and I were here last autumn!" "So do I. You told me then that you were going to marry Mr. Kennedy. How much has happened since then!" "Much indeed! Enough for a whole lifetime. And yet how slow the time has gone!" "I do not think it has been slow with me," said Phineas. "No; you have been active. You have had your hands full of work. I am beginning to think that it is a great curse to have been born a woman." "And yet I have heard you say that a woman may do as much as a man." "That was before I had learned my lesson properly. I know better than that now. Oh dear! I have no doubt it is all for the best as it is, but I have a kind of wish that I might be allowed to go out and milk the cows." "And may you not milk the cows if you wish it, Lady Laura?" "By no means;--not only not milk them, but hardly look at them. At any rate, I must not talk about them." Phineas of course understood that she was complaining of her husband, and hardly knew how to reply to her. He had been sharp enough to perceive already that Mr. Kennedy was an autocrat in his own house, and he knew Lady Laura well enough to be sure that such masterdom would be very irksome to her. But he had not imagined that she would complain to him. "It was so different at Saulsby," Lady Laura continued. "Everything there seemed to be my own." "And everything here is your own." "Yes,--according to the prayer-book. And everything in truth is my own,--as all the dainties at the banquet belonged to Sancho the Governor." "You mean," said he,--and then he hesitated; "you mean that Mr. Kennedy stands over you, guarding you for your own welfare, as the doctor stood over Sancho and guarded him?" There was a pause before she answered,--a long pause, during which he was looking away over the lake, and thinking how he might introduce the subject of his love. But long as was the pause, he had not begun when Lady Laura was again speaking. "The truth is, my friend," she said, "that I have made a mistake." "A mistake?" "Yes, Phineas, a mistake. I have blundered as fools blunder, thinking that I was clever enough to pick my footsteps aright without asking counsel from any one. I have blundered and stumbled and fallen, and now I am so bruised that I am not able to stand upon my feet." The word that struck him most in all this was his own Christian name. She had never called him Phineas before. He was aware that the circle of his acquaintance had fallen into a way of miscalling him by his Christian name, as one observes to be done now and again in reference to some special young man. Most of the men whom he called his friends called him Phineas. Even the Earl had done so more than once on occasions in which the greatness of his position had dropped for a moment out of his mind. Mrs. Low had called him Phineas when she regarded him as her husband's most cherished pupil; and Mrs. Bunce had called him Mr. Phineas. He had always been Phineas to everybody at Killaloe. But still he was quite sure that Lady Laura had never so called him before. Nor would she have done so now in her husband's presence. He was sure of that also. "You mean that you are unhappy?" he said, still looking away from her towards the lake. "Yes, I do mean that. Though I do not know why I should come and tell you so,--except that I am still blundering and stumbling, and have fallen into a way of hurting myself at every step." "You can tell no one who is more anxious for your happiness," said Phineas. "That is a very pretty speech, but what would you do for my happiness? Indeed, what is it possible that you should do? I mean it as no rebuke when I say that my happiness or unhappiness is a matter as to which you will soon become perfectly indifferent." "Why should you say so, Lady Laura?" "Because it is natural that it should be so. You and Mr. Kennedy might have been friends. Not that you will be, because you are unlike each other in all your ways. But it might have been so." "And are not you and I to be friends?" he asked. "No. In a very few months you will not think of telling me what are your desires or what your sorrows;--and as for me, it will be out of the question that I should tell mine to you. How can you be my friend?" "If you were not quite sure of my friendship, Lady Laura, you would not speak to me as you are speaking now." Still he did not look at her, but lay with his face supported on his hands, and his eyes turned away upon the lake. But she, where she was sitting, could see him, and was aided by her sight in making comparisons in her mind between the two men who had been her lovers,--between him whom she had taken and him whom she had left. There was something in the hard, dry, unsympathising, unchanging virtues of her husband which almost revolted her. He had not a fault, but she had tried him at every point and had been able to strike no spark of fire from him. Even by disobeying she could produce no heat,--only an access of firmness. How would it have been with her had she thrown all ideas of fortune to the winds, and linked her lot to that of the young Phoebus who was lying at her feet? If she had ever loved any one she had loved him. And she had not thrown away her love for money. So she swore to herself over and over again, trying to console herself in her cold unhappiness. She had married a rich man in order that she might be able to do something in the world;--and now that she was this rich man's wife she found that she could do nothing. The rich man thought it to be quite enough for her to sit at home and look after his welfare. In the meantime young Phoebus,--her Phoebus as he had been once,--was thinking altogether of some one else. "Phineas," she said, slowly, "I have in you such perfect confidence that I will tell you the truth;--as one man may tell it to another. I wish you would go from here." "What, at once?" "Not to-day, or to-morrow. Stay here now till the election; but do not return. He will ask you to come, and press you hard, and will be hurt;--for, strange to say, with all his coldness, he really likes you. He has a pleasure in seeing you here. But he must not have that pleasure at the expense of trouble to me." "And why is it a trouble to you?" he asked. Men are such fools;--so awkward, so unready, with their wits ever behind the occasion by a dozen seconds or so! As soon as the words were uttered, he knew that they should not have been spoken. "Because I am a fool," she said. "Why else? Is not that enough for you?" "Laura--," he said. "No,--no; I will have none of that. I am a fool, but not such a fool as to suppose that any cure is to be found there." "Only say what I can do for you, though it be with my entire life, and I will do it." "You can do nothing,--except to keep away from me." "Are you earnest in telling me that?" Now at last he had turned himself round and was looking at her, and as he looked he saw the hat of a man appearing up the path, and immediately afterwards the face. It was the hat and face of the laird of Loughlinter. "Here is Mr. Kennedy," said Phineas, in a tone of voice not devoid of dismay and trouble. "So I perceive," said Lady Laura. But there was no dismay or trouble in the tone of her voice. In the countenance of Mr. Kennedy, as he approached closer, there was not much to be read,--only, perhaps, some slight addition of gloom, or rather, perhaps, of that frigid propriety of moral demeanour for which he had always been conspicuous, which had grown upon him at his marriage, and which had been greatly increased by the double action of being made a Cabinet Minister and being garrotted. "I am glad that your headache is better," he said to his wife, who had risen from her seat to meet him. Phineas also had risen, and was now looking somewhat sheepish where he stood. "I came out because it was worse," she said. "It irritated me so that I could not stand the house any longer." "I will send to Callender for Dr. Macnuthrie." "Pray do nothing of the kind, Robert. I do not want Dr. Macnuthrie at all." "Where there is illness, medical advice is always expedient." "I am not ill. A headache is not illness." "I had thought it was," said Mr. Kennedy, very drily. "At any rate, I would rather not have Dr. Macnuthrie." "I am sure it cannot do you any good to climb up here in the heat of the sun. Had you been here long, Finn?" "All the morning;--here, or hereabouts. I clambered up from the lake and had a book in my pocket." "And you happened to come across him by accident?" Mr. Kennedy asked. There was something so simple in the question that its very simplicity proved that there was no suspicion. "Yes;--by chance," said Lady Laura. "But every one at Loughlinter always comes up here. If any one ever were missing whom I wanted to find, this is where I should look." "I am going on towards Linter forest to meet Blane," said Mr. Kennedy. Blane was the gamekeeper. "If you don't mind the trouble, Finn, I wish you'd take Lady Laura down to the house. Do not let her stay out in the heat. I will take care that somebody goes over to Callender for Dr. Macnuthrie." Then Mr. Kennedy went on, and Phineas was left with the charge of taking Lady Laura back to the house. When Mr. Kennedy's hat had first appeared coming up the walk, Phineas had been ready to proclaim himself prepared for any devotion in the service of Lady Laura. Indeed, he had begun to reply with criminal tenderness to the indiscreet avowal which Lady Laura had made to him. But he felt now, after what had just occurred in the husband's presence, that any show of tenderness,--of criminal tenderness,--was impossible. The absence of all suspicion on the part of Mr. Kennedy had made Phineas feel that he was bound by all social laws to refrain from such tenderness. Lady Laura began to descend the path before him without a word;--and went on, and on, as though she would have reached the house without speaking, had he not addressed her. "Does your head still pain you?" he asked. "Of course it does." "I suppose he is right in saying that you should not be out in the heat." "I do not know. It is not worth while to think about that. He sends me in, and so of course I must go. And he tells you to take me, and so of course you must take me." "Would you wish that I should let you go alone?" "Yes, I would. Only he will be sure to find it out; and you must not tell him that you left me at my request." "Do you think that I am afraid of him?" said Phineas. "Yes;--I think you are. I know that I am, and that papa is; and that his mother hardly dares to call her soul her own. I do not know why you should escape." "Mr. Kennedy is nothing to me." "He is something to me, and so I suppose I had better go on. And now I shall have that horrid man from the little town pawing me and covering everything with snuff, and bidding me take Scotch physic,--which seems to increase in quantity and nastiness as doses in England decrease. And he will stand over me to see that I take it." "What;--the doctor from Callender?" "No;--but Mr. Kennedy will. If he advised me to have a hole in my glove mended, he would ask me before he went to bed whether it was done. He never forgot anything in his life, and was never unmindful of anything. That I think will do, Mr. Finn. You have brought me out from the trees, and that may be taken as bringing me home. We shall hardly get scolded if we part here. Remember what I told you up above. And remember also that it is in your power to do nothing else for me. Good-bye." So he turned away towards the lake, and let Lady Laura go across the wide lawn to the house by herself. He had failed altogether in his intention of telling his friend of his love for Violet, and had come to perceive that he could not for the present carry out that intention. After what had passed it would be impossible for him to go to Lady Laura with a passionate tale of his longing for Violet Effingham. If he were even to speak to her of love at all, it must be quite of another love than that. But he never would speak to her of love; nor,--as he felt quite sure,--would she allow him to do so. But what astounded him most as he thought of the interview which had just passed, was the fact that the Lady Laura whom he had known,--whom he had thought he had known,--should have become so subject to such a man as Mr. Kennedy, a man whom he had despised as being weak, irresolute, and without a purpose! For the day or two that he remained at Loughlinter, he watched the family closely, and became aware that Lady Laura had been right when she declared that her father was afraid of Mr. Kennedy. "I shall follow you almost immediately," said the Earl confidentially to Phineas, when the candidate for the borough took his departure from Loughlinter. "I don't like to be there just when the election is going on, but I'll be at Saulsby to receive you the day afterwards." Phineas took his leave from Mr. Kennedy, with a warm expression of friendship on the part of his host, and from Lady Laura with a mere touch of the hand. He tried to say a word; but she was sullen, or, if not, she put on some mood like to sullenness, and said never a word to him. On the day after the departure of Phineas Finn for Loughton Lady Laura Kennedy still had a headache. She had complained of a headache ever since she had been at Loughlinter, and Dr. Macnuthrie had been over more than once. "I wonder what it is that ails you," said her husband, standing over her in her own sitting-room up-stairs. It was a pretty room, looking away to the mountains, with just a glimpse of the lake to be caught from the window, and it had been prepared for her with all the skill and taste of an accomplished upholsterer. She had selected the room for herself soon after her engagement, and had thanked her future husband with her sweetest smile for giving her the choice. She had thanked him and told him that she always meant to be happy,--so happy in that room! He was a man not much given to romance, but he thought of this promise as he stood over her and asked after her health. As far as he could see she had never been even comfortable since she had been at Loughlinter. A shadow of the truth came across his mind. Perhaps his wife was bored. If so, what was to be the future of his life and of hers? He went up to London every year, and to Parliament, as a duty; and then, during some period of the recess, would have his house full of guests,--as another duty. But his happiness was to consist in such hours as these which seemed to inflict upon his wife the penalty of a continual headache. A shadow of the truth came upon him. What if his wife did not like living quietly at home as the mistress of her husband's house? What if a headache was always to be the result of a simple performance of domestic duties? More than a shadow of truth had come upon Lady Laura herself. The dark cloud created by the entire truth was upon her, making everything black and wretched around her. She had asked herself a question or two, and had discovered that she had no love for her husband, that the kind of life which he intended to exact from her was insupportable to her, and that she had blundered and fallen in her entrance upon life. She perceived that her father had already become weary of Mr. Kennedy, and that, lonely and sad as he would be at Saulsby by himself, it was his intention to repudiate the idea of making a home at Loughlinter. Yes;--she would be deserted by everyone, except of course by her husband; and then-- Then she would throw herself on some early morning into the lake, for life would be insupportable. "I wonder what it is that ails you," said Mr. Kennedy. "Nothing serious. One can't always help having a headache, you know." "I don't think you take enough exercise, Laura. I would propose that you should walk four miles every day after breakfast. I will always be ready to accompany you. I have spoken to Dr. Macnuthrie--" "I hate Dr. Macnuthrie." "Why should you hate Dr. Macnuthrie, Laura?" "How can I tell why? I do. That is quite reason enough why you should not send for him to me." "You are unreasonable, Laura. One chooses a doctor on account of his reputation in his profession, and that of Dr. Macnuthrie stands high." "I do not want any doctor." "But if you are ill, my dear--" "I am not ill." "But you said you had a headache. You have said so for the last ten days." "Having a headache is not being ill. I only wish you would not talk of it, and then perhaps I should get rid of it." "I cannot believe that. Headache in nine cases out of ten comes from the stomach." Though he said this,--saying it because it was the common-place common-sense sort of thing to say, still at the very moment there was the shadow of the truth before his eyes. What if this headache meant simple dislike to him, and to his modes of life? "It is nothing of that sort," said Lady Laura, impatient at having her ailment inquired into with so much accuracy. "Then what is it? You cannot think that I can be happy to hear you complaining of headache every day,--making it an excuse for absolute idleness." "What is it that you want me to do?" she said, jumping up from her seat. "Set me a task, and if I don't go mad over it, I'll get through it. There are the account books. Give them to me. I don't suppose I can see the figures, but I'll try to see them." "Laura, this is unkind of you,--and ungrateful." "Of course;--it is everything that is bad. What a pity that you did not find it out last year! Oh dear, oh dear! what am I to do?" Then she threw herself down upon the sofa, and put both her hands up to her temples. "I will send for Dr. Macnuthrie at once," said Mr. Kennedy, walking towards the door very slowly, and speaking as slowly as he walked. "No;--do no such thing," she said, springing to her feet again and intercepting him before he reached the door. "If he comes I will not see him. I give you my word that I will not speak to him if he comes. You do not understand," she said; "you do not understand at all." "What is it that I ought to understand?" he asked. "That a woman does not like to be bothered." He made no reply at once, but stood there twisting the handle of the door, and collecting his thoughts. "Yes," said he at last; "I am beginning to find that out;--and to find out also what it is that bothers a woman, as you call it. I can see now what it is that makes your head ache. It is not the stomach. You are quite right there. It is the prospect of a quiet decent life, to which would be attached the performance of certain homely duties. Dr. Macnuthrie is a learned man, but I doubt whether he can do anything for such a malady." "You are quite right, Robert; he can do nothing." "It is a malady you must cure for yourself, Laura;--and which is to be cured by perseverance. If you can bring yourself to try--" "But I cannot bring myself to try at all," she said. "Do you mean to tell me, Laura, that you will make no effort to do your duty as my wife?" "I mean to tell you that I will not try to cure a headache by doing sums. That is all that I mean to say at this moment. If you will leave me for awhile, so that I may lie down, perhaps I shall be able to come to dinner." He still hesitated, standing with the door in his hand. "But if you go on scolding me," she continued, "what I shall do is to go to bed directly you go away." He hesitated for a moment longer, and then left the room without another word. CHAPTER XXXIII Mr. Slide's Grievance Our hero was elected member for Loughton without any trouble to him or, as far as he could see, to any one else. He made one speech from a small raised booth that was called a platform, and that was all that he was called upon to do. Mr. Grating made a speech in proposing him, and Mr. Shortribs another in seconding him; and these were all the speeches that were required. The thing seemed to be so very easy that he was afterwards almost offended when he was told that the bill for so insignificant a piece of work came to £247 13s. 9d. He had seen no occasion for spending even the odd forty-seven pounds. But then he was member for Loughton; and as he passed the evening alone at the inn, having dined in company with Messrs. Grating, Shortribs, and sundry other influential electors, he began to reflect that, after all, it was not so very great a thing to be a member of Parliament. It almost seemed that that which had come to him so easily could not be of much value. On the following day he went to the castle, and was there when the Earl arrived. They two were alone together, and the Earl was very kind to him. "So you had no opponent after all," said the great man of Loughton, with a slight smile. "Not the ghost of another candidate." "I did not think there would be. They have tried it once or twice and have always failed. There are only one or two in the place who like to go one way just because their neighbours go the other. But, in truth, there is no conservative feeling in the place!" Phineas, although he was at the present moment the member for Loughton himself, could not but enjoy the joke of this. Could there be any liberal feeling in such a place, or, indeed, any political feeling whatsoever? Would not Messrs. Grating and Shortribs have done just the same had it happened that Lord Brentford had been a Tory peer? "They all seemed to be very obliging," said Phineas, in answer to the Earl. "Yes, they are. There isn't a house in the town, you know, let for longer than seven years, and most of them merely from year to year. And, do you know, I haven't a farmer on the property with a lease,--not one; and they don't want leases. They know they're safe. But I do like the people round me to be of the same way of thinking as myself about politics." On the second day after dinner,--the last evening of Finn's visit to Saulsby,--the Earl fell suddenly into a confidential conversation about his daughter and his son, and about Violet Effingham. So sudden, indeed, and so confidential was the conversation, that Phineas was almost silenced for awhile. A word or two had been said about Loughlinter, of the beauty of the place and of the vastness of the property. "I am almost afraid," said Lord Brentford, "that Laura is not happy there." "I hope she is," said Phineas. "He is so hard and dry, and what I call exacting. That is just the word for it. Now Laura has never been used to that. With me she always had her own way in everything, and I always found her fit to have it. I do not understand why her husband should treat her differently." "Perhaps it is the temper of the man." "Temper, yes; but what a bad prospect is that for her! And she, too, has a temper, and so he will find if he tries her too far. I cannot stand Loughlinter. I told Laura so fairly. It is one of those houses in which a man cannot call his hours his own. I told Laura that I could not undertake to remain there for above a day or two." "It is very sad," said Phineas. "Yes, indeed; it is sad for her, poor girl; and very sad for me too. I have no one else but Laura,--literally no one; and now I am divided from her! It seems that she has been taken as much away from me as though her husband lived in China. I have lost them both now!" "I hope not, my lord." "I say I have. As to Chiltern, I can perceive that he becomes more and more indifferent to me every day. He thinks of me only as a man in his way who must die some day and may die soon." "You wrong him, Lord Brentford." "I do not wrong him at all. Why has he answered every offer I have made him with so much insolence as to make it impossible for me to put myself into further communion with him?" "He thinks that you have wronged him." "Yes;--because I have been unable to shut my eyes to his mode of living. I was to go on paying his debts, and taking no other notice whatsoever of his conduct!" "I do not think he is in debt now." "Because his sister the other day spent every shilling of her fortune in paying them. She gave him £40,000! Do you think she would have married Kennedy but for that? I don't. I could not prevent her. I had said that I would not cripple my remaining years of life by raising the money, and I could not go back from my word." "You and Chiltern might raise the money between you." "It would do no good now. She has married Mr. Kennedy, and the money is nothing to her or to him. Chiltern might have put things right by marrying Miss Effingham if he pleased." "I think he did his best there." "No;--he did his worst. He asked her to be his wife as a man asks for a railway-ticket or a pair of gloves, which he buys with a price; and because she would not jump into his mouth he gave it up. I don't believe he even really wanted to marry her. I suppose he has some disreputable connection to prevent it." "Nothing of the kind. He would marry her to-morrow if he could. My belief is that Miss Effingham is sincere in refusing him." "I don't doubt her sincerity." "And that she will never change." "Ah, well; I don't agree with you, and I daresay I know them both better than you do. But everything goes against me. I had set my heart upon it, and therefore of course I shall be disappointed. What is he going to do this autumn?" "He is yachting now." "And who are with him?" "I think the boat belongs to Captain Colepepper." "The greatest blackguard in all England! A man who shoots pigeons and rides steeple-chases! And the worst of Chiltern is this, that even if he didn't like the man, and if he were tired of this sort of life, he would go on just the same because he thinks it a fine thing not to give way." This was so true that Phineas did not dare to contradict the statement, and therefore said nothing. "I had some faint hope," continued the Earl, "while Laura could always watch him; because, in his way, he was fond of his sister. But that is all over now. She will have enough to do to watch herself!" Phineas had felt that the Earl had put him down rather sharply when he had said that Violet would never accept Lord Chiltern, and he was therefore not a little surprised when Lord Brentford spoke again of Miss Effingham the following morning, holding in his hand a letter which he had just received from her. "They are to be at Loughlinter on the tenth," he said, "and she purposes to come here for a couple of nights on her way." "Lady Baldock and all?" "Well, yes; Lady Baldock and all. I am not very fond of Lady Baldock, but I will put up with her for a couple of days for the sake of having Violet. She is more like a child of my own now than anybody else. I shall not see her all the autumn afterwards. I cannot stand Loughlinter." "It will be better when the house is full." "You will be there, I suppose?" "Well, no; I think not," said Phineas. "You have had enough of it, have you?" Phineas made no reply to this, but smiled slightly. "By Jove, I don't wonder at it," said the Earl. Phineas, who would have given all he had in the world to be staying in the same country house with Violet Effingham, could not explain how it had come to pass that he was obliged to absent himself. "I suppose you were asked?" said the Earl. "Oh, yes, I was asked. Nothing can be kinder than they are." "Kennedy told me that you were coming as a matter of course." "I explained to him after that," said Phineas, "that I should not return. I shall go over to Ireland. I have a deal of hard reading to do, and I can get through it there without interruption." He went up from Saulsby to London on that day, and found himself quite alone in Mrs. Bunce's lodgings. I mean not only that he was alone at his lodgings, but he was alone at his club, and alone in the streets. July was not quite over, and yet all the birds of passage had migrated. Mr. Mildmay, by his short session, had half ruined the London tradesmen, and had changed the summer mode of life of all those who account themselves to be anybody. Phineas, as he sat alone in his room, felt himself to be nobody. He had told the Earl that he was going to Ireland, and to Ireland he must go;--because he had nothing else to do. He had been asked indeed to join one or two parties in their autumn plans. Mr. Monk had wanted him to go to the Pyrenees, and Lord Chiltern had suggested that he should join the yacht;--but neither plan suited him. It would have suited him to be at Loughlinter with Violet Effingham, but Loughlinter was a barred house to him. His old friend, Lady Laura, had told him not to come thither, explaining, with sufficient clearness, her reasons for excluding him from the number of her husband's guests. As he thought of it the past scenes of his life became very marvellous to him. Twelve months since he would have given all the world for a word of love from Lady Laura, and had barely dared to hope that such a word, at some future day, might possibly be spoken. Now such a word had in truth been spoken, and it had come to be simply a trouble to him. She had owned to him,--for, in truth, such had been the meaning of her warning to him,--that, though she had married another man, she had loved and did love him. But in thinking of this he took no pride in it. It was not till he had thought of it long that he began to ask himself whether he might not be justified in gathering from what happened some hope that Violet also might learn to love him. He had thought so little of himself as to have been afraid at first to press his suit with Lady Laura. Might he not venture to think more of himself, having learned how far he had succeeded? But how was he to get at Violet Effingham? From the moment at which he had left Saulsby he had been angry with himself for not having asked Lord Brentford to allow him to remain there till after the Baldock party should have gone on to Loughlinter. The Earl, who was very lonely in his house, would have consented at once. Phineas, indeed, was driven to confess to himself that success with Violet would at once have put an end to all his friendship with Lord Brentford;--as also to all his friendship with Lord Chiltern. He would, in such case, be bound in honour to vacate his seat and give back Loughton to his offended patron. But he would have given up much more than his seat for Violet Effingham! At present, however, he had no means of getting at her to ask her the question. He could hardly go to Loughlinter in opposition to the wishes of Lady Laura. A little adventure happened to him in London which somewhat relieved the dulness of the days of the first week in August. He remained in London till the middle of August, half resolving to rush down to Saulsby when Violet Effingham should be there,--endeavouring to find some excuse for such a proceeding, but racking his brains in vain,--and then there came about his little adventure. The adventure was commenced by the receipt of the following letter:-- Banner of the People Office, 3rd August, 186--. MY DEAR FINN, I must say I think you have treated me badly, and without that sort of brotherly fairness which we on the public press expect from one another. However, perhaps we can come to an understanding, and if so, things may yet go smoothly. Give me a turn and I am not at all adverse to give you one. Will you come to me here, or shall I call upon you? Yours always, Q. S. Phineas was not only surprised, but disgusted also, at the receipt of this letter. He could not imagine what was the deed by which he had offended Mr. Slide. He thought over all the circumstances of his short connection with the _People's Banner_, but could remember nothing which might have created offence. But his disgust was greater than his surprise. He thought that he had done nothing and said nothing to justify Quintus Slide in calling him "dear Finn." He, who had Lady Laura's secret in his keeping; he who hoped to be the possessor of Violet Effingham's affections,--he to be called "dear Finn" by such a one as Quintus Slide! He soon made up his mind that he would not answer the note, but would go at once to the _People's Banner_ office at the hour at which Quintus Slide was always there. He certainly would not write to "dear Slide;" and, until he had heard something more of this cause of offence, he would not make an enemy for ever by calling the man "dear Sir." He went to the office of the _People's Banner_, and found Mr. Slide ensconced in a little glass cupboard, writing an article for the next day's copy. "I suppose you're very busy," said Phineas, inserting himself with some difficulty on to a little stool in the corner of the cupboard. "Not so particular but what I'm glad to see you. You shoot, don't you?" "Shoot!" said Phineas. It could not be possible that Mr. Slide was intending, after this abrupt fashion, to propose a duel with pistols. "Grouse and pheasants, and them sort of things?" asked Mr. Slide. "Oh, ah; I understand. Yes, I shoot sometimes." "Is it the 12th or 20th for grouse in Scotland?" "The 12th," said Phineas. "What makes you ask that just now?" "I'm doing a letter about it,--advising men not to shoot too many of the young birds, and showing that they'll have none next year if they do. I had a fellow here just now who knew all about it, and he put down a lot; but I forgot to make him tell me the day of beginning. What's a good place to date from?" Phineas suggested Callender or Stirling. "Stirling's too much of a town, isn't it? Callender sounds better for game, I think." So the letter which was to save the young grouse was dated from Callender; and Mr. Quintus Slide having written the word, threw down his pen, came off his stool, and rushed at once at his subject. "Well, now, Finn," he said, "don't you know that you've treated me badly about Loughton?" "Treated you badly about Loughton!" Phineas, as he repeated the words, was quite in the dark as to Mr. Slide's meaning. Did Mr. Slide intend to convey a reproach because Phineas had not personally sent some tidings of the election to the _People's Banner_? "Very badly," said Mr. Slide, with his arms akimbo,--"very badly indeed! Men on the press together do expect that they're to be stuck by, and not thrown over. Damn it, I say; what's the good of a brotherhood if it ain't to be brotherhood?" "Upon my word, I don't know what you mean," said Phineas. "Didn't I tell you that I had Loughton in my heye?" said Quintus. "Oh--h!" "It's very well to say ho, and look guilty, but didn't I tell you?" "I never heard such nonsense in my life." "Nonsense?" "How on earth could you have stood for Loughton? What interest would you have there? You could not even have found an elector to propose you." "Now, I'll tell you what I'll do, Finn. I think you have thrown me over most shabby, but I won't stand about that. You shall have Loughton this session if you'll promise to make way for me after the next election. If you'll agree to that, we'll have a special leader to say how well Lord What's-his-name has done with the borough; and we'll be your horgan through the whole session." "I never heard such nonsense in my life. In the first place, Loughton is safe to be in the schedule of reduced boroughs. It will be thrown into the county, or joined with a group." "I'll stand the chance of that. Will you agree?" "Agree! No! It's the most absurd proposal that was ever made. You might as well ask me whether I would agree that you should go to heaven. Go to heaven if you can, I should say. I have not the slightest objection. But it's nothing to me." "Very well," said Quintus Slide. "Very well! Now we understand each other, and that's all that I desire. I think that I can show you what it is to come among gentlemen of the press, and then to throw them over. Good morning." Phineas, quite satisfied at the result of the interview as regarded himself, and by no means sorry that there should have arisen a cause of separation between Mr. Quintus Slide and his "dear Finn," shook off a little dust from his foot as he left the office of the _People's Banner_, and resolved that in future he would attempt to make no connection in that direction. As he returned home he told himself that a member of Parliament should be altogether independent of the press. On the second morning after his meeting with his late friend, he saw the result of his independence. There was a startling article, a tremendous article, showing the pressing necessity of immediate reform, and proving the necessity by an illustration of the borough-mongering rottenness of the present system. When such a patron as Lord Brentford,--himself a Cabinet Minister with a sinecure,--could by his mere word put into the House such a stick as Phineas Finn,--a man who had struggled to stand on his legs before the Speaker, but had wanted both the courage and the capacity, nothing further could surely be wanted to prove that the Reform Bill of 1832 required to be supplemented by some more energetic measure. Phineas laughed as he read the article, and declared to himself that the joke was a good joke. But, nevertheless, he suffered. Mr. Quintus Slide, when he was really anxious to use his thong earnestly, could generally raise a wale. CHAPTER XXXIV Was He Honest? On the 10th of August, Phineas Finn did return to Loughton. He went down by the mail train on the night of the 10th, having telegraphed to the inn for a bed, and was up eating his breakfast in that hospitable house at nine o'clock. The landlord and landlady with all their staff were at a loss to imagine what had brought down their member again so quickly to his borough; but the reader, who will remember that Lady Baldock with her daughter and Violet Effingham were to pass the 11th of the month at Saulsby, may perhaps be able to make a guess on the subject. Phineas had been thinking of making this sudden visit to Loughton ever since he had been up in town, but he could suggest to himself no reason to be given to Lord Brentford for his sudden reappearance. The Earl had been very kind to him, but he had said nothing which could justify his young friend in running in and out of Saulsby Castle at pleasure, without invitation and without notice. Phineas was so well aware of this himself that often as he had half resolved during the last ten days to return to Saulsby, so often had he determined that he could not do so. He could think of no excuse. Then the heavens favoured him, and he received a letter from Lord Chiltern, in which there was a message for Lord Brentford. "If you see my father, tell him that I am ready at any moment to do what is necessary for raising the money for Laura." Taking this as his excuse he returned to Loughton. As chance arranged it, he met the Earl standing on the great steps before his own castle doors. "What, Finn; is this you? I thought you were in Ireland." "Not yet, my lord, as you see." Then he opened his budget at once, and blushed at his own hypocrisy as he went on with his story. He had, he said, felt the message from Chiltern to be so all-important that he could not bring himself to go over to Ireland without delivering it. He urged upon the Earl that he might learn from this how anxious Lord Chiltern was to effect a reconciliation. When it occurred to him, he said, that there might be a hope of doing anything towards such an object, he could not go to Ireland leaving the good work behind him. In love and war all things are fair. So he declared to himself; but as he did so he felt that his story was so weak that it would hardly gain for him an admittance into the Castle. In this he was completely wrong. The Earl, swallowing the bait, put his arm through that of the intruder, and, walking with him through the paths of the shrubbery, at length confessed that he would be glad to be reconciled to his son if it were possible. "Let him come here, and she shall be here also," said the Earl, speaking of Violet. To this Phineas could say nothing out loud, but he told himself that all should be fair between them. He would take no dishonest advantage of Lord Chiltern. He would give Lord Chiltern the whole message as it was given to him by Lord Brentford. But should it so turn out that he himself got an opportunity of saying to Violet all that he had come to say, and should it also turn out,--an event which he acknowledged to himself to be most unlikely,--that Violet did not reject him, then how could he write his letter to Lord Chiltern? So he resolved that the letter should be written before he saw Violet. But how could he write such a letter and instantly afterwards do that which would be false to the spirit of a letter so written? Could he bid Lord Chiltern come home to woo Violet Effingham, and instantly go forth to woo her for himself? He found that he could not do so,--unless he told the whole truth to Lord Chiltern. In no other way could he carry out his project and satisfy his own idea of what was honest. The Earl bade him send to the hotel for his things. "The Baldock people are all here, you know, but they go very early to-morrow." Then Phineas declared that he also must return to London very early on the morrow;--but in the meantime he would go to the inn and fetch his things. The Earl thanked him again and again for his generous kindness; and Phineas, blushing as he received the thanks, went back and wrote his letter to Lord Chiltern. It was an elaborate letter, written, as regards the first and larger portion of it, with words intended to bring the prodigal son back to the father's home. And everything was said about Miss Effingham that could or should have been said. Then, on the last page, he told his own story. "Now," he said, "I must speak of myself:"--and he went on to explain to his friend, in the plainest language that he could use, his own position. "I have loved her," he said, "for six months, and I am here with the express intention of asking her to take me. The chances are ten to one that she refuses me. I do not deprecate your anger,--if you choose to be angry. But I am endeavouring to treat you well, and I ask you to do the same by me. I must convey to you your father's message, and after doing so I cannot address myself to Miss Effingham without telling you. I should feel myself to be false were I to do so. In the event,--the probable, nay, almost certain event of my being refused,--I shall trust you to keep my secret. Do not quarrel with me if you can help it;--but if you must I will be ready." Then he posted the letter and went up to the Castle. He had only the one day for his action, and he knew that Violet was watched by Lady Baldock as by a dragon. He was told that the Earl was out with the young ladies, and was shown to his room. On going to the drawing-room he found Lady Baldock, with whom he had been, to a certain degree, a favourite, and was soon deeply engaged in a conversation as to the practicability of shutting up all the breweries and distilleries by Act of Parliament. But lunch relieved him, and brought the young ladies in at two. Miss Effingham seemed to be really glad to see him, and even Miss Boreham, Lady Baldock's daughter, was very gracious to him. For the Earl had been speaking well of his young member, and Phineas had in a way grown into the good graces of sober and discreet people. After lunch they were to ride;--the Earl, that is, and Violet. Lady Baldock and her daughter were to have the carriage. "I can mount you, Finn, if you would like it," said the Earl. "Of course he'll like it," said Violet; "do you suppose Mr. Finn will object to ride with me in Saulsby Woods? It won't be the first time, will it?" "Violet," said Lady Baldock, "you have the most singular way of talking." "I suppose I have," said Violet; "but I don't think I can change it now. Mr. Finn knows me too well to mind it much." It was past five before they were on horseback, and up to that time Phineas had not found himself alone with Violet Effingham for a moment. They had sat together after lunch in the dining-room for nearly an hour, and had sauntered into the hall and knocked about the billiard balls, and then stood together at the open doors of a conservatory. But Lady Baldock or Miss Boreham had always been there. Nothing could be more pleasant than Miss Effingham's words, or more familiar than her manner to Phineas. She had expressed strong delight at his success in getting a seat in Parliament, and had talked to him about the Kennedys as though they had created some special bond of union between her and Phineas which ought to make them intimate. But, for all that, she could not be got to separate herself from Lady Baldock;--and when she was told that if she meant to ride she must go and dress herself, she went at once. But he thought that he might have a chance on horseback; and after they had been out about half an hour, chance did favour him. For awhile he rode behind with the carriage, calculating that by his so doing the Earl would be put off his guard, and would be disposed after awhile to change places with him. And so it fell out. At a certain fall of ground in the park, where the road turned round and crossed a bridge over the little river, the carriage came up with the first two horses, and Lady Baldock spoke a word to the Earl. Then Violet pulled up, allowing the vehicle to pass the bridge first, and in this way she and Phineas were brought together,--and in this way they rode on. But he was aware that he must greatly increase the distance between them and the others of their party before he could dare to plead his suit, and even were that done he felt that he would not know how to plead it on horseback. They had gone on some half mile in this way when they reached a spot on which a green ride led away from the main road through the trees to the left. "You remember this place, do you not?" said Violet. Phineas declared that he remembered it well. "I must go round by the woodman's cottage. You won't mind coming?" Phineas said that he would not mind, and trotted on to tell them in the carriage. "Where is she going?" asked Lady Baldock; and then, when Phineas explained, she begged the Earl to go back to Violet. The Earl, feeling the absurdity of this, declared that Violet knew her way very well herself, and thus Phineas got his opportunity. They rode on almost without speaking for nearly a mile, cantering through the trees, and then they took another turn to the right, and came upon the cottage. They rode to the door, and spoke a word or two to the woman there, and then passed on. "I always come here when I am at Saulsby," said Violet, "that I may teach myself to think kindly of Lord Chiltern." "I understand it all," said Phineas. "He used to be so nice;--and is so still, I believe, only that he has taught himself to be so rough. Will he ever change, do you think?" Phineas knew that in this emergency it was his especial duty to be honest. "I think he would be changed altogether if we could bring him here,--so that he should live among his friends." "Do you think he would? We must put our heads together, and do it. Don't you think that it is to be done?" Phineas replied that he thought it was to be done. "I'll tell you the truth at once, Miss Effingham," he said. "You can do it by a single word." "Yes;--yes;" she said; "but I do not mean that;--without that. It is absurd, you know, that a father should make such a condition as that." Phineas said that he thought it was absurd; and then they rode on again, cantering through the wood. He had been bold to speak to her about Lord Chiltern as he had done, and she had answered just as he would have wished to be answered. But how could he press his suit for himself while she was cantering by his side? Presently they came to rough ground over which they were forced to walk, and he was close by her side. "Mr. Finn," she said, "I wonder whether I may ask a question?" "Any question," he replied. "Is there any quarrel between you and Lady Laura?" "None." "Or between you and him?" "No;--none. We are greater allies than ever." "Then why are you not going to be at Loughlinter? She has written to me expressly saying you would not be there." He paused a moment before he replied. "It did not suit," he said at last. "It is a secret then?" "Yes;--it is a secret. You are not angry with me?" "Angry; no." "It is not a secret of my own, or I should not keep it from you." "Perhaps I can guess it," she said. "But I will not try. I will not even think of it." "The cause, whatever it be, has been full of sorrow to me. I would have given my left hand to have been at Loughlinter this autumn." "Are you so fond of it?" "I should have been staying there with you," he said. He paused, and for a moment there was no word spoken by either of them; but he could perceive that the hand in which she held her whip was playing with her horse's mane with a nervous movement. "When I found how it must be, and that I must miss you, I rushed down here that I might see you for a moment. And now I am here I do not dare to speak to you of myself." They were now beyond the rocks, and Violet, without speaking a word, again put her horse into a trot. He was by her side in a moment, but he could not see her face. "Have you not a word to say to me?" he asked. "No;--no;--no;" she replied, "not a word when you speak to me like that. There is the carriage. Come;--we will join them." Then she cantered on, and he followed her till they reached the Earl and Lady Baldock and Miss Boreham. "I have done my devotions now," said Miss Effingham, "and am ready to return to ordinary life." Phineas could not find another moment in which to speak to her. Though he spent the evening with her, and stood over her as she sang at the Earl's request, and pressed her hand as she went to bed, and was up to see her start in the morning, he could not draw from her either a word or a look. CHAPTER XXXV Mr. Monk upon Reform Phineas Finn went to Ireland immediately after his return from Saulsby, having said nothing further to Violet Effingham, and having heard nothing further from her than what is recorded in the last chapter. He felt very keenly that his position was unsatisfactory, and brooded over it all the autumn and early winter; but he could form no plan for improving it. A dozen times he thought of writing to Miss Effingham, and asking for an explicit answer. He could not, however, bring himself to write the letter, thinking that written expressions of love are always weak and vapid,--and deterred also by a conviction that Violet, if driven to reply in writing, would undoubtedly reply by a refusal. Fifty times he rode again in his imagination his ride in Saulsby Wood, and he told himself as often that the syren's answer to him,--her no, no, no,--had been, of all possible answers, the most indefinite and provoking. The tone of her voice as she galloped away from him, the bearing of her countenance when he rejoined her, her manner to him when he saw her start from the Castle in the morning, all forbade him to believe that his words to her had been taken as an offence. She had replied to him with a direct negative, simply with the word "no;" but she had so said it that there had hardly been any sting in the no; and he had known at the moment that whatever might be the result of his suit, he need not regard Violet Effingham as his enemy. But the doubt made his sojourn in Ireland very wearisome to him. And there were other matters which tended also to his discomfort, though he was not left even at this period of his life without a continuation of success which seemed to be very wonderful. And, first, I will say a word of his discomfort. He heard not a line from Lord Chiltern in answer to the letter which he had written to his lordship. From Lady Laura he did hear frequently. Lady Laura wrote to him exactly as though she had never warned him away from Loughlinter, and as though there had been no occasion for such warning. She sent him letters filled chiefly with politics, saying something also of the guests at Loughlinter, something of the game, and just a word or two here and there of her husband. The letters were very good letters, and he preserved them carefully. It was manifest to him that they were intended to be good letters, and, as such, to be preserved. In one of these, which he received about the end of November, she told him that her brother was again in his old haunt, at the Willingford Bull, and that he had sent to Portman Square for all property of his own that had been left there. But there was no word in that letter of Violet Effingham; and though Lady Laura did speak more than once of Violet, she always did so as though Violet were simply a joint acquaintance of herself and her correspondent. There was no allusion to the existence of any special regard on his part for Miss Effingham. He had thought that Violet might probably tell her friend what had occurred at Saulsby;--but if she did so, Lady Laura was happy in her powers of reticence. Our hero was disturbed also when he reached home by finding that Mrs. Flood Jones and Miss Flood Jones had retired from Killaloe for the winter. I do not know whether he might not have been more disturbed by the presence of the young lady, for he would have found himself constrained to exhibit towards her some tenderness of manner; and any such tenderness of manner would, in his existing circumstances, have been dangerous. But he was made to understand that Mary Flood Jones had been taken away from Killaloe because it was thought that he had ill-treated the lady, and the accusation made him unhappy. In the middle of the heat of the last session he had received a letter from his sister, in which some pushing question had been asked as to his then existing feeling about poor Mary. This he had answered petulantly. Nothing more had been written to him about Miss Jones, and nothing was said to him when he reached home. He could not, however, but ask after Mary, and when he did ask, the accusation was made again in that quietly severe manner with which, perhaps, most of us have been made acquainted at some period of our lives. "I think, Phineas," said his sister, "we had better say nothing about dear Mary. She is not here at present, and probably you may not see her while you remain with us." "What's all that about?" Phineas had demanded,--understanding the whole matter thoroughly. Then his sister had demurely refused to say a word further on the subject, and not a word further was said about Miss Mary Flood Jones. They were at Floodborough, living, he did not doubt, in a very desolate way,--and quite willing, he did not doubt also, to abandon their desolation if he would go over there in the manner that would become him after what had passed on one or two occasions between him and the young lady. But how was he to do this with such work on his hands as he had undertaken? Now that he was in Ireland, he thought that he did love dear Mary very dearly. He felt that he had two identities,--that he was, as it were, two separate persons,--and that he could, without any real faithlessness, be very much in love with Violet Effingham in his position of man of fashion and member of Parliament in England, and also warmly attached to dear little Mary Flood Jones as an Irishman of Killaloe. He was aware, however, that there was a prejudice against such fulness of heart, and, therefore, resolved sternly that it was his duty to be constant to Miss Effingham. How was it possible that he should marry dear Mary,--he, with such extensive jobs of work on his hands! It was not possible. He must abandon all thought of making dear Mary his own. No doubt they had been right to remove her. But, still, as he took his solitary walks along the Shannon, and up on the hills that overhung the lake above the town, he felt somewhat ashamed of himself, and dreamed of giving up Parliament, of leaving Violet to some noble suitor,--to Lord Chiltern, if she would take him,--and of going to Floodborough with an honest proposal that he should be allowed to press Mary to his heart. Miss Effingham would probably reject him at last; whereas Mary, dear Mary, would come to his heart without a scruple of doubt. Dear Mary! In these days of dreaming, he told himself that, after all, dear Mary was his real love. But, of course, such days were days of dreaming only. He had letters in his pocket from Lady Laura Kennedy which made it impossible for him to think in earnest of giving up Parliament. And then there came a wonderful piece of luck in his way. There lived, or had lived, in the town of Galway a very eccentric old lady, one Miss Marian Persse, who was the aunt of Mrs. Finn, the mother of our hero. With this lady Dr. Finn had quarrelled persistently ever since his marriage, because the lady had expressed her wish to interfere in the management of his family,--offering to purchase such right by favourable arrangements in reference to her will. This the doctor had resented, and there had been quarrels. Miss Persse was not a very rich old lady, but she thought a good deal of her own money. And now she died, leaving £3,000 to her nephew Phineas Finn. Another sum of about equal amount she bequeathed to a Roman Catholic seminary; and thus was her worldly wealth divided. "She couldn't have done better with it," said the old doctor; "and as far as we are concerned, the windfall is the more pleasant as being wholly unexpected." In these days the doctor was undoubtedly gratified by his son's success in life, and never said much about the law. Phineas in truth did do some work during the autumn, reading blue-books, reading law books, reading perhaps a novel or two at the same time,--but shutting himself up very carefully as he studied, so that his sisters were made to understand that for a certain four hours in the day not a sound was to be allowed to disturb him. On the receipt of his legacy he at once offered to repay his father all money that had been advanced him over and above his original allowance; but this the doctor refused to take. "It comes to the same thing, Phineas," he said. "What you have of your share now you can't have hereafter. As regards my present income, it has only made me work a little longer than I had intended; and I believe that the later in life a man works, the more likely he is to live." Phineas, therefore, when he returned to London, had his £3,000 in his pocket. He owed some £500; and the remainder he would, of course, invest. There had been some talk of an autumnal session, but Mr. Mildmay's decision had at last been against it. Who cannot understand that such would be the decision of any Minister to whom was left the slightest fraction of free will in the matter? Why should any Minister court the danger of unnecessary attack, submit himself to unnecessary work, and incur the odium of summoning all his friends from their rest? In the midst of the doubts as to the new and old Ministry, when the political needle was vacillating so tremulously on its pivot, pointing now to one set of men as the coming Government and then to another, vague suggestions as to an autumn session might be useful. And they were thrown out in all good faith. Mr. Mildmay, when he spoke on the subject to the Duke, was earnest in thinking that the question of Reform should not be postponed even for six months. "Don't pledge yourself," said the Duke;--and Mr. Mildmay did not pledge himself. Afterwards, when Mr. Mildmay found that he was once more assuredly Prime Minister, he changed his mind, and felt himself to be under a fresh obligation to the Duke. Lord de Terrier had altogether failed, and the country might very well wait till February. The country did wait till February, somewhat to the disappointment of Phineas Finn, who had become tired of blue-books at Killaloe. The difference between his English life and his life at home was so great, that it was hardly possible that he should not become weary of the latter. He did become weary of it, but strove gallantly to hide his weariness from his father and mother. At this time the world was talking much about Reform, though Mr. Mildmay had become placidly patient. The feeling was growing, and Mr. Turnbull, with his friends, was doing all he could to make it grow fast. There was a certain amount of excitement on the subject; but the excitement had grown downwards, from the leaders to the people,--from the self-instituted leaders of popular politics down, by means of the press, to the ranks of working men, instead of growing upwards, from the dissatisfaction of the masses, till it expressed itself by this mouthpiece and that, chosen by the people themselves. There was no strong throb through the country, making men feel that safety was to be had by Reform, and could not be had without Reform. But there was an understanding that the press and the orators were too strong to be ignored, and that some new measure of Reform must be conceded to them. The sooner the concession was made, the less it might be necessary to concede. And all men of all parties were agreed on this point. That Reform was in itself odious to many of those who spoke of it freely, who offered themselves willingly to be its promoters, was acknowledged. It was not only odious to Lord de Terrier and to most of those who worked with him, but was equally so to many of Mr. Mildmay's most constant supporters. The Duke had no wish for Reform. Indeed it is hard to suppose that such a Duke can wish for any change in a state of things that must seem to him to be so salutary. Workmen were getting full wages. Farmers were paying their rent. Capitalists by the dozen were creating capitalists by the hundreds. Nothing was wrong in the country, but the over-dominant spirit of speculative commerce;--and there was nothing in Reform to check that. Why should the Duke want Reform? As for such men as Lord Brentford, Sir Harry Coldfoot, Lord Plinlimmon, and Mr. Legge Wilson, it was known to all men that they advocated Reform as we all of us advocate doctors. Some amount of doctoring is necessary for us. We may hardly hope to avoid it. But let us have as little of the doctor as possible. Mr. Turnbull, and the cheap press, and the rising spirit of the loudest among the people, made it manifest that something must be conceded. Let us be generous in our concession. That was now the doctrine of many,--perhaps of most of the leading politicians of the day. Let us be generous. Let us at any rate seem to be generous. Let us give with an open hand,--but still with a hand which, though open, shall not bestow too much. The coach must be allowed to run down the hill. Indeed, unless the coach goes on running no journey will be made. But let us have the drag on both the hind wheels. And we must remember that coaches running down hill without drags are apt to come to serious misfortune. But there were men, even in the Cabinet, who had other ideas of public service than that of dragging the wheels of the coach. Mr. Gresham was in earnest. Plantagenet Palliser was in earnest. That exceedingly intelligent young nobleman Lord Cantrip was in earnest. Mr. Mildmay threw, perhaps, as much of earnestness into the matter as was compatible with his age and his full appreciation of the manner in which the present cry for Reform had been aroused. He was thoroughly honest, thoroughly patriotic, and thoroughly ambitious that he should be written of hereafter as one who to the end of a long life had worked sedulously for the welfare of the people;--but he disbelieved in Mr. Turnbull, and in the bottom of his heart indulged an aristocratic contempt for the penny press. And there was no man in England more in earnest, more truly desirous of Reform, than Mr. Monk. It was his great political idea that political advantages should be extended to the people, whether the people clamoured for them or did not clamour for them,--even whether they desired them or did not desire them. "You do not ask a child whether he would like to learn his lesson," he would say. "At any rate, you do not wait till he cries for his book." When, therefore, men said to him that there was no earnestness in the cry for Reform, that the cry was a false cry, got up for factious purposes by interested persons, he would reply that the thing to be done should not be done in obedience to any cry, but because it was demanded by justice, and was a debt due to the people. Our hero in the autumn had written to Mr. Monk on the politics of the moment, and the following had been Mr. Monk's reply:-- Longroyston, October 12, 186--. MY DEAR FINN, I am staying here with the Duke and Duchess of St. Bungay. The house is very full, and Mr. Mildmay was here last week; but as I don't shoot, and can't play billiards, and have no taste for charades, I am becoming tired of the gaieties, and shall leave them to-morrow. Of course you know that we are not to have the autumn session. I think that Mr. Mildmay is right. Could we have been sure of passing our measure, it would have been very well; but we could not have been sure, and failure with our bill in a session convened for the express purpose of passing it would have injured the cause greatly. We could hardly have gone on with it again in the spring. Indeed, we must have resigned. And though I may truly say that I would as lief have a good measure from Lord de Terrier as from Mr. Mildmay, and that I am indifferent to my own present personal position, still I think that we should endeavour to keep our seats as long as we honestly believe ourselves to be more capable of passing a good measure than are our opponents. I am astonished by the difference of opinion which exists about Reform,--not only as to the difference in the extent and exact tendency of the measure that is needed,--but that there should be such a divergence of ideas as to the grand thing to be done and the grand reason for doing it. We are all agreed that we want Reform in order that the House of Commons may be returned by a larger proportion of the people than is at present employed upon that work, and that each member when returned should represent a somewhat more equal section of the whole constituencies of the country than our members generally do at present. All men confess that a £50 county franchise must be too high, and that a borough with less than two hundred registered voters must be wrong. But it seems to me that but few among us perceive, or at any rate acknowledge, the real reasons for changing these things and reforming what is wrong without delay. One great authority told us the other day that the sole object of legislation on this subject should be to get together the best possible 658 members of Parliament. That to me would be a most repulsive idea if it were not that by its very vagueness it becomes inoperative. Who shall say what is best; or what characteristic constitutes excellence in a member of Parliament? If the gentleman means excellence in general wisdom, or in statecraft, or in skill in talking, or in private character, or even excellence in patriotism, then I say that he is utterly wrong, and has never touched with his intellect the true theory of representation. One only excellence may be acknowledged, and that is the excellence of likeness. As a portrait should be like the person portrayed, so should a representative House be like the people whom it represents. Nor in arranging a franchise does it seem to me that we have a right to regard any other view. If a country be unfit for representative government,--and it may be that there are still peoples unable to use properly that greatest of all blessings,--the question as to what state policy may be best for them is a different question. But if we do have representation, let the representative assembly be like the people, whatever else may be its virtues,--and whatever else its vices. Another great authority has told us that our House of Commons should be the mirror of the people. I say, not its mirror, but its miniature. And let the artist be careful to put in every line of the expression of that ever-moving face. To do this is a great work, and the artist must know his trade well. In America the work has been done with so coarse a hand that nothing is shown in the picture but the broad, plain, unspeaking outline of the face. As you look from the represented to the representation you cannot but acknowledge the likeness; --but there is in that portrait more of the body than of the mind. The true portrait should represent more than the body. With us, hitherto, there have been snatches of the countenance of the nation which have been inimitable,--a turn of the eye here and a curl of the lip there, which have seemed to denote a power almost divine. There have been marvels on the canvas so beautiful that one approaches the work of remodelling it with awe. But not only is the picture imperfect,--a thing of snatches,--but with years it becomes less and still less like its original. The necessity for remodelling it is imperative, and we shall be cowards if we decline the work. But let us be specially careful to retain as much as possible of those lines which we all acknowledge to be so faithfully representative of our nation. To give to a bare numerical majority of the people that power which the numerical majority has in the United States, would not be to achieve representation. The nation as it now exists would not be known by such a portrait;--but neither can it now be known by that which exists. It seems to me that they who are adverse to change, looking back with an unmeasured respect on what our old Parliaments have done for us, ignore the majestic growth of the English people, and forget the present in their worship of the past. They think that we must be what we were,--at any rate, what we were thirty years since. They have not, perhaps, gone into the houses of artisans, or, if there, they have not looked into the breasts of the men. With population vice has increased, and these politicians, with ears but no eyes, hear of drunkenness and sin and ignorance. And then they declare to themselves that this wicked, half-barbarous, idle people should be controlled and not represented. A wicked, half-barbarous, idle people may be controlled;--but not a people thoughtful, educated, and industrious. We must look to it that we do not endeavour to carry our control beyond the wickedness and the barbarity, and that we be ready to submit to control from thoughtfulness and industry. I hope we shall find you helping at the good work early in the spring. Yours, always faithfully, JOSHUA MONK. Phineas was up in London before the end of January, but did not find there many of those whom he wished to see. Mr. Low was there, and to him he showed Mr. Monk's letter, thinking that it must be convincing even to Mr. Low. This he did in Mrs. Low's drawing-room, knowing that Mrs. Low would also condescend to discuss politics on an occasion. He had dined with them, and they had been glad to see him, and Mrs. Low had been less severe than hitherto against the great sin of her husband's late pupil. She had condescended to congratulate him on becoming member for an English borough instead of an Irish one, and had asked him questions about Saulsby Castle. But, nevertheless, Mr. Monk's letter was not received with that respectful admiration which Phineas thought that it deserved. Phineas, foolishly, had read it out loud, so that the attack came upon him simultaneously from the husband and from the wife. "It is just the usual claptrap," said Mr. Low, "only put into language somewhat more grandiloquent than usual." "Claptrap!" said Phineas. "It's what I call downright Radical nonsense," said Mrs. Low, nodding her head energetically. "Portrait indeed! Why should we want to have a portrait of ignorance and ugliness? What we all want is to have things quiet and orderly." "Then you'd better have a paternal government at once," said Phineas. "Just so," said Mr. Low,--"only that what you call a paternal government is not always quiet and orderly. National order I take to be submission to the law. I should not think it quiet and orderly if I were sent to Cayenne without being brought before a jury." "But such a man as you would not be sent to Cayenne," said Phineas, "My next-door neighbour might be,--which would be almost as bad. Let him be sent to Cayenne if he deserves it, but let a jury say that he has deserved it. My idea of government is this,--that we want to be governed by law and not by caprice, and that we must have a legislature to make our laws. If I thought that Parliament as at present established made the laws badly, I would desire a change; but I doubt whether we shall have them better from any change in Parliament which Reform will give us." "Of course not," said Mrs. Low. "But we shall have a lot of beggars put on horseback, and we all know where they ride to." Then Phineas became aware that it is not easy to convince any man or any woman on a point of politics,--not even though he who argues may have an eloquent letter from a philosophical Cabinet Minister in his pocket to assist him. CHAPTER XXXVI Phineas Finn Makes Progress February was far advanced and the new Reform Bill had already been brought forward, before Lady Laura Kennedy came up to town. Phineas had of course seen Mr. Kennedy and had heard from him tidings of his wife. She was at Saulsby with Lady Baldock and Miss Boreham and Violet Effingham, but was to be in London soon. Mr. Kennedy, as it appeared, did not quite know when he was to expect his wife; and Phineas thought that he could perceive from the tone of the husband's voice that something was amiss. He could not however ask any questions excepting such as referred to the expected arrival. Was Miss Effingham to come to London with Lady Laura? Mr. Kennedy believed that Miss Effingham would be up before Easter, but he did not know whether she would come with his wife. "Women," he said, "are so fond of mystery that one can never quite know what they intend to do." He corrected himself at once however, perceiving that he had seemed to say something against his wife, and explained that his general accusation against the sex was not intended to apply to Lady Laura. This, however, he did so awkwardly as to strengthen the feeling with Phineas that something assuredly was wrong. "Miss Effingham," said Mr. Kennedy, "never seems to know her own mind." "I suppose she is like other beautiful girls who are petted on all sides," said Phineas. "As for her beauty, I don't think much of it," said Mr. Kennedy; "and as for petting, I do not understand it in reference to grown persons. Children may be petted, and dogs,--though that too is bad; but what you call petting for grown persons is I think frivolous and almost indecent." Phineas could not help thinking of Lord Chiltern's opinion that it would have been wise to have left Mr. Kennedy in the hands of the garrotters. The debate on the second reading of the bill was to be commenced on the 1st of March, and two days before that Lady Laura arrived in Grosvenor Place. Phineas got a note from her in three words to say that she was at home and would see him if he called on Sunday afternoon. The Sunday to which she alluded was the last day of February. Phineas was now more certain than ever that something was wrong. Had there been nothing wrong between Lady Laura and her husband, she would not have rebelled against him by asking visitors to the house on a Sunday. He had nothing to do with that, however, and of course he did as he was desired. He called on the Sunday, and found Mrs. Bonteen sitting with Lady Laura. "I am just in time for the debate," said Lady Laura, when the first greeting was over. "You don't mean to say that you intend to sit it out," said Mrs. Bonteen. "Every word of it,--unless I lose my seat. What else is there to be done at present?" "But the place they give us is so unpleasant," said Mrs. Bonteen. "There are worse places even than the Ladies' Gallery," said Lady Laura. "And perhaps it is as well to make oneself used to inconveniences of all kinds. You will speak, Mr. Finn?" "I intend to do so." "Of course you will. The great speeches will be Mr. Gresham's, Mr. Daubeny's, and Mr. Monk's." "Mr. Palliser intends to be very strong," said Mrs. Bonteen. "A man cannot be strong or not as he likes it," said Lady Laura. "Mr. Palliser I believe to be a most useful man, but he never can become an orator. He is of the same class as Mr. Kennedy,--only of course higher in the class." "We all look for a great speech from Mr. Kennedy," said Mrs. Bonteen. "I have not the slightest idea whether he will open his lips," said Lady Laura. Immediately after that Mrs. Bonteen took her leave. "I hate that woman like poison," continued Lady Laura. "She is always playing a game, and it is such a small game that she plays! And she contributes so little to society. She is not witty nor well-informed,--not even sufficiently ignorant or ridiculous to be a laughing-stock. One gets nothing from her, and yet she has made her footing good in the world." "I thought she was a friend of yours." "You did not think so! You could not have thought so! How can you bring such an accusation against me, knowing me as you do? But never mind Mrs. Bonteen now. On what day shall you speak?" "On Tuesday if I can." "I suppose you can arrange it?" "I shall endeavour to do so, as far as any arrangement can go." "We shall carry the second reading," said Lady Laura. "Yes," said Phineas; "I think we shall; but by the votes of men who are determined so to pull the bill to pieces in committee, that its own parents will not know it. I doubt whether Mr. Mildmay will have the temper to stand it." "They tell me that Mr. Mildmay will abandon the custody of the bill to Mr. Gresham after his first speech." "I don't know that Mr. Gresham's temper is more enduring than Mr. Mildmay's," said Phineas. "Well;--we shall see. My own impression is that nothing would save the country so effectually at the present moment as the removal of Mr. Turnbull to a higher and a better sphere." "Let us say the House of Lords," said Phineas. "God forbid!" said Lady Laura. Phineas sat there for half an hour and then got up to go, having spoken no word on any other subject than that of politics. He longed to ask after Violet. He longed to make some inquiry respecting Lord Chiltern. And, to tell the truth, he felt painfully curious to hear Lady Laura say something about her own self. He could not but remember what had been said between them up over the waterfall, and how he had been warned not to return to Loughlinter. And then again, did Lady Laura know anything of what had passed between him and Violet? "Where is your brother?" he said, as he rose from his chair. "Oswald is in London. He was here not an hour before you came in." "Where is he staying?" "At Moroni's. He goes down on Tuesday, I think. He is to see his father to-morrow morning." "By agreement?" "Yes;--by agreement. There is a new trouble,--about money that they think to be due to me. But I cannot tell you all now. There have been some words between Mr. Kennedy and papa. But I won't talk about it. You would find Oswald at Moroni's at any hour before eleven to-morrow." "Did he say anything about me?" asked Phineas. "We mentioned your name certainly." "I do not ask from vanity, but I want to know whether he is angry with me." "Angry with you! Not in the least. I'll tell you just what he said. He said he should not wish to live even with you, but that he would sooner try it with you than with any man he ever knew." "He had got a letter from me?" "He did not say so;--but he did not say he had not." "I will see him to-morrow if I can." And then Phineas prepared to go. "One word, Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura, hardly looking him in the face and yet making an effort to do so. "I wish you to forget what I said to you at Loughlinter." "It shall be as though it were forgotten," said Phineas. "Let it be absolutely forgotten. In such a case a man is bound to do all that a woman asks him, and no man has a truer spirit of chivalry than yourself. That is all. Look in when you can. I will not ask you to dine here as yet, because we are so frightfully dull. Do your best on Tuesday, and then let us see you on Wednesday. Good-bye." Phineas as he walked across the park towards his club made up his mind that he would forget the scene by the waterfall. He had never quite known what it had meant, and he would wipe it away from his mind altogether. He acknowledged to himself that chivalry did demand of him that he should never allow himself to think of Lady Laura's rash words to him. That she was not happy with her husband was very clear to him;--but that was altogether another affair. She might be unhappy with her husband without indulging any guilty love. He had never thought it possible that she could be happy living with such a husband as Mr. Kennedy. All that, however, was now past remedy, and she must simply endure the mode of life which she had prepared for herself. There were other men and women in London tied together for better and worse, in reference to whose union their friends knew that there would be no better;--that it must be all worse. Lady Laura must bear it, as it was borne by many another married woman. On the Monday morning Phineas called at Moroni's Hotel at ten o'clock, but in spite of Lady Laura's assurance to the contrary, he found that Lord Chiltern was out. He had felt some palpitation at the heart as he made his inquiry, knowing well the fiery nature of the man he expected to see. It might be that there would be some actual personal conflict between him and this half-mad lord before he got back again into the street. What Lady Laura had said about her brother did not in the estimation of Phineas make this at all the less probable. The half-mad lord was so singular in his ways that it might well be that he should speak handsomely of a rival behind his back and yet take him by the throat as soon as they were together, face to face. And yet, as Phineas thought, it was necessary that he should see the half-mad lord. He had written a letter to which he had received no reply, and he considered it to be incumbent on him to ask whether it had been received and whether any answer to it was intended to be given. He went therefore to Lord Chiltern at once,--as I have said, with some feeling at his heart that there might be violence, at any rate of words, before he should find himself again in the street. But Lord Chiltern was not there. All that the porter knew was that Lord Chiltern intended to leave the house on the following morning. Then Phineas wrote a note and left it with the porter. DEAR CHILTERN, I particularly want to see you with reference to a letter I wrote to you last summer. I must be in the House to-day from four till the debate is over. I will be at the Reform Club from two till half-past three, and will come if you will send for me, or I will meet you anywhere at any hour to-morrow morning. Yours, always, P. F. No message came to him at the Reform Club, and he was in his seat in the House by four o'clock. During the debate a note was brought to him, which ran as follows:-- I have got your letter this moment. Of course we must meet. I hunt on Tuesday, and go down by the early train; but I will come to town on Wednesday. We shall require to be private, and I will therefore be at your rooms at one o'clock on that day.--C. Phineas at once perceived that the note was a hostile note, written in an angry spirit,--written to one whom the writer did not at the moment acknowledge to be his friend. This was certainly the case, whatever Lord Chiltern may have said to his sister as to his friendship for Phineas. Phineas crushed the note into his pocket, and of course determined that he would be in his rooms at the hour named. The debate was opened by a speech from Mr. Mildmay, in which that gentleman at great length and with much perspicuity explained his notion of that measure of Parliamentary Reform which he thought to be necessary. He was listened to with the greatest attention to the close,--and perhaps, at the end of his speech, with more attention than usual, as there had gone abroad a rumour that the Prime Minister intended to declare that this would be the last effort of his life in that course. But, if he ever intended to utter such a pledge, his heart misgave him when the time came for uttering it. He merely said that as the management of the bill in committee would be an affair of much labour, and probably spread over many nights, he would be assisted in his work by his colleagues, and especially by his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It was then understood that Mr. Gresham would take the lead should the bill go into committee;--but it was understood also that no resignation of leadership had been made by Mr. Mildmay. The measure now proposed to the House was very much the same as that which had been brought forward in the last session. The existing theory of British representation was not to be changed, but the actual practice was to be brought nearer to the ideal theory. The ideas of manhood suffrage, and of electoral districts, were to be as for ever removed from the bulwarks of the British Constitution. There were to be counties with agricultural constituencies, purposely arranged to be purely agricultural, whenever the nature of the counties would admit of its being so. No artificer at Reform, let him be Conservative or Liberal, can make Middlesex or Lancashire agricultural; but Wiltshire and Suffolk were to be preserved inviolable to the plough,--and the apples of Devonshire were still to have their sway. Every town in the three kingdoms with a certain population was to have two members. But here there was much room for cavil,--as all men knew would be the case. Who shall say what is a town, or where shall be its limits? Bits of counties might be borrowed, so as to lessen the Conservatism of the county without endangering the Liberalism of the borough. And then there were the boroughs with one member,--and then the groups of little boroughs. In the discussion of any such arrangement how easy is the picking of holes; how impossible the fabrication of a garment that shall be impervious to such picking! Then again there was that great question of the ballot. On that there was to be no mistake. Mr. Mildmay again pledged himself to disappear from the Treasury bench should any motion, clause, or resolution be carried by that House in favour of the ballot. He spoke for three hours, and then left the carcass of his bill to be fought for by the opposing armies. No reader of these pages will desire that the speeches in the debate should be even indicated. It soon became known that the Conservatives would not divide the House against the second reading of the bill. They declared, however, very plainly their intention of so altering the clauses of the bill in committee,--or at least of attempting so to do,--as to make the bill their bill, rather than the bill of their opponents. To this Mr. Palliser replied that as long as nothing vital was touched, the Government would only be too happy to oblige their friends opposite. If anything vital were touched, the Government could only fall back upon their friends on that side. And in this way men were very civil to each other. But Mr. Turnbull, who opened the debate on the Tuesday, thundered out an assurance to gods and men that he would divide the House on the second reading of the bill itself. He did not doubt but that there were many good men and true to go with him into the lobby, but into the lobby he would go if he had no more than a single friend to support him. And he warned the Sovereign, and he warned the House, and he warned the people of England, that the measure of Reform now proposed by a so-called liberal Minister was a measure prepared in concert with the ancient enemies of the people. He was very loud, very angry, and quite successful in hallooing down sundry attempts which were made to interrupt him. "I find," he said, "that there are many members here who do not know me yet,--young members, probably, who are green from the waste lands and road-sides of private life. They will know me soon, and then, may be, there will be less of this foolish noise, less of this elongation of unnecessary necks. Our Rome must be aroused to a sense of its danger by other voices than these." He was called to order, but it was ruled that he had not been out of order,--and he was very triumphant. Mr. Monk answered him, and it was declared afterwards that Mr. Monk's speech was one of the finest pieces of oratory that had ever been uttered in that House. He made one remark personal to Mr. Turnbull. "I quite agreed with the right honourable gentleman in the chair," he said, "when he declared that the honourable member was not out of order just now. We all of us agree with him always on such points. The rules of our House have been laid down with the utmost latitude, so that the course of our debates may not be frivolously or too easily interrupted. But a member may be so in order as to incur the displeasure of the House, and to merit the reproaches of his countrymen." This little duel gave great life to the debate; but it was said that those two great Reformers, Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Monk, could never again meet as friends. In the course of the debate on Tuesday, Phineas got upon his legs. The reader, I trust, will remember that hitherto he had failed altogether as a speaker. On one occasion he had lacked even the spirit to use and deliver an oration which he had prepared. On a second occasion he had broken down,--woefully, and past all redemption, as said those who were not his friends,--unfortunately, but not past redemption, as said those who were his true friends. After that once again he had arisen and said a few words which had called for no remark, and had been spoken as though he were in the habit of addressing the House daily. It may be doubted whether there were half-a-dozen men now present who recognised the fact that this man, who was so well known to so many of them, was now about to make another attempt at a first speech. Phineas himself diligently attempted to forget that such was the case. He had prepared for himself a few headings of what he intended to say, and on one or two points had arranged his words. His hope was that even though he should forget the words, he might still be able to cling to the thread of his discourse. When he found himself again upon his legs amidst those crowded seats, for a few moments there came upon him that old sensation of awe. Again things grew dim before his eyes, and again he hardly knew at which end of that long chamber the Speaker was sitting. But there arose within him a sudden courage, as soon as the sound of his own voice in that room had made itself intimate to his ear; and after the first few sentences, all fear, all awe, was gone from him. When he read his speech in the report afterwards, he found that he had strayed very wide of his intended course, but he had strayed without tumbling into ditches, or falling into sunken pits. He had spoken much from Mr. Monk's letter, but had had the grace to acknowledge whence had come his inspiration. He hardly knew, however, whether he had failed again or not, till Barrington Erle came up to him as they were leaving the House, with his old easy pressing manner. "So you have got into form at last," he said. "I always thought that it would come. I never for a moment believed but that it would come sooner or later." Phineas Finn answered not a word; but he went home and lay awake all night triumphant. The verdict of Barrington Erle sufficed to assure him that he had succeeded. CHAPTER XXXVII A Rough Encounter Phineas, when he woke, had two matters to occupy his mind,--his success of the previous night, and his coming interview with Lord Chiltern. He stayed at home the whole morning, knowing that nothing could be done before the hour Lord Chiltern had named for his visit. He read every word of the debate, studiously postponing the perusal of his own speech till he should come to it in due order. And then he wrote to his father, commencing his letter as though his writing had no reference to the affairs of the previous night. But he soon found himself compelled to break into some mention of it. "I send you a _Times_," he said, "in order that you may see that I have had my finger in the pie. I have hitherto abstained from putting myself forward in the House, partly through a base fear for which I despise myself, and partly through a feeling of prudence that a man of my age should not be in a hurry to gather laurels. This is literally true. There has been the fear, and there has been the prudence. My wonder is, that I have not incurred more contempt from others because I have been a coward. People have been so kind to me that I must suppose them to have judged me more leniently than I have judged myself." Then, as he was putting up the paper, he looked again at his own speech, and of course read every word of it once more. As he did so it occurred to him that the reporters had been more than courteous to him. The man who had followed him had been, he thought, at any rate as long-winded as himself; but to this orator less than half a column had been granted. To him had been granted ten lines in big type, and after that a whole column and a half. Let Lord Chiltern come and do his worst! When it wanted but twenty minutes to one, and he was beginning to think in what way he had better answer the half-mad lord, should the lord in his wrath be very mad, there came to him a note by the hand of some messenger. He knew at once that it was from Lady Laura, and opened it in hot haste It was as follows:-- DEAR MR. FINN, We are all talking about your speech. My father was in the gallery and heard it,--and said that he had to thank me for sending you to Loughton. That made me very happy. Mr. Kennedy declares that you were eloquent, but too short. That coming from him is praise indeed. I have seen Barrington, who takes pride to himself that you are his political child. Violet says that it is the only speech she ever read. I was there, and was delighted. I was sure that it was in you to do it. Yours, L. K. I suppose we shall see you after the House is up, but I write this as I shall barely have an opportunity of speaking to you then. I shall be in Portman Square, not at home, from six till seven. The moment in which Phineas refolded this note and put it into his breast coat-pocket was, I think, the happiest of his life. Then, before he had withdrawn his hand from his breast, he remembered that what was now about to take place between him and Lord Chiltern would probably be the means of separating him altogether from Lady Laura and her family. Nay, might it not render it necessary that he should abandon the seat in Parliament which had been conferred upon him by the personal kindness of Lord Brentford? Let that be as it might. One thing was clear to him. He would not abandon Violet Effingham till he should be desired to do so in the plainest language by Violet Effingham herself. Looking at his watch he saw that it was one o'clock, and at that moment Lord Chiltern was announced. Phineas went forward immediately with his hand out to meet his visitor. "Chiltern," he said, "I am very glad to see you." But Lord Chiltern did not take his hand. Passing on to the table, with his hat still on his head, and with a dark scowl upon his brow, the young lord stood for a few moments perfectly silent. Then he chucked a letter across the table to the spot at which Phineas was standing. Phineas, taking up the letter, perceived that it was that which he, in his great attempt to be honest, had written from the inn at Loughton. "It is my own letter to you," he said. "Yes; it is your letter to me. I received it oddly enough together with your own note at Moroni's,--on Monday morning. It has been round the world, I suppose, and reached me only then. You must withdraw it." "Withdraw it?" "Yes, sir, withdraw it. As far as I can learn, without asking any question which would have committed myself or the young lady, you have not acted upon it. You have not yet done what you there threaten to do. In that you have been very wise, and there can be no difficulty in your withdrawing the letter." "I certainly shall not withdraw it, Lord Chiltern." "Do you remember--what--I once--told you,--about myself and Miss Effingham?" This question he asked very slowly, pausing between the words, and looking full into the face of his rival, towards whom he had gradually come nearer. And his countenance, as he did so, was by no means pleasant. The redness of his complexion had become more ruddy than usual; he still wore his hat as though with studied insolence; his right hand was clenched; and there was that look of angry purpose in his eye which no man likes to see in the eye of an antagonist. Phineas was afraid of no violence, personal to himself; but he was afraid of,--of what I may, perhaps, best call "a row." To be tumbling over the chairs and tables with his late friend and present enemy in Mrs. Bunce's room would be most unpleasant to him. If there were to be blows he, too, must strike;--and he was very averse to strike Lady Laura's brother, Lord Brentford's son, Violet Effingham's friend. If need be, however, he would strike. "I suppose I remember what you mean," said Phineas. "I think you declared that you would quarrel with any man who might presume to address Miss Effingham. Is it that to which you allude?" "It is that," said Lord Chiltern. "I remember what you said very well. If nothing else was to deter me from asking Miss Effingham to be my wife, you will hardly think that that ought to have any weight. The threat had no weight." "It was not spoken as a threat, sir, and that you know as well as I do. It was said from a friend to a friend,--as I thought then. But it is not the less true. I wonder what you can think of faith and truth and honesty of purpose when you took advantage of my absence,--you, whom I had told a thousand times that I loved her better than my own soul! You stand before the world as a rising man, and I stand before the world as a man--damned. You have been chosen by my father to sit for our family borough, while I am an outcast from his house. You have Cabinet Ministers for your friends, while I have hardly a decent associate left to me in the world. But I can say of myself that I have never done anything unworthy of a gentleman, while this thing that you are doing is unworthy of the lowest man." "I have done nothing unworthy," said Phineas. "I wrote to you instantly when I had resolved,--though it was painful to me to have to tell such a secret to any one." "You wrote! Yes; when I was miles distant; weeks, months away. But I did not come here to bullyrag like an old woman. I got your letter only on Monday, and know nothing of what has occurred. Is Miss Effingham to be--your wife?" Lord Chiltern had now come quite close to Phineas, and Phineas felt that that clenched fist might be in his face in half a moment. Miss Effingham of course was not engaged to him, but it seemed to him that if he were now so to declare, such declaration would appear to have been drawn from him by fear. "I ask you," said Lord Chiltern, "in what position you now stand towards Miss Effingham. If you are not a coward you will tell me." "Whether I tell you or not, you know that I am not a coward," said Phineas. "I shall have to try," said Lord Chiltern. "But if you please I will ask you for an answer to my question." Phineas paused for a moment, thinking what honesty of purpose and a high spirit would, when combined together, demand of him, and together with these requirements he felt that he was bound to join some feeling of duty towards Miss Effingham. Lord Chiltern was standing there, fiery red, with his hand still clenched, and his hat still on, waiting for his answer. "Let me have your question again," said Phineas, "and I will answer it if I find that I can do so without loss of self-respect." "I ask you in what position you stand towards Miss Effingham. Mind, I do not doubt at all, but I choose to have a reply from yourself." "You will remember, of course, that I can only answer to the best of my belief." "Answer to the best of your belief." "I think she regards me as an intimate friend." "Had you said as an indifferent acquaintance, you would, I think, have been nearer the mark. But we will let that be. I presume I may understand that you have given up any idea of changing that position?" "You may understand nothing of the kind, Lord Chiltern." "Why;--what hope have you?" "That is another thing. I shall not speak of that;--at any rate not to you." "Then, sir,--" and now Lord Chiltern advanced another step and raised his hand as though he were about to put it with some form of violence on the person of his rival. "Stop, Chiltern," said Phineas, stepping back, so that there was some article of furniture between him and his adversary. "I do not choose that there should be a riot here." "What do you call a riot, sir? I believe that after all you are a poltroon. What I require of you is that you shall meet me. Will you do that?" "You mean,--to fight?" "Yes,--to fight; to fight; to fight. For what other purpose do you suppose that I can wish to meet you?" Phineas felt at the moment that the fighting of a duel would be destructive to all his political hopes. Few Englishmen fight duels in these days. They who do so are always reckoned to be fools. And a duel between him and Lord Brentford's son must, as he thought, separate him from Violet, from Lady Laura, from Lord Brentford, and from his borough. But yet how could he refuse? "What have you to think of, sir, when such an offer as that is made to you?" said the fiery-red lord. "I have to think whether I have courage enough to refuse to make myself an ass." "You say that you do not wish to have a riot. That is your way to escape what you call--a riot." "You want to bully me, Chiltern." "No, sir;--I simply want this, that you should leave me where you found me, and not interfere with that which you have long known I claim as my own." "But it is not your own." "Then you can only fight me." "You had better send some friend to me, and I will name some one, whom he shall meet." "Of course I will do that if I have your promise to meet me. We can be in Belgium in an hour or two, and back again in a few more hours;--that is, any one of us who may chance to be alive. "I will select a friend, and will tell him everything, and will then do as he bids me." "Yes;--some old steady-going buffer. Mr. Kennedy, perhaps." "It will certainly not be Mr. Kennedy. I shall probably ask Laurence Fitzgibbon to manage for me in such an affair." "Perhaps you will see him at once, then, so that Colepepper may arrange with him this afternoon. And let me assure you, Mr. Finn, that there will be a meeting between us after some fashion, let the ideas of your friend Mr. Fitzgibbon be what they may." Then Lord Chiltern purposed to go, but turned again as he was going. "And remember this," he said, "my complaint is that you have been false to me,--damnably false; not that you have fallen in love with this young lady or with that." Then the fiery-red lord opened the door for himself and took his departure. Phineas, as soon as he was alone, walked down to the House, at which there was an early sitting. As he went there was one great question which he had to settle with himself,--Was there any justice in the charge made against him that he had been false to his friend? When he had thought over the matter at Saulsby, after rushing down there that he might throw himself at Violet's feet, he had assured himself that such a letter as that which he resolved to write to Lord Chiltern, would be even chivalrous in its absolute honesty. He would tell his purpose to Lord Chiltern the moment that his purpose was formed;--and would afterwards speak of Lord Chiltern behind his back as one dear friend should speak of another. Had Miss Effingham shown the slightest intention of accepting Lord Chiltern's offer, he would have acknowledged to himself that the circumstances of his position made it impossible that he should, with honour, become his friend's rival. But was he to be debarred for ever from getting that which he wanted because Lord Chiltern wanted it also,--knowing, as he did so well, that Lord Chiltern could not get the thing which he wanted? All this had been quite sufficient for him at Saulsby. But now the charge against him that he had been false to his friend rang in his ears and made him unhappy. It certainly was true that Lord Chiltern had not given up his hopes, and that he had spoken probably more openly to Phineas respecting them than he had done to any other human being. If it was true that he had been false, then he must comply with any requisition which Lord Chiltern might make,--short of voluntarily giving up the lady. He must fight if he were asked to do so, even though fighting were his ruin. When again in the House yesterday's scene came back upon him, and more than one man came to him congratulating him. Mr. Monk took his hand and spoke a word to him. The old Premier nodded to him. Mr. Gresham greeted him; and Plantagenet Palliser openly told him that he had made a good speech. How sweet would all this have been had there not been ever at his heart the remembrance of his terrible difficulty,--the consciousness that he was about to be forced into an absurdity which would put an end to all this sweetness! Why was the world in England so severe against duelling? After all, as he regarded the matter now, a duel might be the best way, nay, the only way out of a difficulty. If he might only be allowed to go out with Lord Chiltern the whole thing might be arranged. If he were not shot he might carry on his suit with Miss Effingham unfettered by any impediment on that side. And if he were shot, what matter was that to any one but himself? Why should the world be so thin-skinned,--so foolishly chary of human life? Laurence Fitzgibbon did not come to the House, and Phineas looked for him at both the clubs which he frequented,--leaving a note at each as he did not find him. He also left a note for him at his lodgings in Duke Street. "I must see you this evening. I shall dine at the Reform Club,--pray come there." After that, Phineas went up to Portman Square, in accordance with the instructions received from Lady Laura. There he saw Violet Effingham, meeting her for the first time since he had parted from her on the great steps at Saulsby. Of course he spoke to her, and of course she was gracious to him. But her graciousness was only a smile and his speech was only a word. There were many in the room, but not enough to make privacy possible,--as it becomes possible at a crowded evening meeting. Lord Brentford was there, and the Bonteens, and Barrington Erle, and Lady Glencora Palliser, and Lord Cantrip with his young wife. It was manifestly a meeting of Liberals, semi-social and semi-political;--so arranged that ladies might feel that some interest in politics was allowed to them, and perhaps some influence also. Afterwards Mr. Palliser himself came in. Phineas, however, was most struck by finding that Laurence Fitzgibbon was there, and that Mr. Kennedy was not. In regard to Mr. Kennedy, he was quite sure that had such a meeting taken place before Lady Laura's marriage, Mr. Kennedy would have been present. "I must speak to you as we go away," said Phineas, whispering a word into Fitzgibbon's ear. "I have been leaving notes for you all about the town." "Not a duel, I hope," said Fitzgibbon. How pleasant it was,--that meeting; or would have been had there not been that nightmare on his breast! They all talked as though there were perfect accord between them and perfect confidence. There were there great men,--Cabinet Ministers, and beautiful women,--the wives and daughters of some of England's highest nobles. And Phineas Finn, throwing back, now and again, a thought to Killaloe, found himself among them as one of themselves. How could any Mr. Low say that he was wrong? On a sofa near to him, so that he could almost touch her foot with his, was sitting Violet Effingham, and as he leaned over from his chair discussing some point in Mr. Mildmay's bill with that most inveterate politician, Lady Glencora, Violet looked into his face and smiled. Oh heavens! If Lord Chiltern and he might only toss up as to which of them should go to Patagonia and remain there for the next ten years, and which should have Violet Effingham for a wife in London! "Come along, Phineas, if you mean to come," said Laurence Fitzgibbon. Phineas was of course bound to go, though Lady Glencora was still talking Radicalism, and Violet Effingham was still smiling ineffably. VOLUME II CHAPTER XXXVIII The Duel "I knew it was a duel;--bedad I did," said Laurence Fitzgibbon, standing at the corner of Orchard Street and Oxford Street, when Phineas had half told his story. "I was sure of it from the tone of your voice, my boy. We mustn't let it come off, that's all;--not if we can help it." Then Phineas was allowed to proceed and finish his story. "I don't see any way out of it; I don't, indeed," said Laurence. By this time Phineas had come to think that the duel was in very truth the best way out of the difficulty. It was a bad way out, but then it was a way;--and he could not see any other. "As for ill treating him, that's nonsense," said Laurence. "What are the girls to do, if one fellow mayn't come on as soon as another fellow is down? But then, you see, a fellow never knows when he's down himself, and therefore he thinks that he's ill used. I'll tell you what now. I shouldn't wonder if we couldn't do it on the sly,--unless one of you is stupid enough to hit the other in an awkward place. If you are certain of your hand now, the right shoulder is the best spot." Phineas felt very certain that he would not hit Lord Chiltern in an awkward place, although he was by no means sure of his hand. Let come what might, he would not aim at his adversary. But of this he had thought it proper to say nothing to Laurence Fitzgibbon. And the duel did come off on the sly. The meeting in the drawing-room in Portman Square, of which mention was made in the last chapter, took place on a Wednesday afternoon. On the Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday following, the great debate on Mr. Mildmay's bill was continued, and at three on the Tuesday night the House divided. There was a majority in favour of the Ministers, not large enough to permit them to claim a triumph for their party, or even an ovation for themselves; but still sufficient to enable them to send their bill into committee. Mr. Daubeny and Mr. Turnbull had again joined their forces together in opposition to the ministerial measure. On the Thursday Phineas had shown himself in the House, but during the remainder of this interesting period he was absent from his place, nor was he seen at the clubs, nor did any man know of his whereabouts. I think that Lady Laura Kennedy was the first to miss him with any real sense of his absence. She would now go to Portman Square on the afternoon of every Sunday,--at which time her husband was attending the second service of his church,--and there she would receive those whom she called her father's guests. But as her father was never there on the Sundays, and as these gatherings had been created by herself, the reader will probably think that she was obeying her husband's behests in regard to the Sabbath after a very indifferent fashion. The reader may be quite sure, however, that Mr. Kennedy knew well what was being done in Portman Square. Whatever might be Lady Laura's faults, she did not commit the fault of disobeying her husband in secret. There were, probably, a few words on the subject; but we need not go very closely into that matter at the present moment. On the Sunday which afforded some rest in the middle of the great Reform debate Lady Laura asked for Mr. Finn, and no one could answer her question. And then it was remembered that Laurence Fitzgibbon was also absent. Barrington Erle knew nothing of Phineas,--had heard nothing; but was able to say that Fitzgibbon had been with Mr. Ratler, the patronage secretary and liberal whip, early on Thursday, expressing his intention of absenting himself for two days. Mr. Ratler had been wroth, bidding him remain at his duty, and pointing out to him the great importance of the moment. Then Barrington Erle quoted Laurence Fitzgibbon's reply. "My boy," said Laurence to poor Ratler, "the path of duty leads but to the grave. All the same; I'll be in at the death, Ratler, my boy, as sure as the sun's in heaven." Not ten minutes after the telling of this little story, Fitzgibbon entered the room in Portman Square, and Lady Laura at once asked him after Phineas. "Bedad, Lady Laura, I have been out of town myself for two days, and I know nothing." "Mr. Finn has not been with you, then?" "With me! No,--not with me. I had a job of business of my own which took me over to Paris. And has Phinny fled too? Poor Ratler! I shouldn't wonder if it isn't an asylum he's in before the session is over." Laurence Fitzgibbon certainly possessed the rare accomplishment of telling a lie with a good grace. Had any man called him a liar he would have considered himself to be not only insulted, but injured also. He believed himself to be a man of truth. There were, however, in his estimation certain subjects on which a man might depart as wide as the poles are asunder from truth without subjecting himself to any ignominy for falsehood. In dealing with a tradesman as to his debts, or with a rival as to a lady, or with any man or woman in defence of a lady's character, or in any such matter as that of a duel, Laurence believed that a gentleman was bound to lie, and that he would be no gentleman if he hesitated to do so. Not the slightest prick of conscience disturbed him when he told Lady Laura that he had been in Paris, and that he knew nothing of Phineas Finn. But, in truth, during the last day or two he had been in Flanders, and not in Paris, and had stood as second with his friend Phineas on the sands at Blankenberg, a little fishing-town some twelve miles distant from Bruges, and had left his friend since that at an hotel at Ostend,--with a wound just under the shoulder, from which a bullet had been extracted. The manner of the meeting had been in this wise. Captain Colepepper and Laurence Fitzgibbon had held their meeting, and at this meeting Laurence had taken certain standing-ground on behalf of his friend, and in obedience to his friend's positive instruction;--which was this, that his friend could not abandon his right of addressing the young lady, should he hereafter ever think fit to do so. Let that be granted, and Laurence would do anything. But then that could not be granted, and Laurence could only shrug his shoulders. Nor would Laurence admit that his friend had been false. "The question lies in a nutshell," said Laurence, with that sweet Connaught brogue which always came to him when he desired to be effective;--"here it is. One gentleman tells another that he's sweet upon a young lady, but that the young lady has refused him, and always will refuse him, for ever and ever. That's the truth anyhow. Is the second gentleman bound by that not to address the young lady? I say he is not bound. It'd be a d----d hard tratement, Captain Colepepper, if a man's mouth and all the ardent affections of his heart were to be stopped in that manner! By Jases, I don't know who'd like to be the friend of any man if that's to be the way of it." Captain Colepepper was not very good at an argument. "I think they'd better see each other," said Colepepper, pulling his thick grey moustache. "If you choose to have it so, so be it. But I think it the hardest thing in the world;--I do indeed." Then they put their heads together in the most friendly way, and declared that the affair should, if possible, be kept private. On the Thursday night Lord Chiltern and Captain Colepepper went over by Calais and Lille to Bruges. Laurence Fitzgibbon, with his friend Dr. O'Shaughnessy, crossed by the direct boat from Dover to Ostend. Phineas went to Ostend by Dover and Calais, but he took the day route on Friday. It had all been arranged among them, so that there might be no suspicion as to the job in hand. Even O'Shaughnessy and Laurence Fitzgibbon had left London by separate trains. They met on the sands at Blankenberg about nine o'clock on the Saturday morning, having reached that village in different vehicles from Ostend and Bruges, and had met quite unobserved amidst the sand-heaps. But one shot had been exchanged, and Phineas had been wounded in the right shoulder. He had proposed to exchange another shot with his left hand, declaring his capability of shooting quite as well with the left as with the right; but to this both Colepepper and Fitzgibbon had objected. Lord Chiltern had offered to shake hands with his late friend in a true spirit of friendship, if only his late friend would say that he did not intend to prosecute his suit with the young lady. In all these disputes the young lady's name was never mentioned. Phineas indeed had not once named Violet to Fitzgibbon, speaking of her always as the lady in question; and though Laurence correctly surmised the identity of the young lady, he never hinted that he had even guessed her name. I doubt whether Lord Chiltern had been so wary when alone with Captain Colepepper; but then Lord Chiltern was, when he spoke at all, a very plain-spoken man. Of course his lordship's late friend Phineas would give no such pledge, and therefore Lord Chiltern moved off the ground and back to Blankenberg and Bruges, and into Brussels, in still living enmity with our hero. Laurence and the doctor took Phineas back to Ostend, and though the bullet was then in his shoulder, Phineas made his way through Blankenberg after such a fashion that no one there knew what had occurred. Not a living soul, except the five concerned, was at that time aware that a duel had been fought among the sand-hills. Laurence Fitzgibbon made his way to Dover by the Saturday night's boat, and was able to show himself in Portman Square on the Sunday. "Know anything about Phinny Finn?" he said afterwards to Barrington Erle, in answer to an inquiry from that anxious gentleman. "Not a word! I think you'd better send the town-crier round after him." Barrington, however, did not feel quite so well assured of Fitzgibbon's truth as Lady Laura had done. Dr. O'Shaughnessy remained during the Sunday and Monday at Ostend with his patient, and the people at the inn only knew that Mr. Finn had sprained his shoulder badly; and on the Tuesday they came back to London again, via Calais and Dover. No bone had been broken, and Phineas, though his shoulder was very painful, bore the journey well. O'Shaughnessy had received a telegram on the Monday, telling him that the division would certainly take place on the Tuesday,--and on the Tuesday, at about ten in the evening, Phineas went down to the House. "By ----, you're here," said Ratler, taking hold of him with an affection that was too warm. "Yes; I'm here," said Phineas, wincing in agony; "but be a little careful, there's a good fellow. I've been down in Kent and put my arm out." "Put your arm out, have you?" said Ratler, observing the sling for the first time. "I'm sorry for that. But you'll stop and vote?" "Yes;--I'll stop and vote. I've come up for the purpose. But I hope it won't be very late." "There are both Daubeny and Gresham to speak yet, and at least three others. I don't suppose it will be much before three. But you're all right now. You can go down and smoke if you like!" In this way Phineas Finn spoke in the debate, and heard the end of it, voting for his party, and fought his duel with Lord Chiltern in the middle of it. He did go and sit on a well-cushioned bench in the smoking-room, and then was interrogated by many of his friends as to his mysterious absence. He had, he said, been down in Kent, and had had an accident with his arm, by which he had been confined. When this questioner and that perceived that there was some little mystery in the matter, the questioners did not push their questions, but simply entertained their own surmises. One indiscreet questioner, however, did trouble Phineas sorely, declaring that there must have been some affair in which a woman had had a part, and asking after the young lady of Kent. This indiscreet questioner was Laurence Fitzgibbon, who, as Phineas thought, carried his spirit of intrigue a little too far. Phineas stayed and voted, and then he went painfully home to his lodgings. How singular would it be if this affair of the duel should pass away, and no one be a bit the wiser but those four men who had been with him on the sands at Blankenberg! Again he wondered at his own luck. He had told himself that a duel with Lord Chiltern must create a quarrel between him and Lord Chiltern's relations, and also between him and Violet Effingham; that it must banish him from his comfortable seat for Loughton, and ruin him in regard to his political prospects. And now he had fought his duel, and was back in town,--and the thing seemed to have been a thing of nothing. He had not as yet seen Lady Laura or Violet, but he had no doubt but they both were as much in the dark as other people. The day might arrive, he thought, on which it would be pleasant for him to tell Violet Effingham what had occurred, but that day had not come as yet. Whither Lord Chiltern had gone, or what Lord Chiltern intended to do, he had not any idea; but he imagined that he should soon hear something of her brother from Lady Laura. That Lord Chiltern should say a word to Lady Laura of what had occurred,--or to any other person in the world,--he did not in the least suspect. There could be no man more likely to be reticent in such matters than Lord Chiltern,--or more sure to be guided by an almost exaggerated sense of what honour required of him. Nor did he doubt the discretion of his friend Fitzgibbon;--if only his friend might not damage the secret by being too discreet. Of the silence of the doctor and the captain he was by no means equally sure; but even though they should gossip, the gossiping would take so long a time in oozing out and becoming recognised information, as to have lost much of its power for injuring him. Were Lady Laura to hear at this moment that he had been over to Belgium, and had fought a duel with Lord Chiltern respecting Violet, she would probably feel herself obliged to quarrel with him; but no such obligation would rest on her, if in the course of six or nine months she should gradually have become aware that such an encounter had taken place. Lord Chiltern, during their interview at the rooms in Great Marlborough Street, had said a word to him about the seat in Parliament;--had expressed some opinion that as he, Phineas Finn, was interfering with the views of the Standish family in regard to Miss Effingham, he ought not to keep the Standish seat, which had been conferred upon him in ignorance of any such intended interference. Phineas, as he thought of this, could not remember Lord Chiltern's words, but there was present to him an idea that such had been their purport. Was he bound, in circumstances as they now existed, to give up Loughton? He made up his mind that he was not so bound unless Lord Chiltern should demand from him that he should do so; but, nevertheless, he was uneasy in his position. It was quite true that the seat now was his for this session by all parliamentary law, even though the electors themselves might wish to be rid of him, and that Lord Brentford could not even open his mouth upon the matter in a tone more loud than that of a whisper. But Phineas, feeling that he had consented to accept the favour of a corrupt seat from Lord Brentford, felt also that he was bound to give up the spoil if it were demanded from him. If it were demanded from him, either by the father or the son, it should be given up at once. On the following morning he found a leading article in the _People's Banner_ devoted solely to himself. "During the late debate,"--so ran a passage in the leading article,--"Mr. Finn, Lord Brentford's Irish nominee for his pocket-borough at Loughton, did at last manage to stand on his legs and open his mouth. If we are not mistaken, this is Mr. Finn's third session in Parliament, and hitherto he has been unable to articulate three sentences, though he has on more than one occasion made the attempt. For what special merit this young man has been selected for aristocratic patronage we do not know,--but that there must be some merit recognisable by aristocratic eyes, we surmise. Three years ago he was a raw young Irishman, living in London as Irishmen only know how to live, earning nothing, and apparently without means; and then suddenly he bursts out as a member of Parliament and as the friend of Cabinet Ministers. The possession of one good gift must be acceded to the honourable member for Loughton,--he is a handsome young man, and looks to be as strong as a coal-porter. Can it be that his promotion has sprung from this? Be this as it may, we should like to know where he has been during his late mysterious absence from Parliament, and in what way he came by the wound in his arm. Even handsome young members of Parliament, fêted by titled ladies and their rich lords, are amenable to the laws,--to the laws of this country, and to the laws of any other which it may suit them to visit for a while!" "Infamous scoundrel!" said Phineas to himself, as he read this. "Vile, low, disreputable blackguard!" It was clear enough, however, that Quintus Slide had found out something of his secret. If so, his only hope would rest on the fact that his friends were not likely to see the columns of the _People's Banner_. CHAPTER XXXIX Lady Laura Is Told By the time that Mr. Mildmay's great bill was going into committee Phineas was able to move about London in comfort,--with his arm, however, still in a sling. There had been nothing more about him and his wound in the _People's Banner_, and he was beginning to hope that that nuisance would also be allowed to die away. He had seen Lady Laura,--having dined in Grosvenor Place, where he had been petted to his heart's content. His dinner had been cut up for him, and his wound had been treated with the tenderest sympathy. And, singular to say, no questions were asked. He had been to Kent and had come by an accident. No more than that was told, and his dear sympathising friends were content to receive so much information, and to ask for no more. But he had not as yet seen Violet Effingham, and he was beginning to think that this romance about Violet might as well be brought to a close. He had not, however, as yet been able to go into crowded rooms, and unless he went out to large parties he could not be sure that he would meet Miss Effingham. At last he resolved that he would tell Lady Laura the whole truth,--not the truth about the duel, but the truth about Violet Effingham, and ask for her assistance. When making this resolution, I think that he must have forgotten much that he had learned of his friend's character; and by making it, I think that he showed also that he had not learned as much as his opportunities might have taught him. He knew Lady Laura's obstinacy of purpose, he knew her devotion to her brother, and he knew also how desirous she had been that her brother should win Violet Effingham for himself. This knowledge should, I think, have sufficed to show him how improbable it was that Lady Laura should assist him in his enterprise. But beyond all this was the fact,--a fact as to the consequences of which Phineas himself was entirely blind, beautifully ignorant,--that Lady Laura had once condescended to love himself. Nay;--she had gone farther than this, and had ventured to tell him, even after her marriage, that the remembrance of some feeling that had once dwelt in her heart in regard to him was still a danger to her. She had warned him from Loughlinter, and then had received him in London;--and now he selected her as his confidante in this love affair! Had he not been beautifully ignorant and most modestly blind, he would surely have placed his confidence elsewhere. It was not that Lady Laura Kennedy ever confessed to herself the existence of a vicious passion. She had, indeed, learned to tell herself that she could not love her husband; and once, in the excitement of such silent announcements to herself, she had asked herself whether her heart was quite a blank, and had answered herself by desiring Phineas Finn to absent himself from Loughlinter. During all the subsequent winter she had scourged herself inwardly for her own imprudence, her quite unnecessary folly in so doing. What! could not she, Laura Standish, who from her earliest years of girlish womanhood had resolved that she would use the world as men use it, and not as women do,--could not she have felt the slight shock of a passing tenderness for a handsome youth without allowing the feeling to be a rock before her big enough and sharp enough for the destruction of her entire barque? Could not she command, if not her heart, at any rate her mind, so that she might safely assure herself that, whether this man or any man was here or there, her course would be unaltered? What though Phineas Finn had been in the same house with her throughout all the winter, could not she have so lived with him on terms of friendship, that every deed and word and look of her friendship might have been open to her husband,--or open to all the world? She could have done so. She told herself that that was not,--need not have been her great calamity. Whether she could endure the dull, monotonous control of her slow but imperious lord,--or whether she must not rather tell him that it was not to be endured,--that was her trouble. So she told herself, and again admitted Phineas to her intimacy in London. But, nevertheless, Phineas, had he not been beautifully ignorant and most blind to his own achievements, would not have expected from Lady Laura Kennedy assistance with Miss Violet Effingham. Phineas knew when to find Lady Laura alone, and he came upon her one day at the favourable hour. The two first clauses of the bill had been passed after twenty fights and endless divisions. Two points had been settled, as to which, however, Mr. Gresham had been driven to give way so far and to yield so much, that men declared that such a bill as the Government could consent to call its own could never be passed by that Parliament in that session. Immediately on his entrance into her room Lady Laura began about the third clause. Would the House let Mr. Gresham have his way about the--? Phineas stopped her at once. "My dear friend," he said, "I have come to you in a private trouble, and I want you to drop politics for half an hour. I have come to you for help." "A private trouble, Mr. Finn! Is it serious?" "It is very serious,--but it is no trouble of the kind of which you are thinking. But it is serious enough to take up every thought." "Can I help you?" "Indeed you can. Whether you will or no is a different thing." "I would help you in anything in my power, Mr. Finn. Do you not know it?" "You have been very kind to me!" "And so would Mr. Kennedy." "Mr. Kennedy cannot help me here." "What is it, Mr. Finn?" "I suppose I may as well tell you at once,--in plain language, I do not know how to put my story into words that shall fit it. I love Violet Effingham. Will you help me to win her to be my wife?" "You love Violet Effingham!" said Lady Laura. And as she spoke the look of her countenance towards him was so changed that he became at once aware that from her no assistance might be expected. His eyes were not opened in any degree to the second reason above given for Lady Laura's opposition to his wishes, but he instantly perceived that she would still cling to that destination of Violet's hand which had for years past been the favourite scheme of her life. "Have you not always known, Mr. Finn, what have been our hopes for Violet?" Phineas, though he had perceived his mistake, felt that he must go on with his cause. Lady Laura must know his wishes sooner or later, and it was as well that she should learn them in this way as in any other. "Yes;--but I have known also, from your brother's own lips,--and indeed from yours also, Lady Laura,--that Chiltern has been three times refused by Miss Effingham." "What does that matter? Do men never ask more than three times?" "And must I be debarred for ever while he prosecutes a hopeless suit?" "Yes;--you of all men." "Why so, Lady Laura?" "Because in this matter you have been his chosen friend,--and mine. We have told you everything, trusting to you. We have believed in your honour. We have thought that with you, at any rate, we were safe." These words were very bitter to Phineas, and yet when he had written his letter at Loughton, he had intended to be so perfectly honest, chivalrously honest! Now Lady Laura spoke to him and looked at him as though he had been most basely false--most untrue to that noble friendship which had been lavished upon him by all her family. He felt that he would become the prey of her most injurious thoughts unless he could fully explain his ideas, and he felt, also, that the circumstances did not admit of his explaining them. He could not take up the argument on Violet's side, and show how unfair it would be to her that she should be debarred from the homage due to her by any man who really loved her, because Lord Chiltern chose to think that he still had a claim,--or at any rate a chance. And Phineas knew well of himself,--or thought that he knew well,--that he would not have interfered had there been any chance for Lord Chiltern. Lord Chiltern had himself told him more than once that there was no such chance. How was he to explain all this to Lady Laura? "Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura, "I can hardly believe this of you, even when you tell it me yourself." "Listen to me, Lady Laura, for a moment." "Certainly, I will listen. But that you should come to me for assistance! I cannot understand it. Men sometimes become harder than stones." "I do not think that I am hard." Poor blind fool! He was still thinking only of Violet, and of the accusation made against him that he was untrue to his friendship for Lord Chiltern. Of that other accusation which could not be expressed in open words he understood nothing,--nothing at all as yet. "Hard and false,--capable of receiving no impression beyond the outside husk of the heart." "Oh, Lady Laura, do not say that. If you could only know how true I am in my affection for you all." "And how do you show it?--by coming in between Oswald and the only means that are open to us of reconciling him to his father;--means that have been explained to you exactly as though you had been one of ourselves. Oswald has treated you as a brother in the matter, telling you everything, and this is the way you would repay him for his confidence!" "Can I help it, that I have learnt to love this girl?" "Yes, sir,--you can help it. What if she had been Oswald's wife;--would you have loved her then? Do you speak of loving a woman as if it were an affair of fate, over which you have no control? I doubt whether your passions are so strong as that. You had better put aside your love for Miss Effingham. I feel assured that it will never hurt you." Then some remembrance of what had passed between him and Lady Laura Standish near the falls of the Linter, when he first visited Scotland, came across his mind. "Believe me," she said with a smile, "this little wound in your heart will soon be cured." He stood silent before her, looking away from her, thinking over it all. He certainly had believed himself to be violently in love with Lady Laura, and yet when he had just now entered her drawing-room, he had almost forgotten that there had been such a passage in his life. And he had believed that she had forgotten it,--even though she had counselled him not to come to Loughlinter within the last nine months! He had been a boy then, and had not known himself;--but now he was a man, and was proud of the intensity of his love. There came upon him some passing throb of pain from his shoulder, reminding him of the duel, and he was proud also of that. He had been willing to risk everything,--life, prospects, and position,--sooner than abandon the slight hope which was his of possessing Violet Effingham. And now he was told that this wound in his heart would soon be cured, and was told so by a woman to whom he had once sung a song of another passion. It is very hard to answer a woman in such circumstances, because her womanhood gives her so strong a ground of vantage! Lady Laura might venture to throw in his teeth the fickleness of his heart, but he could not in reply tell her that to change a love was better than to marry without love,--that to be capable of such a change showed no such inferiority of nature as did the capacity for such a marriage. She could hit him with her argument; but he could only remember his, and think how violent might be the blow he could inflict,--if it were not that she were a woman, and therefore guarded. "You will not help me then?" he said, when they had both been silent for a while. "Help you? How should I help you?" "I wanted no other help than this,--that I might have had an opportunity of meeting Violet here, and of getting from her some answer." "Has the question then never been asked already?" said Lady Laura. To this Phineas made no immediate reply. There was no reason why he should show his whole hand to an adversary. "Why do you not go to Lady Baldock's house?" continued Lady Laura. "You are admitted there. You know Lady Baldock. Go and ask her to stand your friend with her niece. See what she will say to you. As far as I understand these matters, that is the fair, honourable, open way in which gentlemen are wont to make their overtures." "I would make mine to none but to herself," said Phineas. "Then why have you made it to me, sir?" demanded Lady Laura. "I have come to you as I would to my sister." "Your sister? Psha! I am not your sister, Mr. Finn. Nor, were I so, should I fail to remember that I have a dearer brother to whom my faith is pledged. Look here. Within the last three weeks Oswald has sacrificed everything to his father, because he was determined that Mr. Kennedy should have the money which he thought was due to my husband. He has enabled my father to do what he will with Saulsby. Papa will never hurt him;--I know that. Hard as papa is with him, he will never hurt Oswald's future position. Papa is too proud to do that. Violet has heard what Oswald has done; and now that he has nothing of his own to offer her for the future but his bare title, now that he has given papa power to do what he will with the property, I believe that she would accept him instantly. That is her disposition." Phineas again paused a moment before he replied. "Let him try," he said. "He is away,--in Brussels." "Send to him, and bid him return. I will be patient, Lady Laura. Let him come and try, and I will bide my time. I confess that I have no right to interfere with him if there be a chance for him. If there is no chance, my right is as good as that of any other." There was something in this which made Lady Laura feel that she could not maintain her hostility against this man on behalf of her brother;--and yet she could not force herself to be other than hostile to him. Her heart was sore, and it was he that had made it sore. She had lectured herself, schooling herself with mental sackcloth and ashes, rebuking herself with heaviest censures from day to day, because she had found herself to be in danger of regarding this man with a perilous love; and she had been constant in this work of penance till she had been able to assure herself that the sackcloth and ashes had done their work, and that the danger was past. "I like him still and love him well," she had said to herself with something almost of triumph, "but I have ceased to think of him as one who might have been my lover." And yet she was now sick and sore, almost beside herself with the agony of the wound, because this man whom she had been able to throw aside from her heart had also been able so to throw her aside. And she felt herself constrained to rebuke him with what bitterest words she might use. She had felt it easy to do this at first, on her brother's score. She had accused him of treachery to his friendship,--both as to Oswald and as to herself. On that she could say cutting words without subjecting herself to suspicion even from herself. But now this power was taken away from her, and still she wished to wound him. She desired to taunt him with his old fickleness, and yet to subject herself to no imputation. "Your right!" she said. "What gives you any right in the matter?" "Simply the right of a fair field, and no favour." "And yet you come to me for favour,--to me, because I am her friend. You cannot win her yourself, and think I may help you! I do not believe in your love for her. There! If there were no other reason, and I could help you, I would not, because I think your heart is a sham heart. She is pretty, and has money--" "Lady Laura!" "She is pretty, and has money, and is the fashion. I do not wonder that you should wish to have her. But, Mr. Finn, I believe that Oswald really loves her;--and that you do not. His nature is deeper than yours." He understood it all now as he listened to the tone of her voice, and looked into the lines of her face. There was written there plainly enough that spretæ injuria formæ of which she herself was conscious, but only conscious. Even his eyes, blind as he had been, were opened,--and he knew that he had been a fool. "I am sorry that I came to you," he said. "It would have been better that you should not have done so," she replied. "And yet perhaps it is well that there should be no misunderstanding between us." "Of course I must tell my brother." He paused but for a moment, and then he answered her with a sharp voice, "He has been told." "And who told him?" "I did. I wrote to him the moment that I knew my own mind. I owed it to him to do so. But my letter missed him, and he only learned it the other day." "Have you seen him since?" "Yes;--I have seen him." "And what did he say? How did he take it? Did he bear it from you quietly?" "No, indeed;" and Phineas smiled as he spoke. "Tell me, Mr. Finn; what happened? What is to be done?" "Nothing is to be done. Everything has been done. I may as well tell you all. I am sure that for the sake of me, as well as of your brother, you will keep our secret. He required that I should either give up my suit, or that I should,--fight him. As I could not comply with the one request, I found myself bound to comply with the other." "And there has been a duel?" "Yes;--there has been a duel. We went over to Belgium, and it was soon settled. He wounded me here in the arm." "Suppose you had killed him, Mr. Finn?" "That, Lady Laura, would have been a misfortune so terrible that I was bound to prevent it." Then he paused again, regretting what he had said. "You have surprised me, Lady Laura, into an answer that I should not have made. I may be sure,--may I not,--that my words will not go beyond yourself?" "Yes;--you may be sure of that." This she said plaintively, with a tone of voice and demeanour of body altogether different from that which she lately bore. Neither of them knew what was taking place between them; but she was, in truth, gradually submitting herself again to this man's influence. Though she rebuked him at every turn for what he said, for what he had done, for what he proposed to do, still she could not teach herself to despise him, or even to cease to love him for any part of it. She knew it all now,--except that word or two which had passed between Violet and Phineas in the rides of Saulsby Park. But she suspected something even of that, feeling sure that the only matter on which Phineas would say nothing would be that of his own success,--if success there had been. "And so you and Oswald have quarrelled, and there has been a duel. That is why you were away?" "That is why I was away." "How wrong of you,--how very wrong! Had he been,--killed, how could you have looked us in the face again?" "I could not have looked you in the face again." "But that is over now. And were you friends afterwards?" "No;--we did not part as friends. Having gone there to fight with him,--most unwillingly,--I could not afterwards promise him that I would give up Miss Effingham. You say she will accept him now. Let him come and try." She had nothing further to say,--no other argument to use. There was the soreness at her heart still present to her, making her wretched, instigating her to hurt him if she knew how to do so, in spite of her regard for him. But she felt that she was weak and powerless. She had shot her arrows at him,--all but one,--and if she used that, its poisoned point would wound herself far more surely than it would touch him. "The duel was very silly," he said. "You will not speak of it." "No; certainly not." "I am glad at least that I have told you everything." "I do not know why you should be glad. I cannot help you." "And you will say nothing to Violet?" "Everything that I can say in Oswald's favour. I will say nothing of the duel; but beyond that you have no right to demand my secrecy with her. Yes; you had better go, Mr. Finn, for I am hardly well. And remember this,--If you can forget this little episode about Miss Effingham, so will I forget it also; and so will Oswald. I can promise for him." Then she smiled and gave him her hand, and he went. She rose from her chair as he left the room, and waited till she heard the sound of the great door closing behind him before she again sat down. Then, when he was gone,--when she was sure that he was no longer there with her in the same house,--she laid her head down upon the arm of the sofa, and burst into a flood of tears. She was no longer angry with Phineas. There was no further longing in her heart for revenge. She did not now desire to injure him, though she had done so as long as he was with her. Nay,--she resolved instantly, almost instinctively, that Lord Brentford must know nothing of all this, lest the political prospects of the young member for Loughton should be injured. To have rebuked him, to rebuke him again and again, would be only fair,--would at least be womanly; but she would protect him from all material injury as far as her power of protection might avail. And why was she weeping now so bitterly? Of course she asked herself, as she rubbed away the tears with her hands,--Why should she weep? She was not weak enough to tell herself that she was weeping for any injury that had been done to Oswald. She got up suddenly from the sofa, and pushed away her hair from her face, and pushed away the tears from her cheeks, and then clenched her fists as she held them out at full length from her body, and stood, looking up with her eyes fixed upon the wall. "Ass!" she exclaimed. "Fool! Idiot! That I should not be able to crush it into nothing and have done with it! Why should he not have her? After all, he is better than Oswald. Oh,--is that you?" The door of the room had been opened while she was standing thus, and her husband had entered. "Yes,--it is I. Is anything wrong?" "Very much is wrong." "What is it, Laura?" "You cannot help me." "If you are in trouble you should tell me what it is, and leave it to me to try to help you." "Nonsense!" she said, shaking her head. "Laura, that is uncourteous,--not to say undutiful also." "I suppose it was,--both. I beg your pardon, but I could not help it." "Laura, you should help such words to me." "There are moments, Robert, when even a married woman must be herself rather than her husband's wife. It is so, though you cannot understand it." "I certainly do not understand it." "You cannot make a woman subject to you as a dog is so. You may have all the outside and as much of the inside as you can master. With a dog you may be sure of both." "I suppose this means that you have secrets in which I am not to share." "I have troubles about my father and my brother which you cannot share. My brother is a ruined man." "Who ruined him?" "I will not talk about it any more. I will not speak to you of him or of papa. I only want you to understand that there is a subject which must be secret to myself, and on which I may be allowed to shed tears,--if I am so weak. I will not trouble you on a matter in which I have not your sympathy." Then she left him, standing in the middle of the room, depressed by what had occurred,--but not thinking of it as of a trouble which would do more than make him uncomfortable for that day. CHAPTER XL Madame Max Goesler Day after day, and clause after clause, the bill was fought in committee, and few men fought with more constancy on the side of the Ministers than did the member for Loughton. Troubled though he was by his quarrel with Lord Chiltern, by his love for Violet Effingham, by the silence of his friend Lady Laura,--for since he had told her of the duel she had become silent to him, never writing to him, and hardly speaking to him when she met him in society,--nevertheless Phineas was not so troubled but what he could work at his vocation. Now, when he would find himself upon his legs in the House, he would wonder at the hesitation which had lately troubled him so sorely. He would sit sometimes and speculate upon that dimness of eye, upon that tendency of things to go round, upon that obtrusive palpitation of heart, which had afflicted him so seriously for so long a time. The House now was no more to him than any other chamber, and the members no more than other men. He guarded himself from orations, speaking always very shortly,--because he believed that policy and good judgment required that he should be short. But words were very easy to him, and he would feel as though he could talk for ever. And there quickly came to him a reputation for practical usefulness. He was a man with strong opinions, who could yet be submissive. And no man seemed to know how his reputation had come. He had made one good speech after two or three failures. All who knew him, his whole party, had been aware of his failure; and his one good speech had been regarded by many as no very wonderful effort. But he was a man who was pleasant to other men,--not combative, not self-asserting beyond the point at which self-assertion ceases to be a necessity of manliness. Nature had been very good to him, making him comely inside and out,--and with this comeliness he had crept into popularity. The secret of the duel was, I think, at this time, known to a great many men and women. So Phineas perceived; but it was not, he thought, known either to Lord Brentford or to Violet Effingham. And in this he was right. No rumour of it had yet reached the ears of either of these persons;--and rumour, though she flies so fast and so far, is often slow in reaching those ears which would be most interested in her tidings. Some dim report of the duel reached even Mr. Kennedy, and he asked his wife. "Who told you?" said she, sharply. "Bonteen told me that it was certainly so." "Mr. Bonteen always knows more than anybody else about everything except his own business." "Then it is not true?" Lady Laura paused,--and then she lied. "Of course it is not true. I should be very sorry to ask either of them, but to me it seems to be the most improbable thing in life." Then Mr. Kennedy believed that there had been no duel. In his wife's word he put absolute faith, and he thought that she would certainly know anything that her brother had done. As he was a man given to but little discourse, he asked no further questions about the duel either in the House or at the Clubs. At first, Phineas had been greatly dismayed when men had asked him questions tending to elicit from him some explanation of the mystery;--but by degrees he became used to it, and as the tidings which had got abroad did not seem to injure him, and as the questionings were not pushed very closely, he became indifferent. There came out another article in the _People's Banner_ in which Lord C----n and Mr. P----s F----n were spoken of as glaring examples of that aristocratic snobility,--that was the expressive word coined, evidently with great delight, for the occasion,--which the rotten state of London society in high quarters now produced. Here was a young lord, infamously notorious, quarrelling with one of his boon-companions, whom he had appointed to a private seat in the House of Commons, fighting duels, breaking the laws, scandalising the public,--and all this was done without punishment to the guilty! There were old stories afloat,--so said the article--of what in a former century had been done by Lord Mohuns and Mr. Bests; but now, in 186--, &c. &c. &c. And so the article went on. Any reader may fill in without difficulty the concluding indignation and virtuous appeal for reform in social morals as well as Parliament. But Phineas had so far progressed that he had almost come to like this kind of thing. Certainly I think that the duel did him no harm in society. Otherwise he would hardly have been asked to a semi-political dinner at Lady Glencora Palliser's, even though he might have been invited to make one of the five hundred guests who were crowded into her saloons and staircases after the dinner was over. To have been one of the five hundred was nothing; but to be one of the sixteen was a great deal,--was indeed so much that Phineas, not understanding as yet the advantage of his own comeliness, was at a loss to conceive why so pleasant an honour was conferred upon him. There was no man among the eight men at the dinner-party not in Parliament,--and the only other except Phineas not attached to the Government was Mr. Palliser's great friend, John Grey, the member for Silverbridge. There were four Cabinet Ministers in the room,--the Duke, Lord Cantrip, Mr. Gresham, and the owner of the mansion. There was also Barrington Erle and young Lord Fawn, an Under-Secretary of State. But the wit and grace of the ladies present lent more of character to the party than even the position of the men. Lady Glencora Palliser herself was a host. There was no woman then in London better able to talk to a dozen people on a dozen subjects; and then, moreover, she was still in the flush of her beauty and the bloom of her youth. Lady Laura was there;--by what means divided from her husband Phineas could not imagine; but Lady Glencora was good at such divisions. Lady Cantrip had been allowed to come with her lord;--but, as was well understood, Lord Cantrip was not so manifestly a husband as was Mr. Kennedy. There are men who cannot guard themselves from the assertion of marital rights at most inappropriate moments. Now Lord Cantrip lived with his wife most happily; yet you should pass hours with him and her together, and hardly know that they knew each other. One of the Duke's daughters was there,--but not the Duchess, who was known to be heavy;--and there was the beauteous Marchioness of Hartletop. Violet Effingham was in the room also,--giving Phineas a blow at the heart as he saw her smile. Might it be that he could speak a word to her on this occasion? Mr. Grey had also brought his wife;--and then there was Madame Max Goesler. Phineas found that it was his fortune to take down to dinner,--not Violet Effingham, but Madame Max Goesler. And, when he was placed at dinner, on the other side of him there sat Lady Hartletop, who addressed the few words which she spoke exclusively to Mr. Palliser. There had been in former days matters difficult of arrangement between those two; but I think that those old passages had now been forgotten by them both. Phineas was, therefore, driven to depend exclusively on Madame Max Goesler for conversation, and he found that he was not called upon to cast his seed into barren ground. Up to that moment he had never heard of Madame Max Goesler. Lady Glencora, in introducing them, had pronounced the lady's name so clearly that he had caught it with accuracy, but he could not surmise whence she had come, or why she was there. She was a woman probably something over thirty years of age. She had thick black hair, which she wore in curls,--unlike anybody else in the world,--in curls which hung down low beneath her face, covering, and perhaps intended to cover, a certain thinness in her cheeks which would otherwise have taken something from the charm of her countenance. Her eyes were large, of a dark blue colour, and very bright,--and she used them in a manner which is as yet hardly common with Englishwomen. She seemed to intend that you should know that she employed them to conquer you, looking as a knight may have looked in olden days who entered a chamber with his sword drawn from the scabbard and in his hand. Her forehead was broad and somewhat low. Her nose was not classically beautiful, being broader at the nostrils than beauty required, and, moreover, not perfectly straight in its line. Her lips were thin. Her teeth, which she endeavoured to show as little as possible, were perfect in form and colour. They who criticised her severely said, however, that they were too large. Her chin was well formed, and divided by a dimple which gave to her face a softness of grace which would otherwise have been much missed. But perhaps her great beauty was in the brilliant clearness of her dark complexion. You might almost fancy that you could see into it so as to read the different lines beneath the skin. She was somewhat tall, though by no means tall to a fault, and was so thin as to be almost meagre in her proportions. She always wore her dress close up to her neck, and never showed the bareness of her arms. Though she was the only woman so clad now present in the room, this singularity did not specially strike one, because in other respects her apparel was so rich and quaint as to make inattention to it impossible. The observer who did not observe very closely would perceive that Madame Max Goesler's dress was unlike the dress of other women, but seeing that it was unlike in make, unlike in colour, and unlike in material, the ordinary observer would not see also that it was unlike in form for any other purpose than that of maintaining its general peculiarity of character. In colour she was abundant, and yet the fabric of her garment was always black. My pen may not dare to describe the traceries of yellow and ruby silk which went in and out through the black lace, across her bosom, and round her neck, and over her shoulders, and along her arms, and down to the very ground at her feet, robbing the black stuff of all its sombre solemnity, and producing a brightness in which there was nothing gaudy. She wore no vestige of crinoline, and hardly anything that could be called a train. And the lace sleeves of her dress, with their bright traceries of silk, were fitted close to her arms; and round her neck she wore the smallest possible collar of lace, above which there was a short chain of Roman gold with a ruby pendant. And she had rubies in her ears, and a ruby brooch, and rubies in the bracelets on her arms. Such, as regarded the outward woman, was Madame Max Goesler; and Phineas, as he took his place by her side, thought that fortune for the nonce had done well with him,--only that he should have liked it so much better could he have been seated next to Violet Effingham! I have said that in the matter of conversation his morsel of seed was not thrown into barren ground. I do not know that he can truly be said to have produced even a morsel. The subjects were all mooted by the lady, and so great was her fertility in discoursing that all conversational grasses seemed to grow with her spontaneously. "Mr. Finn," she said, "what would I not give to be a member of the British Parliament at such a moment as this!" "Why at such a moment as this particularly?" "Because there is something to be done, which, let me tell you, senator though you are, is not always the case with you." "My experience is short, but it sometimes seems to me that there is too much to be done." "Too much of nothingness, Mr. Finn. Is not that the case? But now there is a real fight in the lists. The one great drawback to the life of women is that they cannot act in politics." "And which side would you take?" "What, here in England?" said Madame Max Goesler,--from which expression, and from one or two others of a similar nature, Phineas was led into a doubt whether the lady were a countrywoman of his or not. "Indeed, it is hard to say. Politically I should want to out-Turnbull Mr. Turnbull, to vote for everything that could be voted for,--ballot, manhood suffrage, womanhood suffrage, unlimited right of striking, tenant right, education of everybody, annual parliaments, and the abolition of at least the bench of bishops." "That is a strong programme," said Phineas. "It is strong, Mr. Finn, but that's what I should like. I think, however, that I should be tempted to feel a dastard security in the conviction that I might advocate my views without any danger of seeing them carried out. For, to tell you the truth, I don't at all want to put down ladies and gentlemen." "You think that they would go with the bench of bishops?" "I don't want anything to go,--that is, as far as real life is concerned. There's that dear good Bishop of Abingdon is the best friend I have in the world,--and as for the Bishop of Dorchester, I'd walk from here to there to hear him preach. And I'd sooner hem aprons for them all myself than that they should want those pretty decorations. But then, Mr. Finn, there is such a difference between life and theory;--is there not?" "And it is so comfortable to have theories that one is not bound to carry out," said Phineas. "Isn't it? Mr. Palliser, do you live up to your political theories?" At this moment Mr. Palliser was sitting perfectly silent between Lady Hartletop and the Duke's daughter, and he gave a little spring in his chair as this sudden address was made to him. "Your House of Commons theories, I mean, Mr. Palliser. Mr. Finn is saying that it is very well to have far advanced ideas,--it does not matter how far advanced,--because one is never called upon to act upon them practically." "That is a dangerous doctrine, I think," said Mr. Palliser. "But pleasant,--so at least Mr. Finn says." "It is at least very common," said Phineas, not caring to protect himself by a contradiction. "For myself," said Mr. Palliser gravely, "I think I may say that I always am really anxious to carry into practice all those doctrines of policy which I advocate in theory." During this conversation Lady Hartletop sat as though no word of it reached her ears. She did not understand Madame Max Goesler, and by no means loved her. Mr. Palliser, when he had made his little speech, turned to the Duke's daughter and asked some question about the conservatories at Longroyston. "I have called forth a word of wisdom," said Madame Max Goesler, almost in a whisper. "Yes," said Phineas, "and taught a Cabinet Minister to believe that I am a most unsound politician. You may have ruined my prospects for life, Madame Max Goesler." "Let me hope not. As far as I can understand the way of things in your Government, the aspirants to office succeed chiefly by making themselves uncommonly unpleasant to those who are in power. If a man can hit hard enough he is sure to be taken into the elysium of the Treasury bench,--not that he may hit others, but that he may cease to hit those who are there. I don't think men are chosen because they are useful." "You are very severe upon us all." "Indeed, as far as I can see, one man is as useful as another. But to put aside joking,--they tell me that you are sure to become a minister." Phineas felt that he blushed. Could it be that people said of him behind his back that he was a man likely to rise high in political position? "Your informants are very kind," he replied awkwardly, "but I do not know who they are. I shall never get up in the way you describe,--that is, by abusing the men I support." After that Madame Max Goesler turned round to Mr. Grey, who was sitting on the other side of her, and Phineas was left for a moment in silence. He tried to say a word to Lady Hartletop, but Lady Hartletop only bowed her head gracefully in recognition of the truth of the statement he made. So he applied himself for a while to his dinner. "What do you think of Miss Effingham?" said Madame Max Goesler, again addressing him suddenly. "What do I think about her?" "You know her, I suppose." "Oh yes, I know her. She is closely connected with the Kennedys, who are friends of mine." "So I have heard. They tell me that scores of men are raving about her. Are you one of them?" "Oh yes;--I don't mind being one of sundry scores. There is nothing particular in owning to that." "But you admire her?" "Of course I do," said Phineas. "Ah, I see you are joking. I do amazingly. They say women never do admire women, but I most sincerely do admire Miss Effingham." "Is she a friend of yours?" "Oh no;--I must not dare to say so much as that. I was with her last winter for a week at Matching, and of course I meet her about at people's houses. She seems to me to be the most independent girl I ever knew in my life. I do believe that nothing would make her marry a man unless she loved him and honoured him, and I think it is so very seldom that you can say that of a girl." "I believe so also," said Phineas. Then he paused a moment before he continued to speak. "I cannot say that I know Miss Effingham very intimately, but from what I have seen of her, I should think it very probable that she may not marry at all." "Very probably," said Madame Max Goesler, who then again turned away to Mr. Grey. Ten minutes after this, when the moment was just at hand in which the ladies were to retreat, Madame Max Goesler again addressed Phineas, looking very full into his face as she did so. "I wonder whether the time will ever come, Mr. Finn, in which you will give me an account of that day's journey to Blankenberg?" "To Blankenberg!" "Yes;--to Blankenberg. I am not asking for it now. But I shall look for it some day." Then Lady Glencora rose from her seat, and Madame Max Goesler went out with the others. CHAPTER XLI Lord Fawn What had Madame Max Goesler to do with his journey to Blankenberg? thought Phineas, as he sat for a while in silence between Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey; and why should she, who was a perfect stranger to him, have dared to ask him such a question? But as the conversation round the table, after the ladies had gone, soon drifted into politics and became general, Phineas, for a while, forgot Madame Max Goesler and the Blankenberg journey, and listened to the eager words of Cabinet Ministers, now and again uttering a word of his own, and showing that he, too, was as eager as others. But the session in Mr. Palliser's dining-room was not long, and Phineas soon found himself making his way amidst a throng of coming guests into the rooms above. His object was to meet Violet Effingham, but, failing that, he would not be unwilling to say a few more words to Madame Max Goesler. He first encountered Lady Laura, to whom he had not spoken as yet, and, finding himself standing close to her for a while, he asked her after his late neighbour. "Do tell me one thing, Lady Laura;--who is Madame Max Goesler, and why have I never met her before?" "That will be two things, Mr. Finn; but I will answer both questions as well as I can. You have not met her before, because she was in Germany last spring and summer, and in the year before that you were not about so much as you have been since. Still you must have seen her, I think. She is the widow of an Austrian banker, and has lived the greater part of her life at Vienna. She is very rich, and has a small house in Park Lane, where she receives people so exclusively that it has come to be thought an honour to be invited by Madame Max Goesler. Her enemies say that her father was a German Jew, living in England, in the employment of the Viennese bankers, and they say also that she has been married a second time to an Austrian Count, to whom she allows ever so much a year to stay away from her. But of all this, nobody, I fancy, knows anything. What they do know is that Madame Max Goesler spends seven or eight thousand a year, and that she will give no man an opportunity of even asking her to marry him. People used to be shy of her, but she goes almost everywhere now." "She has not been at Portman Square?" "Oh no; but then Lady Glencora is so much more advanced than we are! After all, we are but humdrum people, as the world goes now." Then Phineas began to roam about the rooms, striving to find an opportunity of engrossing five minutes of Miss Effingham's attention. During the time that Lady Laura was giving him the history of Madame Max Goesler his eyes had wandered round, and he had perceived that Violet was standing in the further corner of a large lobby on to which the stairs opened,--so situated, indeed, that she could hardly escape, because of the increasing crowd, but on that very account almost impossible to be reached. He could see, also, that she was talking to Lord Fawn, an unmarried peer of something over thirty years of age, with an unrivalled pair of whiskers, a small estate, and a rising political reputation. Lord Fawn had been talking to Violet through the whole dinner, and Phineas was beginning to think that he should like to make another journey to Blankenberg, with the object of meeting his lordship on the sands. When Lady Laura had done speaking, his eyes were turned through a large open doorway towards the spot on which his idol was standing. "It is of no use, my friend," she said, touching his arm. "I wish I could make you know that it is of no use, because then I think you would be happier." To this Phineas made no answer, but went and roamed about the rooms. Why should it be of no use? Would Violet Effingham marry any man merely because he was a lord? Some half-hour after this he had succeeded in making his way up to the place in which Violet was still standing, with Lord Fawn beside her. "I have been making such a struggle to get to you," he said. "And now you are here, you will have to stay, for it is impossible to get out," she answered. "Lord Fawn has made the attempt half-a-dozen times, but has failed grievously." "I have been quite contented," said Lord Fawn;--"more than contented." Phineas felt that he ought to give some special reason to Miss Effingham to account for his efforts to reach her, but yet he had nothing special to say. Had Lord Fawn not been there, he would immediately have told her that he was waiting for an answer to the question he had asked her in Saulsby Park, but he could hardly do this in presence of the noble Under-Secretary of State. She received him with her pleasant genial smile, looking exactly as she had looked when he had parted from her on the morning after their ride. She did not show any sign of anger, or even of indifference at his approach. But still it was almost necessary that he should account for his search of her. "I have so longed to hear from you how you got on at Loughlinter," he said. "Yes,--yes; and I will tell you something of it some day, perhaps. Why do you not come to Lady Baldock's?" "I did not even know that Lady Baldock was in town." "You ought to have known. Of course she is in town. Where did you suppose I was living? Lord Fawn was there yesterday, and can tell you that my aunt is quite blooming." "Lady Baldock is blooming," said Lord Fawn; "certainly blooming;--that is, if evergreens may be said to bloom." "Evergreens do bloom, as well as spring plants, Lord Fawn. You come and see her, Mr. Finn;--only you must bring a little money with you for the Female Protestant Unmarried Women's Emigration Society. That is my aunt's present hobby, as Lord Fawn knows to his cost." "I wish I may never spend half-a-sovereign worse." "But it is a perilous affair for me, as my aunt wants me to go out as a sort of leading Protestant unmarried female emigrant pioneer myself." "You don't mean that," said Lord Fawn, with much anxiety. "Of course you'll go," said Phineas. "I should, if I were you." "I am in doubt," said Violet. "It is such a grand prospect," said he. "Such an opening in life. So much excitement, you know; and such a useful career." "As if there were not plenty of opening here for Miss Effingham," said Lord Fawn, "and plenty of excitement." "Do you think there is?" said Violet. "You are much more civil than Mr. Finn, I must say." Then Phineas began to hope that he need not be afraid of Lord Fawn. "What a happy man you were at dinner!" continued Violet, addressing herself to Phineas. "I thought Lord Fawn was the happy man." "You had Madame Max Goesler all to yourself for nearly two hours, and I suppose there was not a creature in the room who did not envy you. I don't doubt that ever so much interest was made with Lady Glencora as to taking Madame Max down to dinner. Lord Fawn, I know, intrigued." "Miss Effingham, really I must--contradict you." "And Barrington Erle begged for it as a particular favour. The Duke, with a sigh, owned that it was impossible, because of his cumbrous rank; and Mr. Gresham, when it was offered to him, declared that he was fatigued with the business of the House, and not up to the occasion. How much did she say to you; and what did she talk about?" "The ballot chiefly,--that, and manhood suffrage." "Ah! she said something more than that, I am sure. Madame Max Goesler never lets any man go without entrancing him. If you have anything near your heart, Mr. Finn, Madame Max Goesler touched it, I am sure." Now Phineas had two things near his heart,--political promotion and Violet Effingham,--and Madame Max Goesler had managed to touch them both. She had asked him respecting his journey to Blankenberg, and had touched him very nearly in reference to Miss Effingham. "You know Madame Max Goesler, of course?" said Violet to Lord Fawn. "Oh yes, I know the lady;--that is, as well as other people do. No one, I take it, knows much of her; and it seems to me that the world is becoming tired of her. A mystery is good for nothing if it remains always a mystery." "And it is good for nothing at all when it is found out," said Violet. "And therefore it is that Madame Max Goesler is a bore," said Lord Fawn. "You did not find her a bore?" said Violet. Then Phineas, choosing to oppose Lord Fawn as well as he could on that matter, as on every other, declared that he had found Madame Max Goesler most delightful. "And beautiful,--is she not?" said Violet. "Beautiful!" exclaimed Lord Fawn. "I think her very beautiful," said Phineas. "So do I," said Violet. "And she is a dear ally of mine. We were a week together last winter, and swore an undying friendship. She told me ever so much about Mr. Goesler." "But she told you nothing of her second husband?" said Lord Fawn. "Now that you have run into scandal, I shall have done," said Violet. Half an hour after this, when Phineas was preparing to fight his way out of the house, he was again close to Madame Max Goesler. He had not found a single moment in which to ask Violet for an answer to his old question, and was retiring from the field discomfited, but not dispirited. Lord Fawn, he thought, was not a serious obstacle in his way. Lady Laura had told him that there was no hope for him; but then Lady Laura's mind on that subject was, he thought, prejudiced. Violet Effingham certainly knew what were his wishes, and knowing them, smiled on him and was gracious to him. Would she do so if his pretensions were thoroughly objectionable to her? "I saw that you were successful this evening," said Madame Max Goesler to him. "I was not aware of any success." "I call it great success to be able to make your way where you will through such a crowd as there is here. You seem to me to be so stout a cavalier that I shall ask you to find my servant, and bid him get my carriage. Will you mind?" Phineas, of course, declared that he would be delighted. "He is a German, and not in livery. But if somebody will call out, he will hear. He is very sharp, and much more attentive than your English footmen. An Englishman hardly ever makes a good servant." "Is that a compliment to us Britons?" "No, certainly not. If a man is a servant, he should be clever enough to be a good one." Phineas had now given the order for the carriage, and, having returned, was standing with Madame Max Goesler in the cloak-room. "After all, we are surely the most awkward people in the world," she said. "You know Lord Fawn, who was talking to Miss Effingham just now. You should have heard him trying to pay me a compliment before dinner. It was like a donkey walking a minuet, and yet they say he is a clever man and can make speeches." Could it be possible that Madame Max Goesler's ears were so sharp that she had heard the things which Lord Fawn had said of her? "He is a well-informed man," said Phineas. "For a lord, you mean," said Madame Max Goesler. "But he is an oaf, is he not? And yet they say he is to marry that girl." "I do not think he will," said Phineas, stoutly. "I hope not, with all my heart; and I hope that somebody else may,--unless somebody else should change his mind. Thank you; I am so much obliged to you. Mind you come and call on me,--193, Park Lane. I dare say you know the little cottage." Then he put Madame Max Goesler into her carriage, and walked away to his club. CHAPTER XLII Lady Baldock Does Not Send a Card to Phineas Finn Lady Baldock's house in Berkeley Square was very stately,--a large house with five front windows in a row, and a big door, and a huge square hall, and a fat porter in a round-topped chair;--but it was dingy and dull, and could not have been painted for the last ten years, or furnished for the last twenty. Nevertheless, Lady Baldock had "evenings," and people went to them,--though not such a crowd of people as would go to the evenings of Lady Glencora. Now Mr. Phineas Finn had not been asked to the evenings of Lady Baldock for the present season, and the reason was after this wise. "Yes, Mr. Finn," Lady Baldock had said to her daughter, who, early in the spring, was preparing the cards. "You may send one to Mr. Finn, certainly." "I don't know that he is very nice," said Augusta Boreham, whose eyes at Saulsby had been sharper perhaps than her mother's, and who had her suspicions. But Lady Baldock did not like interference from her daughter. "Mr. Finn, certainly," she continued. "They tell me that he is a very rising young man, and he sits for Lord Brentford's borough. Of course he is a Radical, but we cannot help that. All the rising young men are Radicals now. I thought him very civil at Saulsby." "But, mamma--" "Well!" "Don't you think that he is a little free with Violet?" "What on earth do you mean, Augusta?" "Have you not fancied that he is--fond of her?" "Good gracious, no!" "I think he is. And I have sometimes fancied that she is fond of him, too." "I don't believe a word of it, Augusta,--not a word. I should have seen it if it was so. I am very sharp in seeing such things. They never escape me. Even Violet would not be such a fool as that. Send him a card, and if he comes I shall soon see." Miss Boreham quite understood her mother, though she could never master her,--and the card was prepared. Miss Boreham could never master her mother by her own efforts; but it was, I think, by a little intrigue on her part that Lady Baldock was mastered, and, indeed, altogether cowed, in reference to our hero, and that this victory was gained on that very afternoon in time to prevent the sending of the card. When the mother and daughter were at tea, before dinner, Lord Baldock came into the room, and, after having been patted and petted and praised by his mother, he took up all the cards out of a china bowl and ran his eyes over them. "Lord Fawn!" he said, "the greatest ass in all London! Lady Hartletop! you know she won't come." "I don't see why she shouldn't come," said Lady Baldock;--"a mere country clergyman's daughter!" "Julius Cæsar Conway;--a great friend of mine, and therefore he always blackballs my other friends at the club. Lord Chiltern; I thought you were at daggers drawn with Chiltern." "They say he is going to be reconciled to his father, Gustavus, and I do it for Lord Brentford's sake. And he won't come, so it does not signify. And I do believe that Violet has really refused him." "You are quite right about his not coming," said Lord Baldock, continuing to read the cards; "Chiltern certainly won't come. Count Sparrowsky;--I wonder what you know about Sparrowsky that you should ask him here." "He is asked about, Gustavus; he is indeed," pleaded Lady Baldock. "I believe that Sparrowsky is a penniless adventurer. Mr. Monk; well, he is a Cabinet Minister. Sir Gregory Greeswing; you mix your people nicely at any rate. Sir Gregory Greeswing is the most old-fashioned Tory in England." "Of course we are not political, Gustavus." "Phineas Finn. They come alternately,--one and one. "Mr. Finn is asked everywhere, Gustavus." "I don't doubt it. They say he is a very good sort of fellow. They say also that Violet has found that out as well as other people." "What do you mean, Gustavus?" "I mean that everybody is saying that this Phineas Finn is going to set himself up in the world by marrying your niece. He is quite right to try it on, if he has a chance." "I don't think he would be right at all," said Lady Baldock, with much energy. "I think he would be wrong,--shamefully wrong. They say he is the son of an Irish doctor, and that he hasn't a shilling in the world." "That is just why he would be right. What is such a man to do, but to marry money? He's a deuced good-looking fellow, too, and will be sure to do it." "He should work for his money in the city, then, or somewhere there. But I don't believe it, Gustavus; I don't, indeed." "Very well. I only tell you what I hear. The fact is that he and Chiltern have already quarrelled about her. If I were to tell you that they have been over to Holland together and fought a duel about her, you wouldn't believe that." "Fought a duel about Violet! People don't fight duels now, and I should not believe it." "Very well. Then send your card to Mr. Finn." And, so saying, Lord Baldock left the room. Lady Baldock sat in silence for some time toasting her toes at the fire, and Augusta Boreham sat by, waiting for orders. She felt pretty nearly sure that new orders would be given if she did not herself interfere. "You had better put by that card for the present, my dear," said Lady Baldock at last. "I will make inquiries. I don't believe a word of what Gustavus has said. I don't think that even Violet is such a fool as that. But if rash and ill-natured people have spoken of it, it may be as well to be careful." "It is always well to be careful;--is it not, mamma?" "Not but what I think it very improper that these things should be said about a young woman; and as for the story of the duel, I don't believe a word of it. It is absurd. I dare say that Gustavus invented it at the moment, just to amuse himself." The card of course was not sent, and Lady Baldock at any rate put so much faith in her son's story as to make her feel it to be her duty to interrogate her niece on the subject. Lady Baldock at this period of her life was certainly not free from fear of Violet Effingham. In the numerous encounters which took place between them, the aunt seldom gained that amount of victory which would have completely satisfied her spirit. She longed to be dominant over her niece as she was dominant over her daughter; and when she found that she missed such supremacy, she longed to tell Violet to depart from out her borders, and be no longer niece of hers. But had she ever done so, Violet would have gone at the instant, and then terrible things would have followed. There is a satisfaction in turning out of doors a nephew or niece who is pecuniarily dependent, but when the youthful relative is richly endowed, the satisfaction is much diminished. It is the duty of a guardian, no doubt, to look after the ward; but if this cannot be done, the ward's money should at least be held with as close a fist as possible. But Lady Baldock, though she knew that she would be sorely wounded, poked about on her old body with the sharp lances of disobedience, and struck with the cruel swords of satire, if she took upon herself to scold or even to question Violet, nevertheless would not abandon the pleasure of lecturing and teaching. "It is my duty," she would say to herself, "and though it be taken in a bad spirit, I will always perform my duty." So she performed her duty, and asked Violet Effingham some few questions respecting Phineas Finn. "My dear," she said, "do you remember meeting a Mr. Finn at Saulsby?" "A Mr. Finn, aunt! Why, he is a particular friend of mine. Of course I do, and he was at Saulsby. I have met him there more than once. Don't you remember that we were riding about together?" "I remember that he was there, certainly; but I did not know that he was a special--friend." "Most especial, aunt. A 1, I may say;--among young men, I mean." Lady Baldock was certainly the most indiscreet of old women in such a matter as this, and Violet the most provoking of young ladies. Lady Baldock, believing that there was something to fear,--as, indeed, there was, much to fear,--should have been content to destroy the card, and to keep the young lady away from the young gentleman, if such keeping away was possible to her. But Miss Effingham was certainly very wrong to speak of any young man as being A 1. Fond as I am of Miss Effingham, I cannot justify her, and must acknowledge that she used the most offensive phrase she could find, on purpose to annoy her aunt. "Violet," said Lady Baldock, bridling up, "I never heard such a word before from the lips of a young lady." "Not as A 1? I thought it simply meant very good." "A 1 is a nobleman," said Lady Baldock. "No, aunt;--A 1 is a ship,--a ship that is very good," said Violet. "And do you mean to say that Mr. Finn is,--is,--is,--very good?" "Yes, indeed. You ask Lord Brentford, and Mr. Kennedy. You know he saved poor Mr. Kennedy from being throttled in the streets." "That has nothing to do with it. A policeman might have done that." "Then he would have been A 1 of policemen,--though A 1 does not mean a policeman." "He would have done his duty, and so perhaps did Mr. Finn." "Of course he did, aunt. It couldn't have been his duty to stand by and see Mr. Kennedy throttled. And he nearly killed one of the men, and took the other prisoner with his own hands. And he made a beautiful speech the other day. I read every word of it. I am so glad he's a Liberal. I do like young men to be Liberals." Now Lord Baldock was a Tory, as had been all the Lord Baldocks,--since the first who had been bought over from the Whigs in the time of George III at the cost of a barony. "You have nothing to do with politics, Violet." "Why shouldn't I have something to do with politics, aunt?" "And I must tell you that your name is being very unpleasantly mentioned in connection with that of this young man because of your indiscretion." "What indiscretion?" Violet, as she made her demand for a more direct accusation, stood quite upright before her aunt, looking the old woman full in the face,--almost with her arms akimbo. "Calling him A 1, Violet." "People have been talking about me and Mr. Finn, because I just now, at this very moment, called him A 1 to you! If you want to scold me about anything, aunt, do find out something less ridiculous than that." "It was most improper language,--and if you used it to me, I am sure you would to others." "To what others?" "To Mr. Finn,--and those sort of people." "Call Mr. Finn A 1 to his face! Well,--upon my honour I don't know why I should not. Lord Chiltern says he rides beautifully, and if we were talking about riding I might do so." "You have no business to talk to Lord Chiltern about Mr. Finn at all." "Have I not? I thought that perhaps the one sin might palliate the other. You know, aunt, no young lady, let her be ever so ill-disposed, can marry two objectionable young men,--at the same time." "I said nothing about your marrying Mr. Finn." "Then, aunt, what did you mean?" "I meant that you should not allow yourself to be talked of with an adventurer, a young man without a shilling, a person who has come from nobody knows where in the bogs of Ireland." "But you used to ask him here." "Yes,--as long as he knew his place. But I shall not do so again. And I must beg you to be circumspect." "My dear aunt, we may as well understand each other. I will not be circumspect, as you call it. And if Mr. Finn asked me to marry him to-morrow, and if I liked him well enough, I would take him,--even though he had been dug right out of a bog. Not only because I liked him,--mind! If I were unfortunate enough to like a man who was nothing, I would refuse him in spite of my liking,--because he was nothing. But this young man is not nothing. Mr. Finn is a fine fellow, and if there were no other reason to prevent my marrying him than his being the son of a doctor, and coming out of the bogs, that would not do so. Now I have made a clean breast to you as regards Mr. Finn; and if you do not like what I've said, aunt, you must acknowledge that you have brought it on yourself." Lady Baldock was left for a time speechless. But no card was sent to Phineas Finn. CHAPTER XLIII Promotion Phineas got no card from Lady Baldock, but one morning he received a note from Lord Brentford which was of more importance to him than any card could have been. At this time, bit by bit, the Reform Bill of the day had nearly made its way through the committee, but had been so mutilated as to be almost impossible of recognition by its progenitors. And there was still a clause or two as to the rearrangement of seats, respecting which it was known that there would be a combat,--probably combats,--carried on after the internecine fashion. There was a certain clipping of counties to be done, as to which it was said that Mr. Daubeny had declared that he would not yield till he was made to do so by the brute force of majorities;--and there was another clause for the drafting of certain superfluous members from little boroughs, and bestowing them on populous towns at which they were much wanted, respecting which Mr. Turnbull had proclaimed that the clause as it now stood was a fainéant clause, capable of doing, and intended to do, no good in the proper direction; a clause put into the bill to gull ignorant folk who had not eyes enough to recognise the fact that it was fainéant; a make-believe clause,--so said Mr. Turnbull,--to be detested on that account by every true reformer worse than the old Philistine bonds and Tory figments of representation, as to which there was at least no hypocritical pretence of popular fitness. Mr. Turnbull had been very loud and very angry,--had talked much of demonstrations among the people, and had almost threatened the House. The House in its present mood did not fear any demonstrations,--but it did fear that Mr. Turnbull might help Mr. Daubeny, and that Mr. Daubeny might help Mr. Turnbull. It was now May,--the middle of May,--and ministers, who had been at work on their Reform Bill ever since the beginning of the session, were becoming weary of it. And then, should these odious clauses escape the threatened Turnbull-Daubeny alliance,--then there was the House of Lords! "What a pity we can't pass our bills at the Treasury, and have done with them!" said Laurence Fitzgibbon. "Yes, indeed," replied Mr. Ratler. "For myself, I was never so tired of a session in my life. I wouldn't go through it again to be made,--no, not to be made Chancellor of the Exchequer." Lord Brentford's note to Phineas Finn was as follows:-- House of Lords, 16th May, 186--. MY DEAR MR. FINN, You are no doubt aware that Lord Bosanquet's death has taken Mr. Mottram into the Upper House, and that as he was Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and as the Under-Secretary must be in the Lower House, the vacancy must be filled up. The heart of Phineas Finn at this moment was almost in his mouth. Not only to be selected for political employment, but to be selected at once for an office so singularly desirable! Under-Secretaries, he fancied, were paid two thousand a year. What would Mr. Low say now? But his great triumph soon received a check. "Mr. Mildmay has spoken to me on the subject," continued the letter, "and informs me that he has offered the place at the colonies to his old supporter, Mr. Laurence Fitzgibbon." Laurence Fitzgibbon! I am inclined to think that he could not have done better, as Mr. Fitzgibbon has shown great zeal for his party. This will vacate the Irish seat at the Treasury Board, and I am commissioned by Mr. Mildmay to offer it to you. Perhaps you will do me the pleasure of calling on me to-morrow between the hours of eleven and twelve. Yours very sincerely, BRENTFORD. Phineas was himself surprised to find that his first feeling on reading this letter was one of dissatisfaction. Here were his golden hopes about to be realised,--hopes as to the realisation of which he had been quite despondent twelve months ago,--and yet he was uncomfortable because he was to be postponed to Laurence Fitzgibbon. Had the new Under-Secretary been a man whom he had not known, whom he had not learned to look down upon as inferior to himself, he would not have minded it,--would have been full of joy at the promotion proposed for himself. But Laurence Fitzgibbon was such a poor creature, that the idea of filling a place from which Laurence had risen was distasteful to him. "It seems to be all a matter of favour and convenience," he said to himself, "without any reference to the service." His triumph would have been so complete had Mr. Mildmay allowed him to go into the higher place at one leap. Other men who had made themselves useful had done so. In the first hour after receiving Lord Brentford's letter, the idea of becoming a Lord of the Treasury was almost displeasing to him. He had an idea that junior lordships of the Treasury were generally bestowed on young members whom it was convenient to secure, but who were not good at doing anything. There was a moment in which he thought that he would refuse to be made a junior lord. But during the night cooler reflections told him that he had been very wrong. He had taken up politics with the express desire of getting his foot upon a rung of the ladder of promotion, and now, in his third session, he was about to be successful. Even as a junior lord he would have a thousand a year; and how long might he have sat in chambers, and have wandered about Lincoln's Inn, and have loitered in the courts striving to look as though he had business, before he would have earned a thousand a year! Even as a junior lord he could make himself useful, and when once he should be known to be a good working man, promotion would come to him. No ladder can be mounted without labour; but this ladder was now open above his head, and he already had his foot upon it. At half-past eleven he was with Lord Brentford, who received him with the blandest smile and a pressure of the hand which was quite cordial. "My dear Finn," he said, "this gives me the most sincere pleasure,--the greatest pleasure in the world. Our connection together at Loughton of course makes it doubly agreeable to me." "I cannot be too grateful to you, Lord Brentford." "No, no; no, no. It is all your own doing. When Mr. Mildmay asked me whether I did not think you the most promising of the young members on our side in your House, I certainly did say that I quite concurred. But I should be taking too much on myself, I should be acting dishonestly, if I were to allow you to imagine that it was my proposition. Had he asked me to recommend, I should have named you; that I say frankly. But he did not. He did not. Mr. Mildmay named you himself. 'Do you think,' he said, 'that your friend Finn would join us at the Treasury?' I told him that I did think so. 'And do you not think,' said he, 'that it would be a useful appointment?' Then I ventured to say that I had no doubt whatever on that point;--that I knew you well enough to feel confident that you would lend a strength to the Liberal Government. Then there were a few words said about your seat, and I was commissioned to write to you. That was all." Phineas was grateful, but not too grateful, and bore himself very well in the interview. He explained to Lord Brentford that of course it was his object to serve the country,--and to be paid for his services,--and that he considered himself to be very fortunate to be selected so early in his career for parliamentary place. He would endeavour to do his duty, and could safely say of himself that he did not wish to eat the bread of idleness. As he made this assertion, he thought of Laurence Fitzgibbon. Laurence Fitzgibbon had eaten the bread of idleness, and yet he was promoted. But Phineas said nothing to Lord Brentford about his idle friend. When he had made his little speech he asked a question about the borough. "I have already ventured to write a letter to my agent at Loughton, telling him that you have accepted office, and that you will be shortly there again. He will see Shortribs and arrange it. But if I were you I should write to Shortribs and to Grating,--after I had seen Mr. Mildmay. Of course you will not mention my name," And the Earl looked very grave as he uttered this caution. "Of course I will not," said Phineas. "I do not think you'll find any difficulty about the seat," said the peer. "There never has been any difficulty at Loughton yet. I must say that for them. And if we can scrape through with Clause 72 we shall be all right;--shall we not?" This was the clause as to which so violent an opposition was expected from Mr. Turnbull,--a clause as to which Phineas himself had felt that he would hardly know how to support the Government, in the event of the committee being pressed to a division upon it. Could he, an ardent reformer, a reformer at heart,--could he say that such a borough as Loughton should be spared;--that the arrangement by which Shortribs and Grating had sent him to Parliament, in obedience to Lord Brentford's orders, was in due accord with the theory of a representative legislature? In what respect had Gatton and Old Sarum been worse than Loughton? Was he not himself false to his principle in sitting for such a borough as Loughton? He had spoken to Mr. Monk, and Mr. Monk had told him that Rome was not built in a day,--and had told him also that good things were most valued and were more valuable when they came by instalments. But then Mr. Monk himself enjoyed the satisfaction of sitting for a popular Constituency. He was not personally pricked in the conscience by his own parliamentary position. Now, however, --now that Phineas had consented to join the Government, any such considerations as these must be laid aside. He could no longer be a free agent, or even a free thinker. He had been quite aware of this, and had taught himself to understand that members of Parliament in the direct service of the Government were absolved from the necessity of free-thinking. Individual free-thinking was incompatible with the position of a member of the Government, and unless such abnegation were practised, no government would be possible. It was of course a man's duty to bind himself together with no other men but those with whom, on matters of general policy, he could agree heartily;--but having found that he could so agree, he knew that it would be his duty as a subaltern to vote as he was directed. It would trouble his conscience less to sit for Loughton and vote for an objectionable clause as a member of the Government, than it would have done to give such a vote as an independent member. In so resolving, he thought that he was simply acting in accordance with the acknowledged rules of parliamentary government. And therefore, when Lord Brentford spoke of Clause 72, he could answer pleasantly, "I think we shall carry it; and, you see, in getting it through committee, if we can carry it by one, that is as good as a hundred. That's the comfort of close-fighting in committee. In the open House we are almost as much beaten by a narrow majority as by a vote against us." "Just so; just so," said Lord Brentford, delighted to see that his young pupil,--as he regarded him,--understood so well the system of parliamentary management. "By-the-bye, Finn, have you seen Chiltern lately?" "Not quite lately," said Phineas, blushing up to his eyes. "Or heard from him?" "No;--nor heard from him. When last I heard of him he was in Brussels." "Ah,--yes; he is somewhere on the Rhine now. I thought that as you were so intimate, perhaps you corresponded with him. Have you heard that we have arranged about Lady Laura's money?" "I have heard. Lady Laura has told me." "I wish he would return," said Lord Brentford sadly,--almost solemnly. "As that great difficulty is over, I would receive him willingly, and make my house pleasant to him, if I can do so. I am most anxious that he should settle, and marry. Could you not write to him?" Phineas, not daring to tell Lord Brentford that he had quarrelled with Lord Chiltern,--feeling that if he did so everything would go wrong,--said that he would write to Lord Chiltern. As he went away he felt that he was bound to get an answer from Violet Effingham. If it should be necessary, he was willing to break with Lord Brentford on that matter,--even though such breaking should lose him his borough and his place;--but not on any other matter. CHAPTER XLIV Phineas and His Friends Our hero's friends were, I think, almost more elated by our hero's promotion than was our hero himself. He never told himself that it was a great thing to be a junior lord of the Treasury, though he acknowledged to himself that to have made a successful beginning was a very great thing. But his friends were loud in their congratulations,--or condolements as the case might be. He had his interview with Mr. Mildmay, and, after that, one of his first steps was to inform Mrs. Bunce that he must change his lodgings. "The truth is, Mrs. Bunce, not that I want anything better; but that a better position will be advantageous to me, and that I can afford to pay for it." Mrs. Bunce acknowledged the truth of the argument, with her apron up to her eyes. "I've got to be so fond of looking after you, Mr. Finn! I have indeed," said Mrs. Bunce. "It is not just what you pays like, because another party will pay as much. But we've got so used to you, Mr. Finn,--haven't we?" Mrs. Bunce was probably not aware herself that the comeliness of her lodger had pleased her feminine eye, and touched her feminine heart. Had anybody said that Mrs. Bunce was in love with Phineas, the scandal would have been monstrous. And yet it was so,--after a fashion. And Bunce knew it,--after his fashion. "Don't be such an old fool," he said, "crying after him because he's six foot high." "I ain't crying after him because he's six foot high," whined the poor woman;--"but one does like old faces better than new, and a gentleman about one's place is pleasant." "Gentleman be d----d," said Bunce. But his anger was excited, not by his wife's love for Phineas, but by the use of an objectionable word. Bunce himself had been on very friendly terms with Phineas, and they two had had many discussions on matters of politics, Bunce taking up the cudgels always for Mr. Turnbull, and generally slipping away gradually into some account of his own martyrdom. For he had been a martyr, having failed in obtaining any redress against the policeman who had imprisoned him so wrongfully. The _People's Banner_ had fought for him manfully, and therefore there was a little disagreement between him and Phineas on the subject of that great organ of public opinion. And as Mr. Bunce thought that his lodger was very wrong to sit for Lord Brentford's borough, subjects were sometimes touched which were a little galling to Phineas. Touching this promotion, Bunce had nothing but condolement to offer to the new junior lord. "Oh yes," said he, in answer to an argument from Phineas, "I suppose there must be lords, as you call 'em; though for the matter of that I can't see as they is of any mortal use." "Wouldn't you have the Government carried on?" "Government! Well; I suppose there must be government. But the less of it the better. I'm not against government;--nor yet against laws, Mr. Finn; though the less of them, too, the better. But what does these lords do in the Government? Lords indeed! I'll tell you what they do, Mr. Finn. They wotes; that's what they do! They wotes hard; black or white, white or black. Ain't that true? When you're a 'lord,' will you be able to wote against Mr. Mildmay to save your very soul?" "If it comes to be a question of soul-saving, Mr. Bunce, I shan't save my place at the expense of my conscience." "Not if you knows it, you mean. But the worst of it is that a man gets so thick into the mud that he don't know whether he's dirty or clean. You'll have to wote as you're told, and of course you'll think it's right enough. Ain't you been among Parliament gents long enough to know that that's the way it goes?" "You think no honest man can be a member of the Government?" "I don't say that, but I think honesty's a deal easier away from 'em. The fact is, Mr. Finn, it's all wrong with us yet, and will be till we get it nigher to the great American model. If a poor man gets into Parliament,--you'll excuse me, Mr. Finn, but I calls you a poor man." "Certainly,--as a member of Parliament I am a very poor man." "Just so,--and therefore what do you do? You goes and lays yourself out for government! I'm not saying as how you're anyways wrong. A man has to live. You has winning ways, and a good physiognomy of your own, and are as big as a life-guardsman." Phineas as he heard this doubtful praise laughed and blushed. "Very well; you makes your way with the big wigs, lords and earls and them like, and you gets returned for a rotten borough;--you'll excuse me, but that's about it, ain't it?--and then you goes in for government! A man may have a mission to govern, such as Washington and Cromwell and the like o' them. But when I hears of Mr. Fitzgibbon a-governing, why then I says,--d----n it all." "There must be good and bad you know." "We've got to change a deal yet, Mr. Finn, and we'll do it. When a young man as has liberal feelings gets into Parliament, he shouldn't be snapped up and brought into the governing business just because he's poor and wants a salary. They don't do it that way in the States; and they won't do it that way here long. It's the system as I hates, and not you, Mr. Finn. Well, good-bye, sir. I hope you'll like the governing business, and find it suits your health." These condolements from Mr. Bunce were not pleasant, but they set him thinking. He felt assured that Bunce and Quintus Slide and Mr. Turnbull were wrong. Bunce was ignorant. Quintus Slide was dishonest. Turnbull was greedy of popularity. For himself, he thought that as a young man he was fairly well informed. He knew that he meant to be true in his vocation. And he was quite sure that the object nearest to his heart in politics was not self-aggrandisement, but the welfare of the people in general. And yet he could not but agree with Bunce that there was something wrong. When such men as Laurence Fitzgibbon were called upon to act as governors, was it not to be expected that the ignorant but still intelligent Bunces of the population should--"d----n it all"? On the evening of that day he went up to Mrs. Low's, very sure that he should receive some encouragement from her and from her husband. She had been angry with him because he had put himself into a position in which money must be spent and none could be made. The Lows, especially Mrs. Low, had refused to believe that any success was within his reach. Now that he had succeeded, now that he was in receipt of a salary on which he could live and save money, he would be sure of sympathy from his old friends the Lows! But Mrs. Low was as severe upon him as Mr. Bunce had been, and even from Mr. Low he could extract no real comfort. "Of course I congratulate you," said Mr. Low coldly. "And you, Mrs. Low?" "Well, you know, Mr. Finn, I think you have begun at the wrong end. I thought so before, and I think so still. I suppose I ought not to say so to a Lord of the Treasury, but if you ask me, what can I do?" "Speak the truth out, of course." "Exactly. That's what I must do. Well, the truth is, Mr. Finn, that I do not think it is a very good opening for a young man to be made what they call a Lord of the Treasury,--unless he has got a private fortune, you know, to support that kind of life." "You see, Phineas, a ministry is such an uncertain thing," said Mr. Low. "Of course it's uncertain;--but as I did go into the House, it's something to have succeeded." "If you call that success," said Mrs. Low. "You did intend to go on with your profession," said Mr. Low. He could not tell them that he had changed his mind, and that he meant to marry Violet Effingham, who would much prefer a parliamentary life for her husband to that of a working barrister. "I suppose that is all given up now," continued Mr. Low. "Just for the present," said Phineas. "Yes;--and for ever I fear," said Mrs. Low, "You'll never go back to real work after frittering away your time as a Lord of the Treasury. What sort of work must it be when just anybody can do it that it suits them to lay hold of? But of course a thousand a year is something, though a man may have it for only six months." It came out in the course of the evening that Mr. Low was going to stand for the borough vacated by Mr. Mottram, at which it was considered that the Conservatives might possibly prevail. "You see, after all, Phineas," said Mr. Low, "that I am following your steps." "Ah; you are going into the House in the course of your profession." "Just so," said Mrs. Low. "And are taking the first step towards being a Tory Attorney-General." "That's as may be," said Mr. Low. "But it's the kind of thing a man does after twenty years of hard work. For myself, I really don't care much whether I succeed or fail. I should like to live to be a Vice-Chancellor. I don't mind saying as much as that to you. But I'm not at all sure that Parliament is the best way to the Equity Bench." "But it is a grand thing to get into Parliament when you do it by means of your profession," said Mrs. Low. Soon after that Phineas took his departure from the house, feeling sore and unhappy. But on the next morning he was received in Grosvenor Place with an amount of triumph which went far to compensate him. Lady Laura had written to him to call there, and on his arrival he found both Violet Effingham and Madame Max Goesler with his friend. When Phineas entered the room his first feeling was one of intense joy at seeing that Violet Effingham was present there. Then there was one of surprise that Madame Max Goesler should make one of the little party. Lady Laura had told him at Mr. Palliser's dinner-party that they, in Portman Square, had not as yet advanced far enough to receive Madame Max Goesler,--and yet here was the lady in Mr. Kennedy's drawing-room. Now Phineas would have thought it more likely that he should find her in Portman Square than in Grosvenor Place. The truth was that Madame Goesler had been brought by Miss Effingham,--with the consent, indeed, of Lady Laura, but with a consent given with much of hesitation. "What are you afraid of?" Violet had asked. "I am afraid of nothing," Lady Laura had answered; "but one has to choose one's acquaintance in accordance with rules which one doesn't lay down very strictly." "She is a clever woman," said Violet, "and everybody likes her; but if you think Mr. Kennedy would object, of course you are right." Then Lady Laura had consented, telling herself that it was not necessary that she should ask her husband's approval as to every new acquaintance she might form. At the same time Violet had been told that Phineas would be there, and so the party had been made up. "'See the conquering hero comes,' said Violet in her cheeriest voice. "I am so glad that Mr. Finn has been made a lord of something," said Madame Max Goesler. "I had the pleasure of a long political discussion with him the other night, and I quite approve of him." "We are so much gratified, Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura. "Mr. Kennedy says that it is the best appointment they could have made, and papa is quite proud about it." "You are Lord Brentford's member; are you not?" asked Madame Max Goesler. This was a question which Phineas did not quite like, and which he was obliged to excuse by remembering that the questioner had lived so long out of England as to be probably ignorant of the myths, and theories, and system, and working of the British Constitution. Violet Effingham, little as she knew of politics, would never have asked a question so imprudent. But the question was turned off, and Phineas, with an easy grace, submitted himself to be petted, and congratulated, and purred over, and almost caressed by the three ladies, Their good-natured enthusiasm was at any rate better than the satire of Bunce, or the wisdom of Mrs. Low. Lady Laura had no misgivings as to Phineas being fit for governing, and Violet Effingham said nothing as to the short-lived tenure of ministers. Madame Max Goesler, though she had asked an indiscreet question, thoroughly appreciated the advantage of Government pay, and the prestige of Government power. "You are a lord now," she said, speaking, as was customary with her, with the slightest possible foreign accent, "and you will be a president soon, and then perhaps a secretary. The order of promotion seems odd, but I am told it is very pleasant." "It is pleasant to succeed, of course," said Phineas, "let the success be ever so little." "We knew you would succeed," said Lady Laura. "We were quite sure of it. Were we not, Violet?" "You always said so, my dear. For myself I do not venture to have an opinion on such matters. Will you always have to go to that big building in the corner, Mr. Finn, and stay there from ten till four? Won't that be a bore?" "We have a half-holiday on Saturday, you know," said Phineas. "And do the Lords of the Treasury have to take care of the money?" asked Madame Max Goesler. "Only their own; and they generally fail in doing that," said Phineas. He sat there for a considerable time, wondering whether Mr. Kennedy would come in, and wondering also as to what Mr. Kennedy would say to Madame Max Goesler when he did come in. He knew that it was useless for him to expect any opportunity, then or there, of being alone for a moment with Violet Effingham. His only chance in that direction would be in some crowded room, at some ball at which he might ask her to dance with him; but it seemed that fate was very unkind to him, and that no such chance came in his way. Mr. Kennedy did not appear, and Madame Max Goesler with Violet went away, leaving Phineas still sitting with Lady Laura. Each of them said a kind word to him as they went. "I don't know whether I may dare to expect that a Lord of the Treasury will come and see me?" said Madame Max Goesler. Then Phineas made a second promise that he would call in Park Lane. Violet blushed as she remembered that she could not ask him to call at Lady Baldock's. "Good-bye, Mr. Finn," she said, giving him her hand. "I'm so very glad that they have chosen you; and I do hope that, as Madame Max says, they'll make you a secretary and a president, and everything else very quickly,--till it will come to your turn to be making other people." "He is very nice," said Madame Goesler to Violet as she took her place in the carriage. "He bears being petted and spoilt without being either awkward or conceited." "On the whole, he is rather nice," said Violet; "only he has not got a shilling in the world, and has to make himself before he will be anybody." "He must marry money, of course," said Madame Max Goesler. "I hope you are contented?" said Lady Laura, rising from her chair and coming opposite to him as soon as they were alone. "Of course I am contented." "I was not,--when I first heard of it. Why did they promote that empty-headed countryman of yours to a place for which he was quite unfit? I was not contented. But then I am more ambitious for you than you are for yourself." He sat without answering her for awhile, and she stood waiting for his reply. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked. "I do not know what to say. When I think of it all, I am lost in amazement. You tell me that you are not contented;--that you are ambitious for me. Why is it that you should feel any interest in the matter?" "Is it not reasonable that we should be interested for our friends?" "But when you and I last parted here in this room you were hardly my friend." "Was I not? You wrong me there;--very deeply." "I told you what was my ambition, and you resented it," said Phineas. "I think I said that I could not help you, and I think I said also that I thought you would fail. I do not know that I showed much resentment. You see, I told her that you were here, that she might come and meet you. You know that I wished my brother should succeed. I wished it before I ever knew you. You cannot expect that I should change my wishes." "But if he cannot succeed," pleaded Phineas. "Who is to say that? Has a woman never been won by devotion and perseverance? Besides, how can I wish to see you go on with a suit which must sever you from my father, and injure your political prospects;--perhaps fatally injure them? It seems to me now that my father is almost the only man in London who has not heard of this duel." "Of course he will hear of it. I have half made up my mind to tell him myself." "Do not do that, Mr. Finn. There can be no reason for it. But I did not ask you to come here to-day to talk to you about Oswald or Violet. I have given you my advice about that, and I can do no more." "Lady Laura, I cannot take it. It is out of my power to take it." "Very well. The matter shall be what you members of Parliament call an open question between us. When papa asked you to accept this place at the Treasury, did it ever occur to you to refuse it?" "It did;--for half an hour or so." "I hoped you would,--and yet I knew that I was wrong. I thought that you should count yourself to be worth more than that, and that you should, as it were, assert yourself. But then it is so difficult to draw the line between proper self-assertion and proper self-denial;--to know how high to go up the table, and how low to go down. I do not doubt that you have been right,--only make them understand that you are not as other junior lords;--that you have been willing to be a junior lord, or anything else for a purpose; but that the purpose is something higher than that of fetching and carrying in Parliament for Mr. Mildmay and Mr. Palliser." "I hope in time to get beyond fetching and carrying," said Phineas. "Of course you will; and knowing that, I am glad that you are in office. I suppose there will be no difficulty about Loughton." Then Phineas laughed. "I hear," said he, "that Mr. Quintus Slide, of the _People's Banner_, has already gone down to canvass the electors." "Mr. Quintus Slide! To canvass the electors of Loughton!" and Lady Laura drew herself up and spoke of this unseemly intrusion on her father's borough, as though the vulgar man who had been named had forced his way into the very drawing-room in Portman Square. At that moment Mr. Kennedy came in. "Do you hear what Mr. Finn tells me?" she said. "He has heard that Mr. Quintus Slide has gone down to Loughton to stand against him." "And why not?" said Mr. Kennedy. "My dear!" ejaculated Lady Laura. "Mr. Quintus Slide will no doubt lose his time and his money;--but he will gain the prestige of having stood for a borough, which will be something for him on the staff of the _People's Banner_," said Mr. Kennedy. "He will get that horrid man Vellum to propose him," said Lady Laura. "Very likely," said Mr. Kennedy. "And the less any of us say about it the better. Finn, my dear fellow, I congratulate you heartily. Nothing for a long time has given me greater pleasure than hearing of your appointment. It is equally honourable to yourself and to Mr. Mildmay. It is a great step to have gained so early." Phineas, as he thanked his friend, could not help asking himself what his friend had done to be made a Cabinet Minister. Little as he, Phineas, himself had done in the House in his two sessions and a half, Mr. Kennedy had hardly done more in his fifteen or twenty. But then Mr. Kennedy was possessed of almost miraculous wealth, and owned half a county, whereas he, Phineas, owned almost nothing at all. Of course no Prime Minister would offer a junior lordship at the Treasury to a man with £30,000 a year. Soon after this Phineas took his leave. "I think he will do well," said Mr. Kennedy to his wife. "I am sure he will do well," replied Lady Laura, almost scornfully. "He is not quite such a black swan with me as he is with you; but still I think he will succeed, if he takes care of himself. It is astonishing how that absurd story of his duel with Chiltern has got about." "It is impossible to prevent people talking," said Lady Laura. "I suppose there was some quarrel, though neither of them will tell you. They say it was about Miss Effingham. I should hardly think that Finn could have any hopes in that direction." "Why should he not have hopes?" "Because he has neither position, nor money, nor birth," said Mr. Kennedy. "He is a gentleman." said Lady Laura; "and I think he has position. I do not see why he should not ask any girl to marry him." "There is no understanding you, Laura," said Mr. Kennedy, angrily. "I thought you had quite other hopes about Miss Effingham." "So I have; but that has nothing to do with it. You spoke of Mr. Finn as though he would be guilty of some crime were he to ask Violet Effingham to be his wife. In that I disagree with you. Mr. Finn is--" "You will make me sick of the name of Mr. Finn." "I am sorry that I offend you by my gratitude to a man who saved your life." Mr. Kennedy shook his head. He knew that the argument used against him was false, but he did not know how to show that he knew that it was false. "Perhaps I had better not mention his name any more," continued Lady Laura. "Nonsense!" "I quite agree with you that it is nonsense, Robert." "All I mean to say is, that if you go on as you do, you will turn his head and spoil him. Do you think I do not know what is going on among you?" "And what is going on among us,--as you call it?" "You are taking this young man up and putting him on a pedestal and worshipping him, just because he is well-looking, and rather clever and decently behaved. It's always the way with women who have nothing to do, and who cannot be made to understand that they should have duties. They cannot live without some kind of idolatry." "Have I neglected my duty to you, Robert?" "Yes,--you know you have;--in going to those receptions at your father's house on Sundays." "What has that to do with Mr. Finn?" "Psha!" "I begin to think I had better tell Mr. Finn not to come here any more, since his presence is disagreeable to you. All the world knows how great is the service he did you, and it will seem to be very ridiculous. People will say all manner of things; but anything will be better than that you should go on as you have done,--accusing your wife of idolatry towards--a young man, because--he is--well-looking." "I never said anything of the kind." "You did, Robert." "I did not. I did not speak more of you than of a lot of others." "You accused me personally, saying that because of my idolatry I had neglected my duty; but really you made such a jumble of it all, with papa's visitors, and Sunday afternoons, that I cannot follow what was in your mind." Then Mr. Kennedy stood for awhile, collecting his thoughts, so that he might unravel the jumble, if that were possible to him; but finding that it was not possible, he left the room, and closed the door behind him. Then Lady Laura was left alone to consider the nature of the accusation which her husband had brought against her; or the nature rather of the accusation which she had chosen to assert that her husband had implied. For in her heart she knew that he had made no such accusation, and had intended to make none such. The idolatry of which he had spoken was the idolatry which a woman might show to her cat, her dog, her picture, her china, her furniture, her carriage and horses, or her pet maid-servant. Such was the idolatry of which Mr. Kennedy had spoken;--but was there no other worship in her heart, worse, more pernicious than that, in reference to this young man? She had schooled herself about him very severely, and had come to various resolutions. She had found out and confessed to herself that she did not, and could not, love her husband. She had found out and confessed to herself that she did love, and could not help loving, Phineas Finn. Then she had resolved to banish him from her presence, and had gone the length of telling him so. After that she had perceived that she had been wrong, and had determined to meet him as she met other men,--and to conquer her love. Then, when this could not be done, when something almost like idolatry grew upon her, she determined that it should be the idolatry of friendship, that she would not sin even in thought, that there should be nothing in her heart of which she need be ashamed;--but that the one great object and purport of her life should be the promotion of this friend's welfare. She had just begun to love after this fashion, had taught herself to believe that she might combine something of the pleasure of idolatry towards her friend with a full complement of duty towards her husband, when Phineas came to her with his tale of love for Violet Effingham. The lesson which she got then was a very rough one,--so hard that at first she could not bear it. Her anger at his love for her brother's wished-for bride was lost in her dismay that Phineas should love any one after having once loved her. But by sheer force of mind she had conquered that dismay, that feeling of desolation at her heart, and had almost taught herself to hope that Phineas might succeed with Violet. He wished it,--and why should he not have what he wished,--he, whom she so fondly idolised? It was not his fault that he and she were not man and wife. She had chosen to arrange it otherwise, and was she not bound to assist him now in the present object of his reasonable wishes? She had got over in her heart that difficulty about her brother, but she could not quite conquer the other difficulty. She could not bring herself to plead his cause with Violet. She had not brought herself as yet to do it. And now she was accused of idolatry for Phineas by her husband,--she with "a lot of others," in which lot Violet was of course included. Would it not be better that they two should be brought together? Would not her friend's husband still be her friend? Would she not then forget to love him? Would she not then be safer than she was now? As she sat alone struggling with her difficulties, she had not as yet forgotten to love him,--nor was she as yet safe. CHAPTER XLV Miss Effingham's Four Lovers One morning early in June Lady Laura called at Lady Baldock's house and asked for Miss Effingham. The servant was showing her into the large drawing-room, when she again asked specially for Miss Effingham. "I think Miss Effingham is there," said the man, opening the door. Miss Effingham was not there. Lady Baldock was sitting all alone, and Lady Laura perceived that she had been caught in the net which she specially wished to avoid. Now Lady Baldock had not actually or openly quarrelled with Lady Laura Kennedy or with Lord Brentford, but she had conceived a strong idea that her niece Violet was countenanced in all improprieties by the Standish family generally, and that therefore the Standish family was to be regarded as a family of enemies. There was doubtless in her mind considerable confusion on the subject, for she did not know whether Lord Chiltern or Mr. Finn was the suitor whom she most feared,--and she was aware, after a sort of muddled fashion, that the claims of these two wicked young men were antagonistic to each other. But they were both regarded by her as emanations from the same source of iniquity, and, therefore, without going deeply into the machinations of Lady Laura,--without resolving whether Lady Laura was injuring her by pressing her brother as a suitor upon Miss Effingham, or by pressing a rival of her brother,--still she became aware that it was her duty to turn a cold shoulder on those two houses in Portman Square and Grosvenor Place. But her difficulties in doing this were very great, and it may be said that Lady Baldock was placed in an unjust and cruel position. Before the end of May she had proposed to leave London, and to take her daughter and Violet down to Baddingham,--or to Brighton, if they preferred it, or to Switzerland. "Brighton in June!" Violet had exclaimed. "Would not a month among the glaciers be delightful!" Miss Boreham had said. "Don't let me keep you in town, aunt," Violet replied; "but I do not think I shall go till other people go. I can have a room at Laura Kennedy's house." Then Lady Baldock, whose position was hard and cruel, resolved that she would stay in town. Here she had in her hands a ward over whom she had no positive power, and yet in respect to whom her duty was imperative! Her duty was imperative, and Lady Baldock was not the woman to neglect her duty;--and yet she knew that the doing of her duty would all be in vain. Violet would marry a shoe-black out of the streets if she were so minded. It was of no use that the poor lady had provided herself with two strings, two most excellent strings, to her bow,--two strings either one of which should have contented Miss Effingham. There was Lord Fawn, a young peer, not very rich indeed,--but still with means sufficient for a wife, a rising man, and in every way respectable, although a Whig. And there was Mr. Appledom, one of the richest commoners in England, a fine Conservative too, with a seat in the House, and everything appropriate. He was fifty, but looked hardly more than thirty-five, and was,--so at least Lady Baldock frequently asserted,--violently in love with Violet Effingham. Why had not the law, or the executors, or the Lord Chancellor, or some power levied for the protection of the proprieties, made Violet absolutely subject to her guardian till she should be made subject to a husband? "Yes, I think she is at home," said Lady Baldock, in answer to Lady Laura's inquiry for Violet. "At least, I hardly know. She seldom tells me what she means to do,--and sometimes she will walk out quite alone!" A most imprudent old woman was Lady Baldock, always opening her hand to her adversaries, unable to control herself in the scolding of people, either before their faces or behind their backs, even at moments in which such scolding was most injurious to her own cause. "However, we will see," she continued. Then the bell was rung, and in a few minutes Violet was in the room. In a few minutes more they were up-stairs together in Violet's own room, in spite of the openly-displayed wrath of Lady Baldock. "I almost wish she had never been born," said Lady Baldock to her daughter. "Oh, mamma, don't say that." "I certainly do wish that I had never seen her." "Indeed she has been a grievous trouble to you, mamma," said Miss Boreham, sympathetically. "Brighton! What nonsense!" said Lady Laura. "Of course it's nonsense. Fancy going to Brighton! And then they have proposed Switzerland. If you could only hear Augusta talking in rapture of a month among the glaciers! And I feel so ungrateful. I believe they would spend three months with me at any horrible place that I could suggest,--at Hong Kong if I were to ask it,--so intent are they on taking me away from metropolitan danger." "But you will not go?" "No!--I won't go. I know I am very naughty; but I can't help feeling that I cannot be good without being a fool at the same time. I must either fight my aunt, or give way to her. If I were to yield, what a life I should have;--and I should despise myself after all." "And what is the special danger to be feared now?" "I don't know;--you, I fancy. I told her that if she went, I should go to you. I knew that would make her stay." "I wish you would come to me," said Lady Laura. "I shouldn't think of it really,--not for any length of time." "Why not?" "Because I should be in Mr. Kennedy's way." "You wouldn't be in his way in the least. If you would only be down punctually for morning prayers, and go to church with him on Sunday afternoon, he would be delighted to have you." "What did he say about Madame Max coming?" "Not a word. I don't think he quite knew who she was then. I fancy he has inquired since, by something he said yesterday." "What did he say?" "Nothing that matters;--only a word. I haven't come here to talk about Madame Max Goesler,--nor yet about Mr. Kennedy." "Whom have you come to talk about?" asked Violet, laughing a little, with something of increased colour in her cheeks, though she could not be said to blush. "A lover of course," said Lady Laura. "I wish you would leave me alone with my lovers. You are as bad or worse than my aunt. She, at any rate, varies her prescription. She has become sick of poor Lord Fawn because he's a Whig." "And who is her favourite now?" "Old Mr. Appledom,--who is really a most unexceptionable old party, and whom I like of all things. I really think I could consent to be Mrs. Appledom, to get rid of my troubles,--if he did not dye his whiskers and have his coats padded." "He'd give up those little things if you asked him." "I shouldn't have the heart to do it. Besides, this isn't his time of the year for making proposals. His love fever, which is of a very low kind, and intermits annually, never comes on till the autumn. It is a rural malady, against which he is proof while among his clubs!" "Well, Violet,--I am like your aunt." "Like Lady Baldock?" "In one respect. I, too, will vary my prescription." "What do you mean, Laura?" "Just this,--that if you like to marry Phineas Finn, I will say that you are right." "Heaven and earth! And why am I to marry Phineas Finn?" "Only for two reasons; because he loves you, and because--" "No,--I deny it. I do not." "I had come to fancy that you did." "Keep your fancy more under control then. But upon my word I can't understand this. He was your great friend." "What has that to do with it?" demanded Lady Laura. "And you have thrown over your brother, Laura?" "You have thrown him over. Is he to go on for ever asking and being refused?" "I do not know why he should not," said Violet, "seeing how very little trouble it gives him. Half an hour once in six months does it all for him, allowing him time for coming and going in a cab." "Violet, I do not understand you. Have you refused Oswald so often because he does not pass hours on his knees before you?" "No, indeed! His nature would be altered very much for the worse before he could do that." "Why do you throw it in his teeth then that he does not give you more of his time?" "Why have you come to tell me to marry Mr. Phineas Finn? That is what I want to know. Mr. Phineas Finn, as far as I am aware, has not a shilling in the world,--except a month's salary now due to him from the Government. Mr. Phineas Finn I believe to be the son of a country doctor in Ireland,--with about seven sisters. Mr. Phineas Finn is a Roman Catholic. Mr. Phineas Finn is,--or was a short time ago,--in love with another lady; and Mr. Phineas Finn is not so much in love at this moment but what he is able to intrust his cause to an ambassador. None short of a royal suitor should ever do that with success." "Has he never pleaded his cause to you himself?" "My dear, I never tell gentlemen's secrets. It seems that if he has, his success was so trifling that he has thought he had better trust some one else for the future." "He has not trusted me. He has not given me any commission." "Then why have you come?" "Because,--I hardly know how to tell his story. There have been things about Oswald which made it almost necessary that Mr. Finn should explain himself to me." "I know it all;--about their fighting. Foolish young men! I am not a bit obliged to either of them,--not a bit. Only fancy, if my aunt knew it, what a life she would lead me! Gustavus knows all about it, and I feel that I am living at his mercy. Why were they so wrong-headed?" "I cannot answer that,--though I know them well enough to be sure that Chiltern was the one in fault." "It is so odd that you should have thrown your brother over." "I have not thrown my brother over. Will you accept Oswald if he asks you again?" "No," almost shouted Violet. "Then I hope that Mr. Finn may succeed. I want him to succeed in everything. There;--you may know it all. He is my Phoebus Apollo." "That is flattering to me,--looking at the position in which you desire to place your Phoebus at the present moment." "Come, Violet, I am true to you, and let me have a little truth from you. This man loves you, and I think is worthy of you. He does not love me, but he is my friend. As his friend, and believing in his worth, I wish for his success beyond almost anything else in the world. Listen to me, Violet. I don't believe in those reasons which you gave me just now for not becoming this man's wife." "Nor do I." "I know you do not. Look at me. I, who have less of real heart than you, I who thought that I could trust myself to satisfy my mind and my ambition without caring for my heart, I have married for what you call position. My husband is very rich, and a Cabinet Minister, and will probably be a peer. And he was willing to marry me at a time when I had not a shilling of my own." "He was very generous." "He has asked for it since," said Lady Laura. "But never mind. I have not come to talk about myself;--otherwise than to bid you not do what I have done. All that you have said about this man's want of money and of family is nothing." "Nothing at all," said Violet. "Mere words,--fit only for such people as my aunt." "Well then?" "Well?" "If you love him--!" "Ah! but if I do not? You are very close in inquiring into my secrets. Tell me, Laura;--was not this young Crichton once a lover of your own?" "Psha! And do you think I cannot keep a gentleman's secret as well as you?" "What is the good of any secret, Laura, when we have been already so open? He tried his 'prentice hand on you; and then he came to me. Let us watch him, and see who'll be the third. I too like him well enough to hope that he'll land himself safely at last." CHAPTER XLVI The Mousetrap Phineas had certainly no desire to make love by an ambassador,--at second-hand. He had given no commission to Lady Laura, and was, as the reader is aware, quite ignorant of what was being done and said on his behalf. He had asked no more from Lady Laura than an opportunity of speaking for himself, and that he had asked almost with a conviction that by so asking he would turn his friend into an enemy. He had read but little of the workings of Lady Laura's heart towards himself, and had no idea of the assistance she was anxious to give him. She had never told him that she was willing to sacrifice her brother on his behalf, and, of course, had not told him that she was willing also to sacrifice herself. Nor, when she wrote to him one June morning and told him that Violet would be found in Portman Square, alone, that afternoon,--naming an hour, and explaining that Miss Effingham would be there to meet herself and her father, but that at such an hour she would be certainly alone,--did he even then know how much she was prepared to do for him. The short note was signed "L.," and then there came a long postscript. "Ask for me," she said in a postscript. "I shall be there later, and I have told them to bid you wait. I can give you no hope of success, but if you choose to try,--you can do so. If you do not come, I shall know that you have changed your mind. I shall not think the worse of you, and your secret will be safe with me. I do that which you have asked me to do,--simply because you have asked it. Burn this at once,--because I ask it." Phineas destroyed the note, tearing it into atoms, the moment that he had read it and re-read it. Of course he would go to Portman Square at the hour named. Of course he would take his chance. He was not buoyed up by much of hope;--but even though there were no hope, he would take his chance. When Lord Brentford had first told Phineas of his promotion, he had also asked the new Lord of the Treasury to make a certain communication on his behalf to his son. This Phineas had found himself obliged to promise to do;--and he had done it. The letter had been difficult enough to write,--but he had written it. After having made the promise, he had found himself bound to keep it. "Dear Lord Chiltern," he had commenced, "I will not think that there was anything in our late encounter to prevent my so addressing you. I now write at the instance of your father, who has heard nothing of our little affair." Then he explained at length Lord Brentford's wishes as he understood them. "Pray come home," he said, finishing his letter. "Touching V. E., I feel that I am bound to tell you that I still mean to try my fortune, but that I have no ground for hoping that my fortune will be good. Since the day on the sands, I have never met her but in society. I know you will be glad to hear that my wound was nothing; and I think you will be glad to hear that I have got my foot on to the ladder of promotion.--Yours always, "PHINEAS FINN." Now he had to try his fortune,--that fortune of which he had told Lord Chiltern that he had no reason for hoping that it would be good. He went direct from his office at the Treasury to Portman Square, resolving that he would take no trouble as to his dress, simply washing his hands and brushing his hair as though he were going down to the House, and he knocked at the Earl's door exactly at the hour named by Lady Laura. "Miss Effingham," he said, "I am so glad to find you alone." "Yes," she said, laughing. "I am alone,--a poor unprotected female. But I fear nothing. I have strong reason for believing that Lord Brentford is somewhere about. And Pomfret the butler, who has known me since I was a baby, is a host in himself." "With such allies you can have nothing to fear," he replied, attempting to carry on her little jest. "Nor even without them, Mr. Finn. We unprotected females in these days are so self-reliant that our natural protectors fall off from us, finding themselves to be no longer wanted. Now with you,--what can I fear?" "Nothing,--as I hope." "There used to be a time, and that not so long ago either, when young gentlemen and ladies were thought to be very dangerous to each other if they were left alone. But propriety is less rampant now, and upon the whole virtue and morals, with discretion and all that kind of thing, have been the gainers. Don't you think so?" "I am sure of it." "All the same, but I don't like to be caught in a trap, Mr. Finn." "In a trap?" "Yes;--in a trap. Is there no trap here? If you will say so, I will acknowledge myself to be a dolt, and will beg your pardon." "I hardly know what you call a trap." "You were told that I was here?" He paused a moment before he replied. "Yes, I was told." "I call that a trap." "Am I to blame?" "I don't say that you set it,--but you use it." "Miss Effingham, of course I have used it. You must know,--I think you must know that I have that to say to you which has made me long for such an opportunity as this." "And therefore you have called in the assistance of your friend." "It is true." "In such matters you should never talk to any one, Mr. Finn. If you cannot fight your own battle, no one can fight it for you." "Miss Effingham, do you remember our ride at Saulsby?" "Very well;--as if it were yesterday." "And do you remember that I asked you a question which you have never answered?" "I did answer it,--as well as I knew how, so that I might tell you a truth without hurting you." "It was necessary,--is necessary that I should be hurt sorely, or made perfectly happy. Violet Effingham, I have come to you to ask you to be my wife;--to tell you that I love you, and to ask for your love in return. Whatever may be my fate, the question must be asked, and an answer must be given. I have not hoped that you should tell me that you loved me--" "For what then have you hoped?" "For not much, indeed;--but if for anything, then for some chance that you might tell me so hereafter." "If I loved you, I would tell you so now,--instantly. I give you my word of that." "Can you never love me?" "What is a woman to answer to such a question? No;--I believe never. I do not think I shall ever wish you to be my husband. You ask me to be plain, and I must be plain." "Is it because--?" He paused, hardly knowing what the question was which he proposed to himself to ask. "It is for no because,--for no cause except that simple one which should make any girl refuse any man whom she did not love. Mr. Finn, I could say pleasant things to you on any other subject than this,--because I like you." "I know that I have nothing to justify my suit." "You have everything to justify it;--at least I am bound to presume that you have. If you love me,--you are justified." "You know that I love you." "I am sorry that it should ever have been so,--very sorry. I can only hope that I have not been in fault." "Will you try to love me?" "No;--why should I try? If any trying were necessary, I would try rather not to love you. Why should I try to do that which would displease everybody belonging to me? For yourself, I admit your right to address me,--and tell you frankly that it would not be in vain, if I loved you. But I tell you as frankly that such a marriage would not please those whom I am bound to try to please." He paused a moment before he spoke further. "I shall wait," he said, "and come again." "What am I to say to that? Do not tease me, so that I be driven to treat you with lack of courtesy. Lady Laura is so much attached to you, and Mr. Kennedy, and Lord Brentford,--and indeed I may say, I myself also, that I trust there may be nothing to mar our good fellowship. Come, Mr. Finn,--say that you will take an answer, and I will give you my hand." "Give it me," said he. She gave him her hand, and he put it up to his lips and pressed it. "I will wait and come again," he said. "I will assuredly come again." Then he turned from her and went out of the house. At the corner of the square he saw Lady Laura's carriage, but did not stop to speak to her. And she also saw him. "So you have had a visitor here," said Lady Laura to Violet. "Yes;--I have been caught in the trap." "Poor mouse! And has the cat made a meal of you?" "I fancy he has, after his fashion. There be cats that eat their mice without playing,--and cats that play with their mice, and then eat them; and cats again which only play with their mice, and don't care to eat them. Mr. Finn is a cat of the latter kind, and has had his afternoon's diversion." "You wrong him there." "I think not, Laura. I do not mean to say that he would not have liked me to accept him. But, if I can see inside his bosom, such a little job as that he has now done will be looked back upon as one of the past pleasures of his life;--not as a pain." CHAPTER XLVII Mr. Mildmay's Bill It will be necessary that we should go back in our story for a very short period in order that the reader may be told that Phineas Finn was duly re-elected at Loughton after his appointment at the Treasury Board. There was some little trouble at Loughton, and something more of expense than he had before encountered. Mr. Quintus Slide absolutely came down, and was proposed by Mr. Vellum for the borough. Mr. Vellum being a gentleman learned in the law, and hostile to the interests of the noble owner of Saulsby, was able to raise a little trouble against our hero. Mr. Slide was proposed by Mr. Vellum, and seconded by Mr. Vellum's clerk,--though, as it afterwards appeared, Mr. Vellum's clerk was not in truth an elector,--and went to the poll like a man. He received three votes, and at twelve o'clock withdrew. This in itself could hardly have afforded compensation for the expense which Mr. Slide or his backers must have encountered;--but he had an opportunity of making a speech, every word of which was reported in the _People's Banner_; and if the speech was made in the language given in the report, Mr. Slide was really possessed of some oratorical power. Most of those who read the speech in the columns of the _People's Banner_ were probably not aware how favourable an opportunity of retouching his sentences in type had been given to Mr. Slide by the fact of his connection with the newspaper. The speech had been very severe upon our hero; and though the speaker had been so hooted and pelted at Loughton as to have been altogether inaudible,--so maltreated that in point of fact he had not been able to speak above a tenth part of his speech at all,--nevertheless the speech did give Phineas a certain amount of pain. Why Phineas should have read it who can tell? But who is there that abstains from reading that which is printed in abuse of himself? In the speech as it was printed Mr. Slide declared that he had no thought of being returned for the borough. He knew too well how the borough was managed, what slaves the electors were;--how they groaned under a tyranny from which hitherto they had been unable to release themselves. Of course the Earl's nominee, his lacquey, as the honourable gentleman might be called, would be returned. The Earl could order them to return whichever of his lacqueys he pleased.--There is something peculiarly pleasing to the democratic ear in the word lacquey! Any one serving a big man, whatever the service may be, is the big man's lacquey in the _People's Banner_.--The speech throughout was very bitter. Mr. Phineas Finn, who had previously served in Parliament as the lacquey of an Irish earl, and had been turned off by him, had now fallen into the service of the English earl, and was the lacquey chosen for the present occasion. But he, Quintus Slide, who boasted himself to be a man of the people,--he could tell them that the days of their thraldom were coming to an end, and that their enfranchisement was near at hand. That friend of the people, Mr. Turnbull, had a clause in his breeches-pocket which he would either force down the unwilling throat of Mr. Mildmay, or else drive the imbecile Premier from office by carrying it in his teeth. Loughton, as Loughton, must be destroyed, but it should be born again in a better birth as a part of a real electoral district, sending a real member, chosen by a real constituency, to a real Parliament. In those days,--and they would come soon,--Mr. Quintus Slide rather thought that Mr. Phineas Finn would be found "nowhere," and he rather thought also that when he showed himself again, as he certainly should do, in the midst of that democratic electoral district as the popular candidate for the honour of representing it in Parliament, that democratic electoral district would accord to him a reception very different from that which he was now receiving from the Earl's lacqueys in the parliamentary village of Loughton. A prettier bit of fiction than these sentences as composing a part of any speech delivered, or proposed to be delivered, at Loughton, Phineas thought he had never seen. And when he read at the close of the speech that though the Earl's hired bullies did their worst, the remarks of Mr. Slide were received by the people with reiterated cheering, he threw himself back in his chair at the Treasury and roared. The poor fellow had been three minutes on his legs, had received three rotten eggs, and one dead dog, and had retired. But not the half of the speech as printed in the _People's Banner_ has been quoted. The sins of Phineas, who in spite of his inability to open his mouth in public had been made a Treasury hack by the aristocratic influence,--"by aristocratic influence not confined to the male sex,"--were described at great length, and in such language that Phineas for a while was fool enough to think that it would be his duty to belabour Mr. Slide with a horsewhip. This notion, however, did not endure long with him, and when Mr. Monk told him that things of that kind came as a matter of course, he was comforted. But he found it much more difficult to obtain comfort when he weighed the arguments brought forward against the abominations of such a borough as that for which he sat, and reflected that if Mr. Turnbull brought forward his clause, he, Phineas Finn, would be bound to vote against the clause, knowing the clause to be right, because he was a servant of the Government. The arguments, even though they appeared in the _People's Banner_, were true arguments; and he had on one occasion admitted their truth to his friend Lady Laura,--in the presence of that great Cabinet Minister, her husband. "What business has such a man as that down there? Is there a single creature who wants him?" Lady Laura had said. "I don't suppose anybody does want Mr. Quintus Slide," Phineas had replied; "but I am disposed to think the electors should choose the man they do want, and that at present they have no choice left to them." "They are quite satisfied," said Lady Laura, angrily. "Then, Lady Laura," continued Phineas, "that alone should be sufficient to prove that their privilege of returning a member to Parliament is too much for them. We can't defend it." "It is defended by tradition," said Mr. Kennedy. "And by its great utility," said Lady Laura, bowing to the young member who was present, and forgetting that very useless old gentleman, her cousin, who had sat for the borough for many years. "In this country it doesn't do to go too fast," said Mr. Kennedy. "And then the mixture of vulgarity, falsehood, and pretence!" said Lady Laura, shuddering as her mind recurred to the fact that Mr. Quintus Slide had contaminated Loughton by his presence. "I am told that they hardly let him leave the place alive." Whatever Mr. Kennedy and Lady Laura might think about Loughton and the general question of small boroughs, it was found by the Government, to their great cost, that Mr. Turnbull's clause was a reality. After two months of hard work, all questions of franchise had been settled, rating and renting, new and newfangled, fancy franchises and those which no one fancied, franchises for boroughs and franchises for counties, franchises single, dual, three-cornered, and four-sided,--by various clauses to which the Committee of the whole House had agreed after some score of divisions,--the matter of the franchise had been settled. No doubt there was the House of Lords, and there might yet be shipwreck. But it was generally believed that the Lords would hardly look at the bill,--that they would not even venture on an amendment. The Lords would only be too happy to let the matter be settled by the Commons themselves. But then, after the franchise, came redistribution. How sick of the subject were all members of the Government, no one could tell who did not see their weary faces. The whole House was sick, having been whipped into various lobbies, night after night, during the heat of the summer, for weeks past. Redistribution! Why should there be any redistribution? They had got, or would get, a beautiful franchise. Could they not see what that would do for them? Why redistribute anything? But, alas, it was too late to go back to so blessed an idea as that! Redistribution they must have. But there should be as little redistribution as possible. Men were sick of it all, and would not be exigeant. Something should be done for overgrown counties;--something for new towns which had prospered in brick and mortar. It would be easy to crush up a peccant borough or two,--a borough that had been discovered in its sin. And a few boroughs now blessed with two members might consent to be blessed only with one. Fifteen small clauses might settle the redistribution, in spite of Mr. Turnbull,--if only Mr. Daubeny would be good-natured. Neither the weather, which was very hot, nor the tedium of the session, which had been very great, nor the anxiety of Ministers, which was very pressing, had any effect in impairing the energy of Mr. Turnbull. He was as instant, as oratorical, as hostile, as indignant about redistribution as he had been about the franchise. He had been sure then, and he was sure now, that Ministers desired to burke the question, to deceive the people, to produce a bill that should be no bill. He brought out his clause,--and made Loughton his instance. "Would the honourable gentleman who sat lowest on the Treasury bench,--who at this moment was in sweet confidential intercourse with the right honourable gentleman now President of the Board of Trade, who had once been a friend of the people,--would the young Lord of the Treasury get up in his place and tell them that no peer of Parliament had at present a voice in sending a member to their House of Commons,--that no peer would have a voice if this bill, as proposed by the Government, were passed in its present useless, ineffectual, conservative, and most dishonest form?" Phineas, who replied to this, and who told Mr. Turnbull that he himself could not answer for any peers,--but that he thought it probable that most peers would, by their opinions, somewhat influence the opinions of some electors,--was thought to have got out of his difficulty very well. But there was the clause of Mr. Turnbull to be dealt with,--a clause directly disfranchising seven single-winged boroughs, of which Loughton was of course one,--a clause to which the Government must either submit or object. Submission would be certain defeat in one way, and objection would be as certain defeat in another,--if the gentlemen on the other side were not disposed to assist the ministers. It was said that the Cabinet was divided. Mr. Gresham and Mr. Monk were for letting the seven boroughs go. Mr. Mildmay could not bring himself to obey Mr. Turnbull, and Mr. Palliser supported him. When Mr. Mildmay was told that Mr. Daubeny would certainly go into the same lobby with Mr. Turnbull respecting the seven boroughs, he was reported to have said that in that case Mr. Daubeny must be prepared with a Government. Mr. Daubeny made a beautiful speech about the seven boroughs;--the seven sins, and seven stars, and seven churches, and seven lamps. He would make no party question of this. Gentlemen who usually acted with him would vote as their own sense of right or wrong directed them;--from which expression of a special sanction it was considered that these gentlemen were not accustomed to exercise the privilege now accorded to them. But in regarding the question as one of right and wrong, and in looking at what he believed to be both the wish of the country and its interests, he, Mr. Daubeny,--he, himself, being simply a humble member of that House,--must support the clause of the honourable gentleman. Almost all those to whom had been surrendered the privilege of using their own judgment for that occasion only, used it discreetly,--as their chief had used it himself,--and Mr. Turnbull carried his clause by a majority of fifteen. It was then 3 a.m., and Mr. Gresham, rising after the division, said that his right honourable friend the First Lord of the Treasury was too tired to return to the House, and had requested him to state that the Government would declare their purpose at 6 p.m. on the following evening. Phineas, though he had made his little speech in answer to Mr. Turnbull with good-humoured flippancy, had recorded his vote in favour of the seven boroughs with a sore heart. Much as he disliked Mr. Turnbull, he knew that Mr. Turnbull was right in this. He had spoken to Mr. Monk on the subject, as it were asking Mr. Monk's permission to throw up his office, and vote against Mr. Mildmay. But Mr. Monk was angry with him, telling him that his conscience was of that restless, uneasy sort which is neither useful nor manly. "We all know," said Mr. Monk, "and none better than Mr. Mildmay, that we cannot justify such a borough as Loughton by the theory of our parliamentary representation,--any more than we can justify the fact that Huntingdonshire should return as many members as the East Riding. There must be compromises, and you should trust to others who have studied the matter more thoroughly than you, to say how far the compromise should go at the present moment." "It is the influence of the peer, not the paucity of the electors," said Phineas. "And has no peer any influence in a county? Would you disfranchise Westmoreland? Believe me, Finn, if you want to be useful, you must submit yourself in such matters to those with whom you act." Phineas had no answer to make, but he was not happy in his mind. And he was the less happy, perhaps, because he was very sure that Mr. Mildmay would be beaten. Mr. Low in these days harassed him sorely. Mr. Low was very keen against such boroughs as Loughton, declaring that Mr. Daubeny was quite right to join his standard to that of Mr. Turnbull on such an issue. Mr. Low was the reformer now, and Phineas found himself obliged to fight a losing battle on behalf of an acknowledged abuse. He never went near Bunce; but, unfortunately for him, Bunce caught him once in the street and showed him no mercy. "Slide was a little 'eavy on you in the _Banner_ the other day,--eh, Mr. Finn?--too 'eavy, as I told him." "Mr. Slide can be just as heavy as he pleases, Bunce." "That's in course. The press is free, thank God,--as yet. But it wasn't any good rattling away at the Earl's little borough when it's sure to go. Of course it'll go, Mr. Finn." "I think it will." "The whole seven on 'em. The 'ouse couldn't but do it. They tell me it's all Mr. Mildmay's own work, sticking out for keeping on 'em. He's very old, and so we'll forgive him. But he must go, Mr. Finn." "We shall know all about that soon, Bunce." "If you don't get another seat, Mr. Finn, I suppose we shall see you back at the Inn. I hope we may. It's better than being member for Loughton, Mr. Finn;--you may be sure of that." And then Mr. Bunce passed on. Mr. Turnbull carried his clause, and Loughton was doomed. Loughton and the other six deadly sins were anathematized, exorcised, and finally got rid of out of the world by the voices of the gentlemen who had been proclaiming the beauty of such pleasant vices all their lives, and who in their hearts hated all changes that tended towards popular representation. But not the less was Mr. Mildmay beaten; and, in accordance with the promise made by his first lieutenant immediately after the vote was taken, the Prime Minister came forward on the next evening and made his statement. He had already put his resignation into the hands of Her Majesty, and Her Majesty had graciously accepted it. He was very old, and felt that the time had come in which it behoved him to retire into that leisure which he thought he had, perhaps, earned. He had hoped to carry this bill as the last act of his political life; but he was too old, too stiff, as he said, in his prejudices, to bend further than he had bent already, and he must leave the completion of the matter in other hands. Her Majesty had sent for Mr. Gresham, and Mr. Gresham had already seen Her Majesty. Mr. Gresham and his other colleagues, though they dissented from the clause which had been carried by the united efforts of gentlemen opposite to him, and of gentlemen below him on his own side of the House, were younger men than he, and would, for the country's sake,--and for the sake of Her Majesty,--endeavour to carry the bill through. There would then, of course, be a dissolution, and the future Government would, no doubt, depend on the choice of the country. From all which it was understood that Mr. Gresham was to go on with the bill to a conclusion, whatever might be the divisions carried against him, and that a new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs must be chosen. Phineas understood, also, that he had lost his seat at Loughton. For the borough of Loughton there would never again be an election. "If I had been Mr. Mildmay, I would have thrown the bill up altogether," Lord Brentford said afterwards; "but of course it was not for me to interfere." The session was protracted for two months after that,--beyond the time at which grouse should have been shot,--and by the 23rd of August became the law of the land. "I shall never get over it," said Mr. Ratler to Mr. Finn, seated one terribly hot evening on a bench behind the Cabinet Ministers,--"never. I don't suppose such a session for work was ever known before. Think what it is to have to keep men together in August, with the thermometer at 81°, and the river stinking like,--like the very mischief." Mr. Ratler, however, did not die. On the last day of the session Laurence Fitzgibbon resigned. Rumours reached the ears of Phineas as to the cause of this, but no certain cause was told him. It was said that Lord Cantrip had insisted upon it, Laurence having by mischance been called upon for some official statement during an unfortunate period of absence. There was, however, a mystery about it;--but the mystery was not half so wonderful as the triumph to Phineas, when Mr. Gresham offered him the place. "But I shall have no seat," said Phineas. "We shall none of us have seats to-morrow," said Mr. Gresham. "But I shall be at a loss to find a place to stand for." "The election will not come on till November, and you must look about you. Both Mr. Monk and Lord Brentford seem to think you will be in the House." And so the bill was carried, and the session was ended. CHAPTER XLVIII "The Duke" By the middle of September there was assembled a large party at Matching Priory, a country mansion belonging to Mr. Plantagenet Palliser. The men had certainly been chosen in reference to their political feelings and position,--for there was not a guest in the house who had voted for Mr. Turnbull's clause, or the wife or daughter, or sister of any one who had so voted. Indeed, in these days politics ran so high that among politicians all social gatherings were brought together with some reference to the state of parties. Phineas was invited, and when he arrived at Matching he found that half the Cabinet was there. Mr. Kennedy was not there, nor was Lady Laura. Mr. Monk was there, and the Duke,--with the Duchess, and Mr. Gresham, and Lord Thrift; Mrs. Max Goesler was there also, and Mrs. Bonteen,--Mr. Bonteen being detained somewhere out of the way; and Violet Effingham was expected in two days, and Lord Chiltern at the end of the week. Lady Glencora took an opportunity of imparting this latter information to Phineas very soon after his arrival; and Phineas, as he watched her eye and her mouth while she spoke, was quite sure that Lady Glencora knew the story of the duel. "I shall be delighted to see him again," said Phineas. "That is all right," said Lady Glencora. There were also there Mr. and Mrs. Grey, who were great friends of the Pallisers,--and on the very day on which Phineas reached Matching, at half an hour before the time for dressing, the Duke of Omnium arrived. Now, Mr. Palliser was the Duke's nephew and heir,--and the Duke of Omnium was a very great person indeed. I hardly know why it should have been so, but the Duke of Omnium was certainly a greater man in public estimation than the other duke then present,--the Duke of St. Bungay. The Duke of St. Bungay was a useful man, and had been so all his life, sitting in Cabinets and serving his country, constant as any peer in the House of Lords, always ready to take on his own shoulders any troublesome work required of him, than whom Mr. Mildmay, and Mr. Mildmay's predecessor at the head of the liberal party, had had no more devoted adherent. But the Duke of Omnium had never yet done a day's work on behalf of his country. They both wore the Garter, the Duke of St. Bungay having earned it by service, the Duke of Omnium having been decorated with the blue ribbon,--because he was Duke of Omnium. The one was a moral, good man, a good husband, a good father, and a good friend. The other,--did not bear quite so high a reputation. But men and women thought but little of the Duke of St. Bungay, while the other duke was regarded with an almost reverential awe. I think the secret lay in the simple fact that the Duke of Omnium had not been common in the eyes of the people. He had contrived to envelope himself in something of the ancient mystery of wealth and rank. Within three minutes of the Duke's arrival Mrs. Bonteen, with an air of great importance, whispered a word to Phineas. "He has come. He arrived exactly at seven!" "Who has come?" Phineas asked. "The Duke of Omnium!" she said, almost reprimanding him by her tone of voice for his indifference. "There has been a great doubt whether or no he would show himself at last. Lady Glencora told me that he never will pledge himself. I am so glad he has come." "I don't think I ever saw him," said Phineas. "Oh, I have seen him,--a magnificent-looking man! I think it is so very nice of Lady Glencora getting him to meet us. It is very rarely that he will join in a great party, but they say Lady Glencora can do anything with him since the heir was born. I suppose you have heard all about that." "No," said Phineas; "I have heard nothing of the heir, but I know that there are three or four babies." "There was no heir, you know, for a year and a half, and they were all au désespoir; and the Duke was very nearly quarrelling with his nephew; and Mr. Palliser--; you know it had very nearly come to a separation." "I don't know anything at all about it," said Phineas, who was not very fond of the lady who was giving him the information. "It is so, I can assure you; but since the boy was born Lady Glencora can do anything with the Duke. She made him go to Ascot last spring, and he presented her with the favourite for one of the races on the very morning the horse ran. They say he gave three thousand pounds for him." "And did Lady Glencora win?" "No;--the horse lost; and Mr. Palliser has never known what to do with him since. But it was very pretty of the Duke;--was it not?" Phineas, though he had intended to show to Mrs. Bonteen how little he thought about the Duke of Omnium,--how small was his respect for a great peer who took no part in politics,--could not protect himself from a certain feeling of anxiety as to the aspect and gait and words of the man of whom people thought so much, of whom he had heard so often, and of whom he had seen so little. He told himself that the Duke of Omnium should be no more to him than any other man, but yet the Duke of Omnium was more to him than other men. When he came down into the drawing-room he was angry with himself, and stood apart;--and was then angry with himself again because he stood apart. Why should he make a difference in his own bearing because there was such a man in the company? And yet he could not avoid it. When he entered the room the Duke was standing in a large bow-window, and two or three ladies and two or three men were standing round him. Phineas would not go near the group, telling himself that he would not approach a man so grand as was the Duke of Omnium. He saw Madame Max Goesler among the party, and after a while he saw her retreat. As she retreated, Phineas knew that some words from Madame Max Goesler had not been received with the graciousness which she had expected. There was the prettiest smile in the world on the lady's face, and she took a corner on a sofa with an air of perfect satisfaction. But yet Phineas knew that she had received a wound. "I called twice on you in London," said Phineas, coming up close to her, "but was not fortunate enough to find you!" "Yes;--but you came so late in the season as to make it impossible that there should be any arrangements for our meeting. What can any woman do when a gentleman calls on her in August?" "I came in July." "Yes, you did; on the 31st. I keep the most accurate record of all such things, Mr. Finn. But let us hope that we may have better luck next year. In the meantime, we can only enjoy the good things that are going." "Socially, or politically, Madame Goesler?" "Oh, socially. How can I mean anything else when the Duke of Omnium is here? I feel so much taller at being in the same house with him. Do not you? But you are a spoilt child of fortune, and perhaps you have met him before." "I think I once saw the back of a hat in the park, and somebody told me that the Duke's head was inside it." "And you have never seen him but that once?" "Never but that once,--till now." "And do not you feel elated?" "Of course I do. For what do you take me, Madame Goesler?" "I do,--immensely. I believe him to be a fool, and I never heard of his doing a kind act to anybody in my life." "Not when he gave the racehorse to Lady Glencora?" "I wonder whether that was true. Did you ever hear of such an absurdity? As I was saying, I don't think he ever did anything for anybody;--but then, you know, to be Duke of Omnium! It isn't necessary,--is it,--that a Duke of Omnium should do anything except be Duke of Omnium?" At this moment Lady Glencora came up to Phineas, and took him across to the Duke. The Duke had expressed a desire to be introduced to him. Phineas, half-pleased and half-disgusted, had no alternative, and followed Lady Glencora. The Duke shook hands with him, and made a little bow, and said something about the garrotters, which Phineas, in his confusion, did not quite understand. He tried to reply as he would have replied to anybody else, but the weight of the Duke's majesty was too much for him, and he bungled. The Duke made another little bow, and in a moment was speaking a word of condescension to some other favoured individual. Phineas retreated altogether disgusted,--hating the Duke, but hating himself worse; but he would not retreat in the direction of Madame Max Goesler. It might suit that lady to take an instant little revenge for her discomfiture, but it did not suit him to do so. The question with him would be, whether in some future part of his career it might not be his duty to assist in putting down Dukes of Omnium. At dinner Phineas sat between Mrs. Bonteen and the Duchess of St. Bungay, and did not find himself very happy. At the other end of the table the Duke,--the great Duke, was seated at Lady Glencora's right hand, and on his other side Fortune had placed Madame Max Goesler. The greatest interest which Phineas had during the dinner was in watching the operations,--the triumphantly successful operations of that lady. Before dinner she had been wounded by the Duke. The Duke had not condescended to accord the honour of his little bow of graciousness to some little flattering morsel of wit which the lady had uttered on his behoof. She had said a sharp word or two in her momentary anger to Phineas; but when Fortune was so good to her in that matter of her place at dinner, she was not fool enough to throw away her chance. Throughout the soup and fish she was very quiet. She said a word or two after her first glass of champagne. The Duke refused two dishes, one after another, and then she glided into conversation. By the time that he had his roast mutton before him she was in full play, and as she eat her peach, the Duke was bending over her with his most gracious smile. "Didn't you think the session was very long, Mr. Finn?" said the Duchess to Phineas. "Very long indeed, Duchess," said Phineas, with his attention still fixed on Madame Max Goesler. "The Duke found it very troublesome." "I daresay he did," said Phineas. That duke and that duchess were no more than any other man and any other man's wife. The session had not been longer to the Duke of St. Bungay than to all the public servants. Phineas had the greatest possible respect for the Duke of St. Bungay, but he could not take much interest in the wailings of the Duchess on her husband's behalf. "And things do seem to be so very uncomfortable now," said the Duchess,--thinking partly of the resignation of Mr. Mildmay, and partly of the fact that her own old peculiar maid who had lived with her for thirty years had retired into private life. "Not so very bad, Duchess, I hope," said Phineas, observing that at this moment Madame Max Goesler's eyes were brilliant with triumph. Then there came upon him a sudden ambition,--that he would like to "cut out" the Duke of Omnium in the estimation of Madame Max Goesler. The brightness of Madame Max Goesler's eyes had not been thrown away upon our hero. Violet Effingham came at the appointed time, and, to the surprise of Phineas, was brought to Matching by Lord Brentford. Phineas at first thought that it was intended that the Earl and his son should meet and make up their quarrel at Mr. Palliser's house. But Lord Brentford stayed only one night, and Phineas on the next morning heard the whole history of his coming and going from Violet. "I have almost been on my knees to him to stay," she said. "Indeed, I did go on my knees,--actually on my knees." "And what did he say?" "He put his arm round me and kissed me, and,--and,--I cannot tell you all that he said. But it ended in this,--that if Chiltern can be made to go to Saulsby, fatted calves without stint will be killed. I shall do all I can to make him go; and so must you, Mr. Finn. Of course that silly affair in foreign parts is not to make any difference between you two." Phineas smiled, and said he would do his best, and looked up into her face, and was just able to talk to her as though things were going comfortably with him. But his heart was very cold. As Violet had spoken to him about Lord Chiltern there had come upon him, for the first time,--for the first time since he had known that Lord Chiltern had been refused,--an idea, a doubt, whether even yet Violet might not become Lord Chiltern's wife. His heart was very sad, but he struggled on,--declaring that it was incumbent on them both to bring together the father and son. "I am so glad to hear you say so, Mr. Finn," said Violet. "I really do believe that you can do more towards it than any one else. Lord Chiltern would think nothing of my advice,--would hardly speak to me on such a subject. But he respects you as well as likes you, and not the less because of what has occurred." How was it that Violet should know aught of the respect or liking felt by this rejected suitor for that other suitor,--who had also been rejected? And how was it that she was thus able to talk of one of them to the other, as though neither of them had ever come forward with such a suit? Phineas felt his position to be so strange as to be almost burdensome. He had told Violet, when she had refused him, very plainly, that he should come again to her, and ask once more for the great gift which he coveted. But he could not ask again now. In the first place, there was that in her manner which made him sure that were he to do so, he would ask in vain; and then he felt that she was placing a special confidence in him, against which he would commit a sin were he to use her present intimacy with him for the purposes of making love. They two were to put their shoulders together to help Lord Chiltern, and while doing so he could not continue a suit which would be felt by both of them to be hostile to Lord Chiltern. There might be opportunity for a chance word, and if so the chance word should be spoken; but he could not make a deliberate attack, such as he had made in Portman Square. Violet also probably understood that she had not now been caught in a mousetrap. The Duke was to spend four days at Matching, and on the third day,--the day before Lord Chiltern was expected,--he was to be seen riding with Madame Max Goesler by his side. Madame Max Goesler was known as a perfect horsewoman,--one indeed who was rather fond of going a little fast on horseback, and who rode well to hounds. But the Duke seldom moved out of a walk, and on this occasion Madame Max was as steady in her seat and almost as slow as the mounted ghost in _Don Juan_. But it was said by some there, especially by Mrs. Bonteen, that the conversation between them was not slow. And on the next morning the Duke and Madame Max Goesler were together again before luncheon, standing on a terrace at the back of the house, looking down on a party who were playing croquet on the lawn. "Do you never play?" said the Duke. "Oh yes;--one does everything a little." "I am sure you would play well. Why do you not play now?" "No;--I shall not play now." "I should like to see you with your mallet." "I am sorry your Grace cannot be gratified. I have played croquet till I am tired of it, and have come to think it is only fit for boys and girls. The great thing is to give them opportunities for flirting, and it does that." "And do you never flirt, Madame Goesler?" "Never at croquet, Duke." "And what with you is the choicest time?" "That depends on so many things,--and so much on the chosen person. What do you recommend?" "Ah,--I am so ignorant. I can recommend nothing." "What do you say to a mountain-top at dawn on a summer day?" asked Madame Max Goesler. "You make me shiver," said the Duke. "Or a boat on a lake on a summer evening, or a good lead after hounds with nobody else within three fields, or the bottom of a salt-mine, or the deck of an ocean steamer, or a military hospital in time of war, or a railway journey from Paris to Marseilles?" "Madame Max Goesler, you have the most uncomfortable ideas." "I have no doubt your Grace has tried each of them,--successfully. But perhaps, after all, a comfortable chair over a good fire, in a pretty room, beats everything." "I think it does,--certainly," said the Duke. Then he whispered something at which Madame Max Goesler blushed and smiled, and immediately after that she followed those who had already gone in to lunch. Mrs. Bonteen had been hovering round the spot on the terrace on which the Duke and Madame Max Goesler had been standing, looking on with envious eyes, meditating some attack, some interruption, some excuse for an interpolation, but her courage had failed her and she had not dared to approach. The Duke had known nothing of the hovering propinquity of Mrs. Bonteen, but Madame Goesler had seen and had understood it all. "Dear Mrs. Bonteen," she said afterwards, "why did you not come and join us? The Duke was so pleasant." "Two is company, and three is none," said Mrs. Bonteen, who in her anger was hardly able to choose her words quite as well as she might have done had she been more cool. "Our friend Madame Max has made quite a new conquest," said Mrs. Bonteen to Lady Glencora. "I am so pleased," said Lady Glencora, with apparently unaffected delight. "It is such a great thing to get anybody to amuse my uncle. You see everybody cannot talk to him, and he will not talk to everybody." "He talked enough to her in all conscience," said Mrs. Bonteen, who was now more angry than ever. CHAPTER XLIX The Duellists Meet Lord Chiltern arrived, and Phineas was a little nervous as to their meeting. He came back from shooting on the day in question, and was told by the servant that Lord Chiltern was in the house. Phineas went into the billiard-room in his knickerbockers, thinking probably that he might be there, and then into the drawing-room, and at last into the library,--but Lord Chiltern was not to be found. At last he came across Violet. "Have you seen him?" he asked. "Yes;--he was with me half an hour since, walking round the gardens." "And how is he? Come;--tell me something about him." "I never knew him to be more pleasant. He would give no promise about Saulsby, but he did not say that he would not go." "Does he know that I am here?" "Yes;--I told him so. I told him how much pleasure I should have in seeing you two together,--as friends." "And what did he say?" "He laughed, and said you were the best fellow in the world. You see I am obliged to be explicit." "But why did he laugh?" Phineas asked. "He did not tell me, but I suppose it was because he was thinking of a little trip he once took to Belgium, and he perceived that I knew all about it." "I wonder who told you. But never mind. I do not mean to ask any questions. As I do not like that our first meeting should be before all the people in the drawing-room, I will go to him in his own room." "Do, do;--that will be so nice of you." Phineas sent his card up by a servant, and in a few minutes was standing with his hand on the lock of Lord Chiltern's door. The last time he had seen this man, they had met with pistols in their hands to shoot at each other, and Lord Chiltern had in truth done his very best to shoot his opponent. The cause of quarrel was the same between them as ever. Phineas had not given up Violet, and had no intention of giving her up. And he had received no intimation whatever from his rival that there was to be a truce between them. Phineas had indeed written in friendship to Lord Chiltern, but he had received no answer;--and nothing of certainty was to be gathered from the report which Violet had just made. It might well be that Lord Chiltern would turn upon him now in his wrath, and that there would be some scene which in a strange house would be obviously objectionable. Nevertheless he had resolved that even that would be better than a chance encounter among strangers in a drawing-room. So the door was opened and the two men met. "Well, old fellow," said Lord Chiltern, laughing. Then all doubt was over, and in a moment Phineas was shaking his former,--and present friend, warmly by the hand. "So we've come to be an Under-Secretary have we?--and all that kind of thing." "I had to get into harness,--when the harness offered itself," said Phineas. "I suppose so. It's a deuce of a bore, isn't it?" "I always liked work, you know." "I thought you liked hunting better. You used to ride as if you did. There's Bonebreaker back again in the stable for you. That poor fool who bought him could do nothing with him, and I let him have his money back." "I don't see why you should have done that." "Because I was the biggest fool of the two. Do you remember when that brute got me down under the bank in the river? That was about the nearest touch I ever had. Lord bless me;--how he did squeeze me! So here you are;--staying with the Pallisers,--one of a Government party I suppose. But what are you going to do for a seat, my friend?" "Don't talk about that yet, Chiltern." "A sore subject,--isn't it? I think they have been quite right, you know, to put Loughton into the melting-pot,--though I'm sorry enough for your sake." "Quite right," said Phineas. "And yet you voted against it, old chap? But, come; I'm not going to be down upon you. So my father has been here?" "Yes;--he was here for a day or two." "Violet has just been telling me. You and he are as good friends as ever?" "I trust we are." "He never heard of that little affair?" And Lord Chiltern nodded his head, intending to indicate the direction of Blankenberg. "I do not think he has yet." "So Violet tells me. Of course you know that she has heard all about it." "I have reason to suppose as much." "And so does Laura." "I told her myself," said Phineas. "The deuce you did! But I daresay it was for the best. It's a pity you had not proclaimed it at Charing Cross, and then nobody would have believed a word about it. Of course my father will hear it some day." "You are going to Saulsby, I hope, Chiltern?" "That question is easier asked than answered. It is quite true that the great difficulty has been got over. Laura has had her money. And if my father will only acknowledge that he has wronged me throughout, from beginning to end, I will go to Saulsby to-morrow;--and would cut you out at Loughton the next day, only that Loughton is not Loughton any longer." "You cannot expect your father to do that." "No;--and therefore there is a difficulty. So you've had that awfully ponderous Duke here. How did you get on with him?" "Admirably. He condescended to do something which he called shaking hands with me." "He is the greatest old dust out," said Lord Chiltern, disrespectfully. "Did he take any notice of Violet?" "Not that I observed." "He ought not to be allowed into the same room with her." After that there was a short pause, and Phineas felt some hesitation in speaking of Miss Effingham to Lord Chiltern. "And how do you get on with her?" asked Lord Chiltern. Here was a question for a man to answer. The question was so hard to be answered, that Phineas did not at first make any attempt to answer it. "You know exactly the ground that I stand on," continued Lord Chiltern. "She has refused me three times. Have you been more fortunate?" Lord Chiltern, as he asked his question, looked full into Finn's face in a manner that was irresistible. His look was not one of anger nor even of pride. It was not, indeed, without a strong dash of fun. But such as it was it showed Phineas that Lord Chiltern intended to have an answer. "No," said he at last, "I have not been more fortunate." "Perhaps you have changed your mind," said his host. "No;--I have not changed my mind," said Phineas, quickly. "How stands it then? Come;--let us be honest to each other. I told you down at Willingford that I would quarrel with any man who attempted to cut me out with Violet Effingham. You made up your mind that you would do so, and therefore I quarrelled with you. But we can't always be fighting duels." "I hope we may not have to fight another." "No;--it would be absurd," said Lord Chiltern. "I rather think that what we did was absurd. But upon my life I did not see any other way out of it. However, that is over. How is it to be now?" "What am I to say in answer to that?" asked Phineas. "Just the truth. You have asked her, I suppose?" "Yes;--I have asked her." "And she has refused you?" "Yes;--she has refused me." "And you mean to ask her again?" "I shall;--if I ever think that there is a chance. Indeed, Chiltern, I believe I shall whether I think that I have any chance or not." "Then we start fairly, Finn. I certainly shall do so. I believe I once told you that I never would;--but that was long before I suspected that you would enter for the same plate. What a man says on such a matter when he is down in the mouth goes for nothing. Now we understand each other, and you had better go and dress. The bell rang nearly half an hour ago, and my fellow is hanging about outside the door." The interview had in one respect been very pleasant to Phineas, and in another it had been very bitter. It was pleasant to him to know that he and Lord Chiltern were again friends. It was a delight to him to feel that this half-savage but high-spirited young nobleman, who had been so anxious to fight with him and to shoot him, was nevertheless ready to own that he had behaved well. Lord Chiltern had in fact acknowledged that though he had been anxious to blow out our hero's brains, he was aware all the time that our hero was a good sort of fellow. Phineas understood this, and felt that it was pleasant. But with this understanding, and accompanying this pleasure, there was a conviction in his heart that the distance between Lord Chiltern and Violet would daily grow to be less and still less,--and that Lord Chiltern could afford to be generous. If Miss Effingham could teach herself to be fond of Lord Chiltern, what had he, Phineas Finn, to offer in opposition to the claims of such a suitor? That evening Lord Chiltern took Miss Effingham out to dinner. Phineas told himself that this was of course so arranged by Lady Glencora, with the express view of serving the Saulsby interest. It was almost nothing to him at the moment that Madame Max Goesler was intrusted to him. He had his ambition respecting Madame Max Goesler; but that for the time was in abeyance. He could hardly keep his eyes off Miss Effingham. And yet, as he well knew, his observation of her must be quite useless. He knew beforehand, with absolute accuracy, the manner in which she would treat her lover. She would be kind, genial, friendly, confidential, nay, affectionate; and yet her manner would mean nothing, would give no clue to her future decision either for or against Lord Chiltern. It was, as Phineas thought, a peculiarity with Violet Effingham that she could treat her rejected lovers as dear familiar friends immediately after her rejection of them. "Mr. Finn," said Madame Max Goesler, "your eyes and ears are tell-tales of your passion." "I hope not," said Phineas, "as I certainly do not wish that any one should guess how strong is my regard for you." "That is prettily turned,--very prettily turned; and shows more readiness of wit than I gave you credit for under your present suffering. But of course we all know where your heart is. Men do not undertake perilous journeys to Belgium for nothing." "That unfortunate journey to Belgium! But, dear Madame Max, really nobody knows why I went." "You met Lord Chiltern there?" "Oh yes;--I met Lord Chiltern there." "And there was a duel?" "Madame Max,--you must not ask me to criminate myself!" "Of course there was, and of course it was about Miss Effingham, and of course the lady thinks herself bound to refuse both the gentlemen who were so very wicked, and of course--" "Well,--what follows?" "Ah! if you have not wit enough to see, I do not think it can be my duty to tell you. But I wished to caution you as a friend that your eyes and ears should be more under your command." "You will go to Saulsby?" Violet said to Lord Chiltern. "I cannot possibly tell as yet," said he, frowning. "Then I can tell you that you ought to go. I do not care a bit for your frowns. What does the fifth commandment say?" "If you have no better arguments than the commandments, Violet--" "There can be none better. Do you mean to say that the commandments are nothing to you?" "I mean to say that I shan't go to Saulsby because I am told in the twentieth chapter of Exodus to honour my father and mother,--and that I shouldn't believe anybody who told me that he did anything because of the commandments." "Oh, Lord Chiltern!" "People are so prejudiced and so used to humbug that for the most part they do not in the least know their own motives for what they do. I will go to Saulsby to-morrow,--for a reward." "For what reward?" said Violet, blushing. "For the only one in the world that could tempt me to do anything." "You should go for the sake of duty. I should not even care to see you go, much as I long for it, if that feeling did not take you there." It was arranged that Phineas and Lord Chiltern were to leave Matching together. Phineas was to remain at his office all October, and in November the general election was to take place. What he had hitherto heard about a future seat was most vague, but he was to meet Ratler and Barrington Erle in London, and it had been understood that Barrington Erle, who was now at Saulsby, was to make some inquiry as to that group of boroughs of which Loughton at this moment formed one. But as Loughton was the smallest of four boroughs, and as one of the four had for many years had a representative of its own, Phineas feared that no success would be found there. In his present agony he began to think that there might be a strong plea made for a few private seats in the House of Commons, and that the propriety of throwing Loughton into the melting-pot was, after all, open to question. He and Lord Chiltern were to return to London together, and Lord Chiltern, according to his present scheme, was to proceed at once to Willingford to look after the cub-hunting. Nothing that either Violet or Phineas could say to him would induce him to promise to go to Saulsby. When Phineas pressed it, he was told by Lord Chiltern that he was a fool for his pains,--by which Phineas understood perfectly well that when Lord Chiltern did go to Saulsby, he, Phineas, was to take that as strong evidence that everything was over for him as regarded Violet Effingham. When Violet expressed her eagerness that the visit should be made, she was stopped with an assurance that she could have it done at once if she pleased. Let him only be enabled to carry with him the tidings of his betrothal, and he would start for his father's house without an hour's delay. But this authority Violet would not give him. When he answered her after this fashion she could only tell him that he was ungenerous. "At any rate I am not false," he replied on one occasion. "What I say is the truth." There was a very tender parting between Phineas and Madame Max Goesler. She had learned from him pretty nearly all his history, and certainly knew more of the reality of his affairs than any of those in London who had been his most staunch friends. "Of course you'll get a seat," she said as he took his leave of her. "If I understand it at all, they never throw over an ally so useful as you are." "But the intention is that in this matter nobody shall any longer have the power of throwing over, or of not throwing over, anybody." "That is all very well, my friend; but cakes will still be hot in the mouth, even though Mr. Daubeny turn purist, with Mr. Turnbull to help him. If you want any assistance in finding a seat you will not go to the _People's Banner_,--even yet." "Certainly not to the _People's Banner_." "I don't quite understand what the franchise is," continued Madame Max Goesler. "Household in boroughs," said Phineas with some energy. "Very well;--household in boroughs. I daresay that is very fine and very liberal, though I don't comprehend it in the least. And you want a borough. Very well. You won't go to the households. I don't think you will;--not at first, that is." "Where shall I go then?" "Oh,--to some great patron of a borough;--or to a club;--or perhaps to some great firm. The households will know nothing about it till they are told. Is not that it?" "The truth is, Madame Max, I do not know where I shall go. I am like a child lost in a wood. And you may understand this;--if you do not see me in Park Lane before the end of January, I shall have perished in the wood." "Then I will come and find you,--with a troop of householders. You will come. You will be there. I do not believe in death coming without signs. You are full of life." As she spoke, she had hold of his hand, and there was nobody near them. They were in a little book-room inside the library at Matching, and the door, though not latched, was nearly closed. Phineas had flattered himself that Madame Goesler had retreated there in order that this farewell might be spoken without interruption. "And, Mr. Finn;--I wonder whether I may say one thing," she continued. "You may say anything to me," he replied. "No,--not in this country, in this England. There are things one may not say here,--that are tabooed by a sort of consent,--and that without any reason." She paused again, and Phineas was at a loss to think what was the subject on which she was about to speak. Could she mean--? No; she could not mean to give him any outward plain-spoken sign that she was attached to him. It was the peculiar merit of this man that he was not vain, though much was done to him to fill him with vanity; and as the idea crossed his brain, he hated himself because it had been there. "To me you may say anything, Madame Goesler," he said,--"here in England, as plainly as though we were in Vienna." "But I cannot say it in English," she said. Then in French, blushing and laughing as she spoke,--almost stammering in spite of her usual self-confidence,--she told him that accident had made her rich, full of money. Money was a drug with her. Money she knew was wanted, even for householders. Would he not understand her, and come to her, and learn from her how faithful a woman could be? He still was holding her by the hand, and he now raised it to his lips and kissed it. "The offer from you," he said, "is as high-minded, as generous, and as honourable as its acceptance by me would be mean-spirited, vile, and ignoble. But whether I fail or whether I succeed, you shall see me before the winter is over." CHAPTER L Again Successful Phineas also said a word of farewell to Violet before he left Matching, but there was nothing peculiar in her little speech to him, or in his to her. "Of course we shall see each other in London. Don't talk of not being in the House. Of course you will be in the House." Then Phineas had shaken his head and smiled. Where was he to find a requisite number of householders prepared to return him? But as he went up to London he told himself that the air of the House of Commons was now the very breath of his nostrils. Life to him without it would be no life. To have come within the reach of the good things of political life, to have made his mark so as to have almost insured future success, to have been the petted young official aspirant of the day,--and then to sink down into the miserable platitudes of private life, to undergo daily attendance in law-courts without a brief, to listen to men who had come to be much below him in estimation and social intercourse, to sit in a wretched chamber up three pairs of stairs at Lincoln's Inn, whereas he was now at this moment provided with a gorgeous apartment looking out into the Park from the Colonial Office in Downing Street, to be attended by a mongrel between a clerk and an errand boy at 17s. 6d. a week instead of by a private secretary who was the son of an earl's sister, and was petted by countesses' daughters innumerable,--all this would surely break his heart. He could have done it, so he told himself, and could have taken glory in doing it, had not these other things come in his way. But the other things had come. He had run the risk, and had thrown the dice. And now when the game was so nearly won, must it be that everything should be lost at last? He knew that nothing was to be gained by melancholy looks at his club, or by show of wretchedness at his office. London was very empty; but the approaching elections still kept some there who otherwise would have been looking after the first flush of pheasants. Barrington Erle was there, and was not long in asking Phineas what were his views. "Ah;--that is so hard to say. Ratler told me that he would be looking about." "Ratler is very well in the House," said Barrington, "but he is of no use for anything beyond it. I suppose you were not brought up at the London University?" "Oh no," said Phineas, remembering the glories of Trinity. "Because there would have been an opening. What do you say to Stratford,--the new Essex borough?" "Broadbury the brewer is there already!" "Yes;--and ready to spend any money you like to name. Let me see. Loughton is grouped with Smotherem, and Walker is a deal too strong at Smotherem to hear of any other claim. I don't think we could dare to propose it. There are the Chelsea hamlets, but it will take a wack of money." "I have not got a wack of money," said Phineas, laughing. "That's the devil of it. I think, if I were you, I should hark back upon some place in Ireland. Couldn't you get Laurence to give you up his seat?" "What! Fitzgibbon?" "Yes. He has not a ghost of a chance of getting into office again. Nothing on earth would induce him to look at a paper during all those weeks he was at the Colonial Office; and when Cantrip spoke to him, all he said was, 'Ah, bother!' Cantrip did not like it, I can tell you." "But that wouldn't make him give up his seat." "Of course you'd have to arrange it." By which Phineas understood Barrington Erle to mean that he, Phineas, was in some way to give to Laurence Fitzgibbon some adequate compensation for the surrender of his position as a county member. "I'm afraid that's out of the question," said Phineas. "If he were to go, I should not get it." "Would you have a chance at Loughshane?" "I was thinking of trying it," said Phineas. "Of course you know that Morris is very ill." This Mr. Morris was the brother of Lord Tulla, and was the sitting member of Loughshane. "Upon my word I think I should try that. I don't see where we're to put our hands on a seat in England. I don't indeed." Phineas, as he listened to this, could not help thinking that Barrington Erle, though he had certainly expressed a great deal of solicitude, was not as true a friend as he used to be. Perhaps he, Phineas, had risen too fast, and Barrington Erle was beginning to think that he might as well be out of the way. He wrote to his father, asking after the borough, and asking after the health of Mr. Morris. And in his letter he told his own story very plainly,--almost pathetically. He perhaps had been wrong to make the attempt which he had made. He began to believe that he had been wrong. But at any rate he had made it so far successfully, and failure now would be doubly bitter. He thought that the party to which he belonged must now remain in office. It would hardly be possible that a new election would produce a House of Commons favourable to a conservative ministry. And with a liberal ministry he, Phineas, would be sure of his place, and sure of an official income,--if only he could find a seat. It was all very true, and was almost pathetic. The old doctor, who was inclined to be proud of his son, was not unwilling to make a sacrifice. Mrs. Finn declared before her daughters that if there was a seat in all Ireland, Phineas ought to have it. And Mary Flood Jones stood by listening, and wondering what Phineas would do if he lost his seat. Would he come back and live in County Clare, and be like any other girl's lover? Poor Mary had come to lose her ambition, and to think that girls whose lovers stayed at home were the happiest. Nevertheless, she would have walked all the way to Lord Tulla's house and back again, might that have availed to get the seat for Phineas. Then there came an express over from Castlemorris. The doctor was wanted at once to see Mr. Morris. Mr. Morris was very bad with gout in his stomach. According to the messenger it was supposed that Mr. Morris was dying. Before Dr. Finn had had an opportunity of answering his son's letter, Mr. Morris, the late member for Loughshane, had been gathered to his fathers. Dr. Finn understood enough of elections for Parliament, and of the nature of boroughs, to be aware that a candidate's chance of success is very much improved by being early in the field; and he was aware, also, that the death of Mr. Morris would probably create various aspirants for the honour of representing Loughshane. But he could hardly address the Earl on the subject while the dead body of the late member was lying in the house at Castlemorris. The bill which had passed in the late session for reforming the constitution of the House of Commons had not touched Ireland, a future measure having been promised to the Irish for their comfort; and Loughshane therefore was, as to Lord Tulla's influence, the same as it had ever been. He had not there the plenary power which the other lord had held in his hands in regard to Loughton;--but still the Castlemorris interest would go a long way. It might be possible to stand against it, but it would be much more desirable that the candidate should have it at his back. Dr. Finn was fully alive to this as he sat opposite to the old lord, saying now a word about the old lord's gout in his legs and arms, and then about the gout in the stomach, which had carried away to another world the lamented late member for the borough. "Poor Jack!" said Lord Tulla, piteously. "If I'd known it, I needn't have paid over two thousand pounds for him last year;--need I, doctor?" "No, indeed," said Dr. Finn, feeling that his patient might perhaps approach the subject of the borough himself. "He never would live by any rule, you know," said the desolate brother. "Very hard to guide;--was he not, my lord?" "The very devil. Now, you see, I do do what I'm told pretty well,--don't I, doctor?" "Sometimes." "By George, I do nearly always. I don't know what you mean by sometimes. I've been drinking brandy-and-water till I'm sick of it, to oblige you, and you tell me about--sometimes. You doctors expect a man to be a slave. Haven't I kept it out of my stomach?" "Thank God, yes." "It's all very well thanking God, but I should have gone as poor Jack has gone, if I hadn't been the most careful man in the world. He was drinking champagne ten days ago;--would do it, you know." Lord Tulla could talk about himself and his own ailments by the hour together, and Dr. Finn, who had thought that his noble patient was approaching the subject of the borough, was beginning again to feel that the double interest of the gout that was present, and the gout that had passed away, would be too absorbing. He, however, could say but little to direct the conversation. "Mr. Morris, you see, lived more in London than you do, and was subject to temptation." "I don't know what you call temptation. Haven't I the temptation of a bottle of wine under my nose every day of my life?" "No doubt you have." "And I don't drink it. I hardly ever take above a glass or two of brown sherry. By George! when I think of it, I wonder at my own courage. I do, indeed." "But a man in London, my lord--" "Why the deuce would he go to London? By-the-bye, what am I to do about the borough now?" "Let my son stand for it, if you will, my lord." "They've clean swept away Brentford's seat at Loughton, haven't they? Ha, ha, ha! What a nice game for him,--to have been forced to help to do it himself! There's nobody on earth I pity so much as a radical peer who is obliged to work like a nigger with a spade to shovel away the ground from under his own feet. As for me, I don't care who sits for Loughshane. I did care for poor Jack while he was alive. I don't think I shall interfere any longer. I am glad it lasted Jack's time." Lord Tulla had probably already forgotten that he himself had thrown Jack over for the last session but one. "Phineas, my lord," began the father, "is now Under-Secretary of State." "Oh, I've no doubt he's a very fine fellow;--but you see, he's an out-and-out Radical." "No, my lord." "Then how can he serve with such men as Mr. Gresham and Mr. Monk? They've turned out poor old Mildmay among them, because he's not fast enough for them. Don't tell me." "My anxiety, of course, is for my boy's prospects. He seems to have done so well in Parliament." "Why don't he stand for Marylebone or Finsbury?" "The money, you know, my lord!" "I shan't interfere here, doctor. If he comes, and the people then choose to return him, I shall say nothing. They may do just as they please. They tell me Lambert St. George, of Mockrath, is going to stand. If he does, it's the d---- piece of impudence I ever heard of. He's a tenant of my own, though he has a lease for ever; and his father never owned an acre of land in the county till his uncle died." Then the doctor knew that, with a little management, the lord's interest might be secured for his son. Phineas came over and stood for the borough against Mr. Lambert St. George, and the contest was sharp enough. The gentry of the neighbourhood could not understand why such a man as Lord Tulla should admit a liberal candidate to succeed his brother. No one canvassed for the young Under-Secretary with more persistent zeal than did his father, who, when Phineas first spoke of going into Parliament, had produced so many good arguments against that perilous step. Lord Tulla's agent stood aloof,--desolate with grief at the death of the late member. At such a moment of family affliction, Lord Tulla, he declared, could not think of such a matter as the borough. But it was known that Lord Tulla was dreadfully jealous of Mr. Lambert St. George, whose property in that part of the county was now nearly equal to his own, and who saw much more company at Mockrath than was ever entertained at Castlemorris. A word from Lord Tulla,--so said the Conservatives of the county,--would have put Mr. St. George into the seat; but that word was not spoken, and the Conservatives of the neighbourhood swore that Lord Tulla was a renegade. The contest was very sharp, but our hero was returned by a majority of seventeen votes. Again successful! As he thought of it he remembered stories of great generals who were said to have chained Fortune to the wheels of their chariots, but it seemed to him that the goddess had never served any general with such staunch obedience as she had displayed in his cause. Had not everything gone well with him;--so well, as almost to justify him in expecting that even yet Violet Effingham would become his wife? Dear, dearest Violet! If he could only achieve that, no general, who ever led an army across the Alps, would be his equal either in success or in the reward of success. Then he questioned himself as to what he would say to Miss Flood Jones on that very night. He was to meet dear little Mary Flood Jones that evening at a neighbour's house. His sister Barbara had so told him in a tone of voice which he quite understood to imply a caution. "I shall be so glad to see her," Phineas had replied. "If there ever was an angel on earth, it is Mary," said Barbara Finn. "I know that she is as good as gold," said Phineas. "Gold!" replied Barbara,--"gold indeed! She is more precious than refined gold. But, Phineas, perhaps you had better not single her out for any special attention. She has thought it wisest to meet you." "Of course," said Phineas. "Why not?" "That is all, Phineas. I have nothing more to say. Men of course are different from girls." "That's true, Barbara, at any rate." "Don't laugh at me, Phineas, when I am thinking of nothing but of you and your interests, and when I am making all manner of excuses for you because I know what must be the distractions of the world in which you live." Barbara made more than one attempt to renew the conversation before the evening came, but Phineas thought that he had had enough of it. He did not like being told that excuses were made for him. After all, what had he done? He had once kissed Mary Flood Jones behind the door. "I am so glad to see you, Mary," he said, coming and taking a chair by her side. He had been specially warned not to single Mary out for his attention, and yet there was the chair left vacant as though it were expected that he would fall into it. "Thank you. We did not happen to meet last year, did we,--Mr. Finn?" "Do not call me Mr. Finn, Mary." "You are such a great man now!" "Not at all a great man. If you only knew what little men we understrappers are in London you would hardly speak to me." "But you are something--of State now;--are you not?" "Well;--yes. That's the name they give me. It simply means that if any member wants to badger some one in the House about the Colonies, I am the man to be badgered. But if there is any credit to be had, I am not the man who is to have it." "But it is a great thing to be in Parliament and in the Government too." "It is a great thing for me, Mary, to have a salary, though it may only be for a year or two. However, I will not deny that it is pleasant to have been successful." "It has been very pleasant to us, Phineas. Mamma has been so much rejoiced." "I am so sorry not to see her. She is at Floodborough, I suppose." "Oh, yes;--she is at home. She does not like coming out at night in winter. I have been staying here you know for two days, but I go home to-morrow." "I will ride over and call on your mother." Then there was a pause in the conversation for a moment. "Does it not seem odd, Mary, that we should see so little of each other?" "You are so much away, of course." "Yes;--that is the reason. But still it seems almost unnatural. I often wonder when the time will come that I shall be quietly at home again. I have to be back in my office in London this day week, and yet I have not had a single hour to myself since I have been at Killaloe. But I will certainly ride over and see your mother. You will be at home on Wednesday I suppose." "Yes,--I shall be at home." Upon that he got up and went away, but again in the evening he found himself near her. Perhaps there is no position more perilous to a man's honesty than that in which Phineas now found himself;--that, namely, of knowing himself to be quite loved by a girl whom he almost loves himself. Of course he loved Violet Effingham; and they who talk best of love protest that no man or woman can be in love with two persons at once. Phineas was not in love with Mary Flood Jones; but he would have liked to take her in his arms and kiss her;--he would have liked to gratify her by swearing that she was dearer to him than all the world; he would have liked to have an episode,--and did, at the moment, think that it might be possible to have one life in London and another life altogether different at Killaloe. "Dear Mary," he said as he pressed her hand that night, "things will get themselves settled at last, I suppose." He was behaving very ill to her, but he did not mean to behave ill. He rode over to Floodborough, and saw Mrs. Flood Jones. Mrs. Flood Jones, however, received him very coldly; and Mary did not appear. Mary had communicated to her mother her resolutions as to her future life. "The fact is, mamma, I love him. I cannot help it. If he ever chooses to come for me, here I am. If he does not, I will bear it as well as I can. It may be very mean of me, but it's true." CHAPTER LI Troubles at Loughlinter There was a dull house at Loughlinter during the greater part of this autumn. A few men went down for the grouse shooting late in the season; but they stayed but a short time, and when they went Lady Laura was left alone with her husband. Mr. Kennedy had explained to his wife, more than once, that though he understood the duties of hospitality and enjoyed the performance of them, he had not married with the intention of living in a whirlwind. He was disposed to think that the whirlwind had hitherto been too predominant, and had said so very plainly with a good deal of marital authority. This autumn and winter were to be devoted to the cultivation of proper relations between him and his wife. "Does that mean Darby and Joan?" his wife had asked him, when the proposition was made to her. "It means mutual regard and esteem," replied Mr. Kennedy in his most solemn tone, "and I trust that such mutual regard and esteem between us may yet be possible." When Lady Laura showed him a letter from her brother, received some weeks after this conversation, in which Lord Chiltern expressed his intention of coming to Loughlinter for Christmas, he returned the note to his wife without a word. He suspected that she had made the arrangement without asking him, and was angry; but he would not tell her that her brother would not be welcome at his house. "It is not my doing," she said, when she saw the frown on his brow. "I said nothing about anybody's doing," he replied. "I will write to Oswald and bid him not come, if you wish it. Of course you can understand why he is coming." "Not to see me, I am sure," said Mr. Kennedy. "Nor me," replied Lady Laura. "He is coming because my friend Violet Effingham will be here." "Miss Effingham! Why was I not told of this? I knew nothing of Miss Effingham's coming." "Robert, it was settled in your own presence last July." "I deny it." Then Lady Laura rose up, very haughty in her gait and with something of fire in her eye, and silently left the room. Mr. Kennedy, when he found himself alone, was very unhappy. Looking back in his mind to the summer weeks in London, he remembered that his wife had told Violet that she was to spend her Christmas at Loughlinter, that he himself had given a muttered assent and that Violet,--as far as he could remember,--had made no reply. It had been one of those things which are so often mentioned, but not settled. He felt that he had been strictly right in denying that it had been "settled" in his presence;--but yet he felt that he had been wrong in contradicting his wife so peremptorily. He was a just man, and he would apologise for his fault; but he was an austere man, and would take back the value of his apology in additional austerity. He did not see his wife for some hours after the conversation which has been narrated, but when he did meet her his mind was still full of the subject. "Laura", he said, "I am sorry that I contradicted you." "I am quite used to it, Robert." "No;--you are not used to it." She smiled and bowed her head. "You wrong me by saying that you are used to it." Then he paused a moment, but she said not a word,--only smiled and bowed her head again. "I remember," he continued, "that something was said in my presence to Miss Effingham about her coming here at Christmas. It was so slight, however, that it had passed out of my memory till recalled by an effort. I beg your pardon." "That is unnecessary, Robert." "It is, dear." "And do you wish that I should put her off,--or put Oswald off,--or both? My brother never yet has seen me in your house." "And whose fault has that been?" "I have said nothing about anybody's fault, Robert. I merely mentioned a fact. Will you let me know whether I shall bid him stay away?" "He is welcome to come,--only I do not like assignations for love-making." "Assignations!" "Clandestine meetings. Lady Baldock would not wish it." "Lady Baldock! Do you think that Violet would exercise any secrecy in the matter,--or that she will not tell Lady Baldock that Oswald will be here,--as soon as she knows it herself?" "That has nothing to do with it." "Surely, Robert, it must have much to do with it. And why should not these two young people meet? The acknowledged wish of all the family is that they should marry each other. And in this matter, at any rate, my brother has behaved extremely well." Mr. Kennedy said nothing further at the time, and it became an understanding that Violet Effingham was to be a month at Loughlinter, staying from the 20th of December to the 20th of January, and that Lord Chiltern was to come there for Christmas,--which with him would probably mean three days. Before Christmas came, however, there were various other sources of uneasiness at Loughlinter. There had been, as a matter of course, great anxiety as to the elections. With Lady Laura this anxiety had been very strong, and even Mr. Kennedy had been warmed with some amount of fire as the announcements reached him of the successes and of the failures. The English returns came first,--and then the Scotch, which were quite as interesting to Mr. Kennedy as the English. His own seat was quite safe,--was not contested; but some neighbouring seats were sources of great solicitude. Then, when this was over, there were the tidings from Ireland to be received; and respecting one special borough in Ireland, Lady Laura evinced more solicitude than her husband approved. There was much danger for the domestic bliss of the house of Loughlinter, when things came to such a pass, and such words were spoken, as the election at Loughshane produced. "He is in," said Lady Laura, opening a telegram. "Who is in?" said Mr. Kennedy, with that frown on his brow to which his wife was now well accustomed. Though he asked the question, he knew very well who was the hero to whom the telegram referred. "Our friend Phineas Finn," said Lady Laura, speaking still with an excited voice,--with a voice that was intended to display excitement. If there was to be a battle on this matter, there should be a battle. She would display all her anxiety for her young friend, and fling it in her husband's face if he chose to take it as an injury. What,--should she endure reproach from her husband because she regarded the interests of the man who had saved his life, of the man respecting whom she had suffered so many heart-struggles, and as to whom she had at last come to the conclusion that he should ever be regarded as a second brother, loved equally with the elder brother? She had done her duty by her husband,--so at least she had assured herself;--and should he dare to reproach her on this subject, she would be ready for the battle. And now the battle came. "I am glad of this," she said, with all the eagerness she could throw into her voice. "I am, indeed,--and so ought you to be." The husband's brow grew blacker and blacker, but still he said nothing. He had long been too proud to be jealous, and was now too proud to express his jealousy,--if only he could keep the expression back. But his wife would not leave the subject. "I am so thankful for this," she said, pressing the telegram between her hands. "I was so afraid he would fail!" "You over-do your anxiety on such a subject," at last he said, speaking very slowly. "What do you mean, Robert? How can I be over-anxious? If it concerned any other dear friend that I have in the world, it would not be an affair of life and death. To him it is almost so. I would have walked from here to London to get him his election." And as she spoke she held up the clenched fist of her left hand, and shook it, while she still held the telegram in her right hand. "Laura, I must tell you that it is improper that you should speak of any man in those terms;--of any man that is a stranger to your blood." "A stranger to my blood! What has that to do with it? This man is my friend, is your friend;--saved your life, has been my brother's best friend, is loved by my father,--and is loved by me, very dearly. Tell me what you mean by improper!" "I will not have you love any man,--very dearly." "Robert!" "I tell you that I will have no such expressions from you. They are unseemly, and are used only to provoke me." "Am I to understand that I am insulted by an accusation? If so, let me beg at once that I may be allowed to go to Saulsby. I would rather accept your apology and retractation there than here." "You will not go to Saulsby, and there has been no accusation, and there will be no apology. If you please there will be no more mention of Mr. Finn's name between us, for the present. If you will take my advice you will cease to think of him extravagantly;--and I must desire you to hold no further direct communication with him." "I have held no communication with him," said Lady Laura, advancing a step towards him. But Mr. Kennedy simply pointed to the telegram in her hand, and left the room. Now in respect to this telegram there had been an unfortunate mistake. I am not prepared to say that there was any reason why Phineas himself should not have sent the news of his success to Lady Laura; but he had not done so. The piece of paper which she still held crushed in her hand was in itself very innocent. "Hurrah for the Loughshanes. Finny has done the trick." Such were the words written on the slip, and they had been sent to Lady Laura by her young cousin, the clerk in the office who acted as private secretary to the Under-Secretary of State. Lady Laura resolved that her husband should never see those innocent but rather undignified words. The occasion had become one of importance, and such words were unworthy of it. Besides, she would not condescend to defend herself by bringing forward a telegram as evidence in her favour. So she burned the morsel of paper. Lady Laura and Mr. Kennedy did not meet again till late that evening. She was ill, she said, and would not come down to dinner. After dinner she wrote him a note. "Dear Robert, I think you must regret what you said to me. If so, pray let me have a line from you to that effect. Yours affectionately, L." When the servant handed it to him, and he had read it, he smiled and thanked the girl who had brought it, and said he would see her mistress just now. Anything would be better than that the servants should know that there was a quarrel. But every servant in the house had known all about it for the last three hours. When the door was closed and he was alone, he sat fingering the note, thinking deeply how he should answer it, or whether he would answer it at all. No; he would not answer it;--not in writing. He would give his wife no written record of his humiliation. He had not acted wrongly. He had said nothing more than now, upon mature consideration, he thought that the circumstances demanded. But yet he felt that he must in some sort withdraw the accusation which he had made. If he did not withdraw it, there was no knowing what his wife might do. About ten in the evening he went up to her and made his little speech. "My dear, I have come to answer your note." "I thought you would have written to me a line." "I have come instead, Laura. Now, if you will listen to me for one moment, I think everything will be made smooth." "Of course I will listen," said Lady Laura, knowing very well that her husband's moment would be rather tedious, and resolving that she also would have her moment afterwards. "I think you will acknowledge that if there be a difference of opinion between you and me as to any question of social intercourse, it will be better that you should consent to adopt my opinion." "You have the law on your side." "I am not speaking of the law." "Well;--go on, Robert. I will not interrupt you if I can help it." "I am not speaking of the law. I am speaking simply of convenience, and of that which you must feel to be right. If I wish that your intercourse with any person should be of such or such a nature it must be best that you should comply with my wishes." He paused for her assent, but she neither assented nor dissented. "As far as I can understand the position of a man and wife in this country, there is no other way in which life can be made harmonious." "Life will not run in harmonies." "I expect that ours shall be made to do so, Laura. I need hardly say to you that I intend to accuse you of no impropriety of feeling in reference to this young man." "No, Robert; you need hardly say that. Indeed, to speak my own mind, I think that you need hardly have alluded to it. I might go further, and say that such an allusion is in itself an insult,--an insult now repeated after hours of deliberation,--an insult which I will not endure to have repeated again. If you say another word in any way suggesting the possibility of improper relations between me and Mr. Finn, either as to deeds or thoughts, as God is above me, I will write to both my father and my brother, and desire them to take me from your house. If you wish me to remain here, you had better be careful!" As she was making this speech, her temper seemed to rise, and to become hot, and then hotter, till it glowed with a red heat. She had been cool till the word insult, used by herself, had conveyed back to her a strong impression of her own wrong,--or perhaps I should rather say a strong feeling of the necessity of becoming indignant. She was standing as she spoke, and the fire flashed from her eyes, and he quailed before her. The threat which she had held out to him was very dreadful to him. He was a man terribly in fear of the world's good opinion, who lacked the courage to go through a great and harassing trial in order that something better might come afterwards. His married life had been unhappy. His wife had not submitted either to his will or to his ways. He had that great desire to enjoy his full rights, so strong in the minds of weak, ambitious men, and he had told himself that a wife's obedience was one of those rights which he could not abandon without injury to his self-esteem. He had thought about the matter, slowly, as was his wont, and had resolved that he would assert himself. He had asserted himself, and his wife told him to his face that she would go away and leave him. He could detain her legally, but he could not do even that without the fact of such forcible detention being known to all the world. How was he to answer her now at this moment, so that she might not write to her father, and so that his self-assertion might still be maintained? "Passion, Laura, can never be right." "Would you have a woman submit to insult without passion? I at any rate am not such a woman." Then there was a pause for a moment. "If you have nothing else to say to me, you had better leave me. I am far from well, and my head is throbbing." He came up and took her hand, but she snatched it away from him. "Laura," he said, "do not let us quarrel." "I certainly shall quarrel if such insinuations are repeated." "I made no insinuation." "Do not repeat them. That is all." He was cowed and left her, having first attempted to get out of the difficulty of his position by making much of her alleged illness, and by offering to send for Dr. Macnuthrie. She positively refused to see Dr. Macnuthrie, and at last succeeded in inducing him to quit the room. This had occurred about the end of November, and on the 20th of December Violet Effingham reached Loughlinter. Life in Mr. Kennedy's house had gone quietly during the intervening three weeks, but not very pleasantly. The name of Phineas Finn had not been mentioned. Lady Laura had triumphed; but she had no desire to acerbate her husband by any unpalatable allusion to her victory. And he was quite willing to let the subject die away, if only it would die. On some other matters he continued to assert himself, taking his wife to church twice every Sunday, using longer family prayers than she approved, reading an additional sermon himself every Sunday evening, calling upon her for weekly attention to elaborate household accounts, asking for her personal assistance in much local visiting, initiating her into his favourite methods of family life in the country, till sometimes she almost longed to talk again about Phineas Finn, so that there might be a rupture, and she might escape. But her husband asserted himself within bounds, and she submitted, longing for the coming of Violet Effingham. She could not write to her father and beg to be taken away, because her husband would read a sermon to her on Sunday evening. To Violet, very shortly after her arrival, she told her whole story. "This is terrible," said Violet. "This makes me feel that I never will be married." "And yet what can a woman become if she remain single? The curse is to be a woman at all." "I have always felt so proud of the privileges of my sex," said Violet. "I never have found them," said the other; "never. I have tried to make the best of its weaknesses, and this is what I have come to! I suppose I ought to have loved some man." "And did you never love any man?" "No;--I think I never did,--not as people mean when they speak of love. I have felt that I would consent to be cut in little pieces for my brother,--because of my regard for him." "Ah, that is nothing." "And I have felt something of the same thing for another,--a longing for his welfare, a delight to hear him praised, a charm in his presence,--so strong a feeling for his interest, that were he to go to wrack and ruin, I too, should, after a fashion, be wracked and ruined. But it has not been love either." "Do I know whom you mean? May I name him? It is Phineas Finn." "Of course it is Phineas Finn." "Did he ever ask you,--to love him?" "I feared he would do so, and therefore accepted Mr. Kennedy's offer almost at the first word." "I do not quite understand your reasoning, Laura." "I understand it. I could have refused him nothing in my power to give him, but I did not wish to be his wife." "And he never asked you?" Lady Laura paused a moment, thinking what reply she should make;--and then she told a fib. "No; he never asked me." But Violet did not believe the fib. Violet was quite sure that Phineas had asked Lady Laura Standish to be his wife. "As far as I can see," said Violet, "Madame Max Goesler is his present passion." "I do not believe it in the least," said Lady Laura, firing up. "It does not much matter," said Violet. "It would matter very much. You know, you,--you; you know whom he loves. And I do believe that sooner or later you will be his wife." "Never." "Yes, you will. Had you not loved him you would never have condescended to accuse him about that woman." "I have not accused him. Why should he not marry Madame Max Goesler? It would be just the thing for him. She is very rich." "Never. You will be his wife." "Laura, you are the most capricious of women. You have two dear friends, and you insist that I shall marry them both. Which shall I take first?" "Oswald will be here in a day or two, and you can take him if you like it. No doubt he will ask you. But I do not think you will." "No; I do not think I shall. I shall knock under to Mr. Mill, and go in for women's rights, and look forward to stand for some female borough. Matrimony never seemed to me to be very charming, and upon my word it does not become more alluring by what I find at Loughlinter." It was thus that Violet and Lady Laura discussed these matters together, but Violet had never showed to her friend the cards in her hand, as Lady Laura had shown those which she held. Lady Laura had in fact told almost everything that there was to tell,--had spoken either plainly with true words, or equally plainly with words that were not true. Violet Effingham had almost come to love Phineas Finn;--but she never told her friend that it was so. At one time she had almost made up her mind to give herself and all her wealth to this adventurer. He was a better man, she thought, than Lord Chiltern; and she had come to persuade herself that it was almost imperative on her to take the one or the other. Though she could talk about remaining unmarried, she knew that that was practically impossible. All those around her,--those of the Baldock as well as those of the Brentford faction,--would make such a life impossible to her. Besides, in such a case what could she do? It was all very well to talk of disregarding the world and of setting up a house for herself;--but she was quite aware that that project could not be used further than for the purpose of scaring her amiable aunt. And if not that,--then could she content herself to look forward to a joint life with Lady Baldock and Augusta Boreham? She might, of course, oblige her aunt by taking Lord Fawn, or oblige her aunt equally by taking Mr. Appledom; but she was strongly of opinion that either Lord Chiltern or Phineas would be preferable to these. Thinking over it always she had come to feel that it must be either Lord Chiltern or Phineas; but she had never whispered her thought to man or woman. On her journey to Loughlinter, where she then knew that she was to meet Lord Chiltern, she endeavoured to persuade herself that it should be Phineas. But Lady Laura had marred it all by that ill-told fib. There had been a moment before in which Violet had felt that Phineas had sacrificed something of that truth of love for which she gave him credit to the glances of Madame Goesler's eyes; but she had rebuked herself for the idea, accusing herself not only of a little jealousy, but of foolish vanity. Was he, whom she had rejected, not to speak to another woman? Then came the blow from Lady Laura, and Violet knew that it was a blow. This gallant lover, this young Crichton, this unassuming but ardent lover, had simply taken up with her as soon as he had failed with her friend. Lady Laura had been most enthusiastic in her expressions of friendship. Such platonic regards might be all very well. It was for Mr. Kennedy to look to that. But, for herself, she felt that such expressions were hardly compatible with her ideas of having her lover all to herself. And then she again remembered Madame Goesler's bright blue eyes. Lord Chiltern came on Christmas eve, and was received with open arms by his sister, and with that painful, irritating affection which such a girl as Violet can show to such a man as Lord Chiltern, when she will not give him that other affection for which his heart is panting. The two men were civil to each other,--but very cold. They called each other Kennedy and Chiltern, but even that was not done without an effort. On the Christmas morning Mr. Kennedy asked his brother-in-law to go to church. "It's a kind of thing I never do," said Lord Chiltern. Mr. Kennedy gave a little start, and looked a look of horror. Lady Laura showed that she was unhappy. Violet Effingham turned away her face, and smiled. As they walked across the park Violet took Lord Chiltern's part. "He only means that he does not go to church on Christmas day." "I don't know what he means," said Mr. Kennedy. "We need not speak of it," said Lady Laura. "Certainly not," said Mr. Kennedy. "I have been to church with him on Sundays myself," said Violet, perhaps not reflecting that the practices of early years had little to do with the young man's life at present. Christmas day and the next day passed without any sign from Lord Chiltern, and on the day after that he was to go away. But he was not to leave till one or two in the afternoon. Not a word had been said between the two women, since he had been in the house, on the subject of which both of them were thinking. Very much had been said of the expediency of his going to Saulsby, but on this matter he had declined to make any promise. Sitting in Lady Laura's room, in the presence of both of them, he had refused to do so. "I am bad to drive," he said, turning to Violet, "and you had better not try to drive me." "Why should not you be driven as well as another?" she answered, laughing. CHAPTER LII The First Blow Lord Chiltern, though he had passed two entire days in the house with Violet without renewing his suit, had come to Loughlinter for the express purpose of doing so, and had his plans perfectly fixed in his own mind. After breakfast on that last morning he was up-stairs with his sister in her own room, and immediately made his request to her. "Laura," he said, "go down like a good girl, and make Violet come up here." She stood a moment looking at him and smiled. "And, mind," he continued, "you are not to come back yourself. I must have Violet alone." "But suppose Violet will not come? Young ladies do not generally wait upon young men on such occasions." "No;--but I rank her so high among young women, that I think she will have common sense enough to teach her that, after what has passed between us, I have a right to ask for an interview, and that it may be more conveniently had here than in the wilderness of the house below." Whatever may have been the arguments used by her friend, Violet did come. She reached the door all alone, and opened it bravely. She had promised herself, as she came along the passages, that she would not pause with her hand on the lock for a moment. She had first gone to her own room, and as she left it she had looked into the glass with a hurried glance, and had then rested for a moment,--thinking that something should be done, that her hair might be smoothed, or a ribbon set straight, or the chain arranged under her brooch. A girl would wish to look well before her lover, even when she means to refuse him. But her pause was but for an instant, and then she went on, having touched nothing. She shook her head and pressed her hands together, and went on quick and opened the door,--almost with a little start. "Violet, this is very good of you," said Lord Chiltern, standing with his back to the fire, and not moving from the spot. "Laura has told me that you thought I would do as much as this for you, and therefore I have done it." "Thanks, dearest. It is the old story, Violet, and I am so bad at words!" "I must have been bad at words too, as I have not been able to make you understand." "I think I have understood. You are always clear-spoken, and I, though I cannot talk, am not muddle-pated. I have understood. But while you are single there must be yet hope;--unless, indeed, you will tell me that you have already given yourself to another man." "I have not done that." "Then how can I not hope? Violet, I would if I could tell you all my feelings plainly. Once, twice, thrice, I have said to myself that I would think of you no more. I have tried to persuade myself that I am better single than married." "But I am not the only woman." "To me you are,--absolutely, as though there were none other on the face of God's earth. I live much alone; but you are always with me. Should you marry any other man, it will be the same with me still. If you refuse me now I shall go away,--and live wildly." "Oswald, what do you mean?" "I mean that I will go to some distant part of the world, where I may be killed or live a life of adventure. But I shall do so simply in despair. It will not be that I do not know how much better and greater should be the life at home of a man in my position." "Then do not talk of going." "I cannot stay. You will acknowledge, Violet, that I have never lied to you. I am thinking of you day and night. The more indifferent you show yourself to me, the more I love you. Violet, try to love me." He came up to her, and took her by both her hands, and tears were in his eyes. "Say you will try to love me." "It is not that," said Violet, looking away, but still leaving her hands with him. "It is not what, dear?" "What you call,--trying." "It is that you do not wish to try?" "Oswald, you are so violent, so headstrong. I am afraid of you,--as is everybody. Why have you not written to your father, as we have asked you?" "I will write to him instantly, now, before I leave the room, and you shall dictate the letter to him. By heavens, you shall!" He had dropped her hands when she called him violent; but now he took them again, and still she permitted it. "I have postponed it only till I had spoken to you once again." "No, Lord Chiltern, I will not dictate to you." "But will you love me?" She paused and looked down, having even now not withdrawn her hands from him. But I do not think he knew how much he had gained. "You used to love me,--a little," he said. "Indeed,--indeed, I did." "And now? Is it all changed now?" "No," she said, retreating from him. "How is it, then? Violet, speak to me honestly. Will you be my wife?" She did not answer him, and he stood for a moment looking at her. Then he rushed at her, and, seizing her in his arms, kissed her all over,--her forehead, her lips, her cheeks, then both her hands, and then her lips again. "By G----, she is my own!" he said. Then he went back to the rug before the fire, and stood there with his back turned to her. Violet, when she found herself thus deserted, retreated to a sofa, and sat herself down. She had no negative to produce now in answer to the violent assertion which he had pronounced as to his own success. It was true. She had doubted, and doubted,--and still doubted. But now she must doubt no longer. Of one thing she was quite sure. She could love him. As things had now gone, she would make him quite happy with assurances on that subject. As to that other question,--that fearful question, whether or not she could trust him,--on that matter she had better at present say nothing, and think as little, perhaps, as might be. She had taken the jump, and therefore why should she not be gracious to him? But how was she to be gracious to a lover who stood there with his back turned to her? After the interval of a minute or two he remembered himself, and turned round. Seeing her seated, he approached her, and went down on both knees close at her feet. Then he took her hands again, for the third time, and looked up into her eyes. "Oswald, you on your knees!" she said. "I would not bend to a princess," he said, "to ask for half her throne; but I will kneel here all day, if you will let me, in thanks for the gift of your love. I never kneeled to beg for it." "This is the man who cannot make speeches." "I think I could talk now by the hour, with you for a listener." "Oh, but I must talk too." "What will you say to me?" "Nothing while you are kneeling. It is not natural that you should kneel. You are like Samson with his locks shorn, or Hercules with a distaff." "Is that better?" he said, as he got up and put his arm round her waist. "You are in earnest?" she asked. "In earnest. I hardly thought that that would be doubted. Do you not believe me?" "I do believe you. And you will be good?" "Ah,--I do not know that." "Try, and I will love you so dearly. Nay, I do love you dearly. I do. I do." "Say it again." "I will say it fifty times,--till your ears are weary with it";--and she did say it to him, after her own fashion, fifty times. "This is a great change," he said, getting up after a while and walking about the room. "But a change for the better;--is it not, Oswald?" "So much for the better that I hardly know myself in my new joy. But, Violet, we'll have no delay,--will we? No shilly-shallying. What is the use of waiting now that it's settled?" "None in the least, Lord Chiltern. Let us say,--this day twelvemonth." "You are laughing at me, Violet." "Remember, sir, that the first thing you have to do is to write to your father." He instantly went to the writing-table and took up paper and pen. "Come along," he said. "You are to dictate it." But this she refused to do, telling him that he must write his letter to his father out of his own head, and out of his own heart. "I cannot write it," he said, throwing down the pen. "My blood is in such a tumult that I cannot steady my hand." "You must not be so tumultuous, Oswald, or I shall have to live in a whirlwind." "Oh, I shall shake down. I shall become as steady as an old stager. I'll go as quiet in harness by-and-by as though I had been broken to it a four-year-old. I wonder whether Laura could not write this letter." "I think you should write it yourself, Oswald." "If you bid me I will." "Bid you indeed! As if it was for me to bid you. Do you not know that in these new troubles you are undertaking you will have to bid me in everything, and that I shall be bound to do your bidding? Does it not seem to be dreadful? My wonder is that any girl can ever accept any man." "But you have accepted me now." "Yes, indeed." "And you repent?" "No, indeed, and I will try to do your biddings;--but you must not be rough to me, and outrageous, and fierce,--will you, Oswald?" "I will not at any rate be like Kennedy is with poor Laura." "No;--that is not your nature." "I will do my best, dearest. And you may at any rate be sure of this, that I will love you always. So much good of myself, if it be good, I can say." "It is very good," she answered; "the best of all good words. And now I must go. And as you are leaving Loughlinter I will say good-bye. When am I to have the honour and felicity of beholding your lordship again?" "Say a nice word to me before I am off, Violet." "I,--love,--you,--better,--than all the world beside; and I mean,--to be your wife,--some day. Are not those twenty nice words?" He would not prolong his stay at Loughlinter, though he was asked to do so both by Violet and his sister, and though, as he confessed himself, he had no special business elsewhere. "It is no use mincing the matter. I don't like Kennedy, and I don't like being in his house," he said to Violet. And then he promised that there should be a party got up at Saulsby before the winter was over. His plan was to stop that night at Carlisle, and write to his father from thence. "Your blood, perhaps, won't be so tumultuous at Carlisle," said Violet. He shook his head and went on with his plans. He would then go on to London and down to Willingford, and there wait for his father's answer. "There is no reason why I should lose more of the hunting than necessary." "Pray don't lose a day for me," said Violet. As soon as he heard from his father, he would do his father's bidding. "You will go to Saulsby," said Violet; "you can hunt at Saulsby, you know." "I will go to Jericho if he asks me, only you will have to go with me." "I thought we were to go to,--Belgium," said Violet. "And so that is settled at last," said Violet to Laura that night. "I hope you do not regret it." "On the contrary, I am as happy as the moments are long." "My fine girl!" "I am happy because I love him. I have always loved him. You have known that." "Indeed, no." "But I have, after my fashion. I am not tumultuous, as he calls himself. Since he began to make eyes at me when he was nineteen--" "Fancy Oswald making eyes!" "Oh, he did, and mouths too. But from the beginning, when I was a child, I have known that he was dangerous, and I have thought that he would pass on and forget me after a while. And I could have lived without him. Nay, there have been moments when I thought I could learn to love some one else." "Poor Phineas, for instance." "We will mention no names. Mr. Appledom, perhaps, more likely. He has been my most constant lover, and then he would be so safe! Your brother, Laura, is dangerous. He is like the bad ice in the parks where they stick up the poles. He has had a pole stuck upon him ever since he was a boy." "Yes;--give a dog a bad name and hang him." "Remember that I do not love him a bit the less on that account;--perhaps the better. A sense of danger does not make me unhappy, though the threatened evil may be fatal. I have entered myself for my forlorn hope, and I mean to stick to it. Now I must go and write to his worship. Only think,--I never wrote a love-letter yet!" Nothing more shall be said about Miss Effingham's first love-letter, which was, no doubt, creditable to her head and heart; but there were two other letters sent by the same post from Loughlinter which shall be submitted to the reader, as they will assist the telling of the story. One was from Lady Laura Kennedy to her friend Phineas Finn, and the other from Violet to her aunt, Lady Baldock. No letter was written to Lord Brentford, as it was thought desirable that he should receive the first intimation of what had been done from his son. Respecting the letter to Phineas, which shall be first given, Lady Laura thought it right to say a word to her husband. He had been of course told of the engagement, and had replied that he could have wished that the arrangement could have been made elsewhere than at his house, knowing as he did that Lady Baldock would not approve of it. To this Lady Laura had made no reply, and Mr. Kennedy had condescended to congratulate the bride-elect. When Lady Laura's letter to Phineas was completed she took care to put it into the letter-box in the presence of her husband. "I have written to Mr. Finn," she said, "to tell him of this marriage." "Why was it necessary that he should be told?" "I think it was due to him,--from certain circumstances." "I wonder whether there was any truth in what everybody was saying about their fighting a duel?" asked Mr. Kennedy. His wife made no answer, and then he continued--"You told me of your own knowledge that it was untrue." "Not of my own knowledge, Robert." "Yes;--of your own knowledge." Then Mr. Kennedy walked away, and was certain that his wife had deceived him about the duel. There had been a duel, and she had known it; and yet she had told him that the report was a ridiculous fabrication. He never forgot anything. He remembered at this moment the words of the falsehood, and the look of her face as she told it. He had believed her implicitly, but he would never believe her again. He was one of those men who, in spite of their experience of the world, of their experience of their own lives, imagine that lips that have once lied can never tell the truth. Lady Laura's letter to Phineas was as follows: Loughlinter, December 28th, 186--. MY DEAR FRIEND, Violet Effingham is here, and Oswald has just left us. It is possible that you may see him as he passes through London. But, at any rate, I think it best to let you know immediately that she has accepted him,--at last. If there be any pang in this to you, be sure that I will grieve for you. You will not wish me to say that I regret that which was the dearest wish of my heart before I knew you. Lately, indeed, I have been torn in two ways. You will understand what I mean, and I believe I need say nothing more;--except this, that it shall be among my prayers that you may obtain all things that may tend to make you happy, honourable, and of high esteem. Your most sincere friend LAURA KENNEDY. Even though her husband should read the letter, there was nothing in that of which she need be ashamed. But he did not read the letter. He simply speculated as to its contents, and inquired within himself whether it would not be for the welfare of the world in general, and for the welfare of himself in particular, that husbands should demand to read their wives' letters. And this was Violet's letter to her aunt:-- MY DEAR AUNT, The thing has come at last, and all your troubles will be soon over;--for I do believe that all your troubles have come from your unfortunate niece. At last I am going to be married, and thus take myself off your hands. Lord Chiltern has just been here, and I have accepted him. I am afraid you hardly think so well of Lord Chiltern as I do; but then, perhaps, you have not known him so long. You do know, however, that there has been some difference between him and his father. I think I may take upon myself to say that now, upon his engagement, this will be settled. I have the inexpressible pleasure of feeling sure that Lord Brentford will welcome me as his daughter-in-law. Tell the news to Augusta with my best love. I will write to her in a day or two. I hope my cousin Gustavus will condescend to give me away. Of course there is nothing fixed about time;--but I should say, perhaps, in nine years. Your affectionate niece, VIOLET EFFINGHAM. Loughlinter, Friday. "What does she mean about nine years?" said Lady Baldock in her wrath. "She is joking," said the mild Augusta. "I believe she would--joke, if I were going to be buried," said Lady Baldock. CHAPTER LIII Showing How Phineas Bore the Blow When Phineas received Lady Laura Kennedy's letter, he was sitting in his gorgeous apartment in the Colonial Office. It was gorgeous in comparison with the very dingy room at Mr. Low's to which he had been accustomed in his early days,--and somewhat gorgeous also as compared with the lodgings he had so long inhabited in Mr. Bunce's house. The room was large and square, and looked out from three windows on to St. James's Park. There were in it two very comfortable arm-chairs and a comfortable sofa. And the office table at which he sat was of old mahogany, shining brightly, and seemed to be fitted up with every possible appliance for official comfort. This stood near one of the windows, so that he could sit and look down upon the park. And there was a large round table covered with books and newspapers. And the walls of the room were bright with maps of all the colonies. And there was one very interesting map,--but not very bright,--showing the American colonies, as they used to be. And there was a little inner closet in which he could brush his hair and wash his hands; and in the room adjoining there sat,--or ought to have sat, for he was often absent, vexing the mind of Phineas,--the Earl's nephew, his private secretary. And it was all very gorgeous. Often as he looked round upon it, thinking of his old bedroom at Killaloe, of his little garrets at Trinity, of the dingy chambers in Lincoln's Inn, he would tell himself that it was very gorgeous. He would wonder that anything so grand had fallen to his lot. The letter from Scotland was brought to him in the afternoon, having reached London by some day-mail from Glasgow. He was sitting at his desk with a heap of papers before him referring to a contemplated railway from Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It had become his business to get up the subject, and then discuss with his principal, Lord Cantrip, the expediency of advising the Government to lend a company five million of money, in order that this railway might be made. It was a big subject, and the contemplation of it gratified him. It required that he should look forward to great events, and exercise the wisdom of a statesman. What was the chance of these colonies being swallowed up by those other regions,--once colonies,--of which the map that hung in the corner told so eloquent a tale? And if so, would the five million ever be repaid? And if not swallowed up, were the colonies worth so great an adventure of national money? Could they repay it? Would they do so? Should they be made to do so? Mr. Low, who was now a Q.C. and in Parliament, would not have greater subjects than this before him, even if he should come to be Solicitor General. Lord Cantrip had specially asked him to get up this matter,--and he was getting it up sedulously. Once in nine years the harbour of Halifax was blocked up by ice. He had just jotted down the fact, which was material, when Lady Laura's letter was brought to him. He read it, and putting it down by his side very gently, went back to his maps as though the thing would not so trouble his mind as to disturb his work. He absolutely wrote, automatically, certain words of a note about the harbour, after he had received the information. A horse will gallop for some scores of yards, after his back has been broken, before he knows of his great ruin;--and so it was with Phineas Finn. His back was broken, but, nevertheless, he galloped, for a yard or two. "Closed in 1860-61 for thirteen days." Then he began to be aware that his back was broken, and that the writing of any more notes about the ice in Halifax harbour was for the present out of the question. "I think it best to let you know immediately that she has accepted him." These were the words which he read the oftenest. Then it was all over! The game was played out, and all his victories were as nothing to him. He sat for an hour in his gorgeous room thinking of it, and various were the answers which he gave during the time to various messages;--but he would see nobody. As for the colonies, he did not care if they revolted to-morrow. He would have parted with every colony belonging to Great Britain to have gotten the hand of Violet Effingham for himself. Now,--now at this moment, he told himself with oaths that he had never loved any one but Violet Effingham. There had been so much to make such a marriage desirable! I should wrong my hero deeply were I to say that the weight of his sorrow was occasioned by the fact that he had lost an heiress. He would never have thought of looking for Violet Effingham had he not first learned to love her. But as the idea opened itself out to him, everything had seemed to be so suitable. Had Miss Effingham become his wife, the mouths of the Lows and of the Bunces would have been stopped altogether. Mr. Monk would have come to his house as his familiar guest, and he would have been connected with half a score of peers. A seat in Parliament would be simply his proper place, and even Under-Secretaryships of State might soon come to be below him. He was playing a great game, but hitherto he had played it with so much success,--with such wonderful luck! that it had seemed to him that all things were within his reach. Nothing more had been wanting to him than Violet's hand for his own comfort, and Violet's fortune to support his position; and these, too, had almost seemed to be within his grasp. His goddess had indeed refused him,--but not with disdain. Even Lady Laura had talked of his marriage as not improbable. All the world, almost, had heard of the duel; and all the world had smiled, and seemed to think that in the real fight Phineas Finn would be the victor,--that the lucky pistol was in his hands. It had never occurred to any one to suppose,--as far as he could see,--that he was presuming at all, or pushing himself out of his own sphere, in asking Violet Effingham to be his wife. No;--he would trust his luck, would persevere, and would succeed. Such had been his resolution on that very morning,--and now there had come this letter to dash him to the ground. There were moments in which he declared to himself that he would not believe the letter,--not that there was any moment in which there was in his mind the slightest spark of real hope. But he would tell himself that he would still persevere. Violet might have been driven to accept that violent man by violent influence,--or it might be that she had not in truth accepted him, that Chiltern had simply so asserted. Or, even if it were so, did women never change their minds? The manly thing would be to persevere to the end. Had he not before been successful, when success seemed to be as far from him? But he could buoy himself up with no real hope. Even when these ideas were present to his mind, he knew,--he knew well,--at those very moments, that his back was broken. Some one had come in and lighted the candles and drawn down the blinds while he was sitting there, and now, as he looked at his watch, he found that it was past five o'clock. He was engaged to dine with Madame Max Goesler at eight, and in his agony he half-resolved that he would send an excuse. Madame Max would be full of wrath, as she was very particular about her little dinner-parties;--but, what did he care now about the wrath of Madame Max Goesler? And yet only this morning he had been congratulating himself, among his other successes, upon her favour, and had laughed inwardly at his own falseness,--his falseness to Violet Effingham,--as he did so. He had said something to himself jocosely about lovers' perjuries, the remembrance of which was now very bitter to him. He took up a sheet of note-paper and scrawled an excuse to Madame Goesler. News from the country, he said, made it impossible that he should go out to-night. But he did not send the note. At about half-past five he opened the door of his private secretary's room and found the young man fast asleep, with a cigar in his mouth. "Halloa, Charles," he said. "All right!" Charles Standish was a first cousin of Lady Laura's, and, having been in the office before Phineas had joined it, and being a great favourite with his cousin, had of course become the Under-Secretary's private secretary. "I'm all here," said Charles Standish, getting up and shaking himself. "I am going. Just tie up those papers,--exactly as they are. I shall be here early to-morrow, but I shan't want you before twelve. Good night, Charles." "Ta, ta," said his private secretary, who was very fond of his master, but not very respectful,--unless upon express occasions. Then Phineas went out and walked across the park; but as he went he became quite aware that his back was broken. It was not the less broken because he sang to himself little songs to prove to himself that it was whole and sound. It was broken, and it seemed to him now that he never could become an Atlas again, to bear the weight of the world upon his shoulders. What did anything signify? All that he had done had been part of a game which he had been playing throughout, and now he had been beaten in his game. He absolutely ignored his old passion for Lady Laura as though it had never been, and regarded himself as a model of constancy,--as a man who had loved, not wisely perhaps, but much too well,--and who must now therefore suffer a living death. He hated Parliament. He hated the Colonial Office. He hated his friend Mr. Monk; and he especially hated Madame Max Goesler. As to Lord Chiltern,--he believed that Lord Chiltern had obtained his object by violence. He would see to that! Yes;--let the consequences be what they might, he would see to that! He went up by the Duke of York's column, and as he passed the Athenæum he saw his chief, Lord Cantrip, standing under the portico talking to a bishop. He would have gone on unnoticed, had it been possible; but Lord Cantrip came down to him at once. "I have put your name down here," said his lordship. "What's the use?" said Phineas, who was profoundly indifferent at this moment to all the clubs in London. "It can't do any harm, you know. You'll come up in time. And if you should get into the ministry, they'll let you in at once." "Ministry!" ejaculated Phineas. But Lord Cantrip took the tone of voice as simply suggestive of humility, and suspected nothing of that profound indifference to all ministers and ministerial honours which Phineas had intended to express. "By-the-bye," said Lord Cantrip, putting his arm through that of the Under-Secretary, "I wanted to speak to you about the guarantees. We shall be in the devil's own mess, you know--" And so the Secretary of State went on about the Rocky Mountain Railroad, and Phineas strove hard to bear his burden with his broken back. He was obliged to say something about the guarantees, and the railway, and the frozen harbour,--and something especially about the difficulties which would be found, not in the measures themselves, but in the natural pugnacity of the Opposition. In the fabrication of garments for the national wear, the great thing is to produce garments that shall, as far as possible, defy hole-picking. It may be, and sometimes is, the case, that garments so fabricated will be good also for wear. Lord Cantrip, at the present moment, was very anxious and very ingenious in the stopping of holes; and he thought that perhaps his Under-Secretary was too much prone to the indulgence of large philanthropical views without sufficient thought of the hole-pickers. But on this occasion, by the time that he reached Brooks's, he had been enabled to convince his Under-Secretary, and though he had always thought well of his Under-Secretary, he thought better of him now than ever he had done. Phineas during the whole time had been meditating what he could do to Lord Chiltern when they two should meet. Could he take him by the throat and smite him? "I happen to know that Broderick is working as hard at the matter as we are," said Lord Cantrip, stopping opposite to the club. "He moved for papers, you know, at the end of last session." Now Mr. Broderick was a gentleman in the House looking for promotion in a Conservative Government, and of course would oppose any measure that could be brought forward by the Cantrip-Finn Colonial Administration. Then Lord Cantrip slipped into the club, and Phineas went on alone. A spark of his old ambition with reference to Brooks's was the first thing to make him forget his misery for a moment. He had asked Lord Brentford to put his name down, and was not sure whether it had been done. The threat of Mr. Broderick's opposition had been of no use towards the strengthening of his broken back, but the sight of Lord Cantrip hurrying in at the coveted door did do something. "A man can't cut his throat or blow his brains out," he said to himself; "after all, he must go on and do his work. For hearts will break, yet brokenly live on." Thereupon he went home, and after sitting for an hour over his own fire, and looking wistfully at a little treasure which he had,--a treasure obtained by some slight fraud at Saulsby, and which he now chucked into the fire, and then instantly again pulled out of it, soiled but unscorched,--he dressed himself for dinner, and went out to Madame Max Goesler's. Upon the whole, he was glad that he had not sent the note of excuse. A man must live, even though his heart be broken, and living he must dine. Madame Max Goesler was fond of giving little dinners at this period of the year, before London was crowded, and when her guests might probably not be called away by subsequent social arrangements. Her number seldom exceeded six or eight, and she always spoke of these entertainments as being of the humblest kind. She sent out no big cards. She preferred to catch her people as though by chance, when that was possible. "Dear Mr. Jones. Mr. Smith is coming to tell me about some sherry on Tuesday. Will you come and tell me too? I daresay you know as much about it." And then there was a studious absence of parade. The dishes were not very numerous. The bill of fare was simply written out once, for the mistress, and so circulated round the table. Not a word about the things to be eaten or the things to be drunk was ever spoken at the table,--or at least no such word was ever spoken by Madame Goesler. But, nevertheless, they who knew anything about dinners were aware that Madame Goesler gave very good dinners indeed. Phineas Finn was beginning to flatter himself that he knew something about dinners, and had been heard to assert that the soups at the cottage in Park Lane were not to be beaten in London. But he cared for no soup to-day, as he slowly made his way up Madame Goesler's staircase. There had been one difficulty in the way of Madame Goesler's dinner-parties which had required some patience and great ingenuity in its management. She must either have ladies, or she must not have them. There was a great allurement in the latter alternative; but she knew well that if she gave way to it, all prospect of general society would for her be closed,--and for ever. This had been in the early days of her widowhood in Park Lane. She cared but little for women's society; but she knew well that the society of gentlemen without women would not be that which she desired. She knew also that she might as effectually crush herself and all her aspirations by bringing to her house indifferent women,--women lacking something either in character, or in position, or in talent,--as by having none at all. Thus there had been a great difficulty, and sometimes she had thought that the thing could not be done at all. "These English are so stiff, so hard, so heavy!" And yet she would not have cared to succeed elsewhere than among the English. By degrees, however, the thing was done. Her prudence equalled her wit, and even suspicious people had come to acknowledge that they could not put their fingers on anything wrong. When Lady Glencora Palliser had once dined at the cottage in Park Lane, Madame Max Goesler had told herself that henceforth she did not care what the suspicious people said. Since that the Duke of Omnium had almost promised that he would come. If she could only entertain the Duke of Omnium she would have done everything. But there was no Duke of Omnium there to-night. At this time the Duke of Omnium was, of course, not in London. But Lord Fawn was there; and our old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had--resigned his place at the Colonial Office; and there were Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen. They, with our hero, made up the party. No one doubted for a moment to what source Mr. Bonteen owed his dinner. Mrs. Bonteen was good-looking, could talk, was sufficiently proper, and all that kind of thing,--and did as well as any other woman at this time of year to keep Madame Max Goesler in countenance. There was never any sitting after dinner at the cottage; or, I should rather say, there was never any sitting after Madame Goesler went; so that the two ladies could not weary each other by being alone together. Mrs. Bonteen understood quite well that she was not required there to talk to her hostess, and was as willing as any woman to make herself agreeable to the gentlemen she might meet at Madame Goesler's table. And thus Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen not unfrequently dined in Park Lane. "Now we have only to wait for that horrible man, Mr. Fitzgibbon," said Madame Max Goesler, as she welcomed Phineas. "He is always late." "What a blow for me!" said Phineas. "No,--you are always in good time. But there is a limit beyond which good time ends, and being shamefully late at once begins. But here he is." And then, as Laurence Fitzgibbon entered the room, Madame Goesler rang the bell for dinner. Phineas found himself placed between his hostess and Mr. Bonteen, and Lord Fawn was on the other side of Madame Goesler. They were hardly seated at the table before some one stated it as a fact that Lord Brentford and his son were reconciled. Now Phineas knew, or thought that he knew, that this could not as yet be the case; and indeed such was not the case, though the father had already received the son's letter. But Phineas did not choose to say anything at present about Lord Chiltern. "How odd it is," said Madame Goesler; "how often you English fathers quarrel with your sons!" "How often we English sons quarrel with our fathers rather," said Lord Fawn, who was known for the respect he had always paid to the fifth commandment. "It all comes from entail and primogeniture, and old-fashioned English prejudices of that kind," said Madame Goesler. "Lord Chiltern is a friend of yours, Mr. Finn, I think." "They are both friends of mine," said Phineas. "Ah, yes; but you,--you,--you and Lord Chiltern once did something odd together. There was a little mystery, was there not?" "It is very little of a mystery now," said Fitzgibbon. "It was about a lady;--was it not?" said Mrs. Bonteen, affecting to whisper to her neighbour. "I am not at liberty to say anything on the subject," said Fitzgibbon; "but I have no doubt Phineas will tell you." "I don't believe this about Lord Brentford," said Mr. Bonteen. "I happen to know that Chiltern was down at Loughlinter three days ago, and that he passed through London yesterday on his way to the place where he hunts. The Earl is at Saulsby. He would have gone to Saulsby if it were true." "It all depends upon whether Miss Effingham will accept him," said Mrs. Bonteen, looking over at Phineas as she spoke. As there were two of Violet Effingham's suitors at table, the subject was becoming disagreeably personal; and the more so, as every one of the party knew or surmised something of the facts of the case. The cause of the duel at Blankenberg had become almost as public as the duel, and Lord Fawn's courtship had not been altogether hidden from the public eye. He on the present occasion might probably be able to carry himself better than Phineas, even presuming him to be equally eager in his love,--for he knew nothing of the fatal truth. But he was unable to hear Mrs. Bonteen's statement with indifference, and showed his concern in the matter by his reply. "Any lady will be much to be pitied," he said, "who does that. Chiltern is the last man in the world to whom I would wish to trust the happiness of a woman for whom I cared." "Chiltern is a very good fellow," said Laurence Fitzgibbon. "Just a little wild," said Mrs. Bonteen. "And never had a shilling in his pocket in his life," said her husband. "I regard him as simply a madman," said Lord Fawn. "I do so wish I knew him," said Madame Max Goesler. "I am fond of madmen, and men who haven't shillings, and who are a little wild, Could you not bring him here, Mr. Finn?" Phineas did not know what to say, or how to open his mouth without showing his deep concern. "I shall be happy to ask him if you wish it," he replied, as though the question had been put to him in earnest; "but I do not see so much of Lord Chiltern as I used to do." "You do not believe that Violet Effingham will accept him?" asked Mrs. Bonteen. He paused a moment before he spoke, and then made his answer in a deep solemn voice,--with a seriousness which he was unable to repress. "She has accepted him," he said. "Do you mean that you know it?" said Madame Goesler. "Yes;--I mean that I know it." Had anybody told him beforehand that he would openly make this declaration at Madame Goesler's table, he would have said that of all things it was the most impossible. He would have declared that nothing would have induced him to speak of Violet Effingham in his existing frame of mind, and that he would have had his tongue cut out before he spoke of her as the promised bride of his rival. And now he had declared the whole truth of his own wretchedness and discomfiture. He was well aware that all of them there knew why he had fought the duel at Blankenberg;--all, that is, except perhaps Lord Fawn. And he felt as he made the statement as to Lord Chiltern that he blushed up to his forehead, and that his voice was strange, and that he was telling the tale of his own disgrace. But when the direct question had been asked him he had been unable to refrain from answering it directly. He had thought of turning it off with some jest or affectation of drollery, but had failed. At the moment he had been unable not to speak the truth. "I don't believe a word of it," said Lord Fawn,--who also forgot himself. "I do believe it, if Mr. Finn says so," said Mrs. Bonteen, who rather liked the confusion she had caused. "But who could have told you, Finn?" asked Mr. Bonteen. "His sister, Lady Laura, told me so," said Phineas. "Then it must be true," said Madame Goesler. "It is quite impossible," said Lord Fawn. "I think I may say that I know that it is impossible. If it were so, it would be a most shameful arrangement. Every shilling she has in the world would be swallowed up." Now, Lord Fawn in making his proposals had been magnanimous in his offers as to settlements and pecuniary provisions generally. For some minutes after that Phineas did not speak another word, and the conversation generally was not so brisk and bright as it was expected to be at Madame Goesler's. Madame Max Goesler herself thoroughly understood our hero's position, and felt for him. She would have encouraged no questionings about Violet Effingham had she thought that they would have led to such a result, and now she exerted herself to turn the minds of her guests to other subjects. At last she succeeded; and after a while, too, Phineas himself was able to talk. He drank two or three glasses of wine, and dashed away into politics, taking the earliest opportunity in his power of contradicting Lord Fawn very plainly on one or two matters. Laurence Fitzgibbon was of course of opinion that the ministry could not stay in long. Since he had left the Government the ministers had made wonderful mistakes, and he spoke of them quite as an enemy might speak. "And yet, Fitz," said Mr. Bonteen, "you used to be so staunch a supporter." "I have seen the error of my way, I can assure you," said Laurence. "I always observe," said Madame Max Goesler, "that when any of you gentlemen resign,--which you usually do on some very trivial matter,--the resigning gentleman becomes of all foes the bitterest. Somebody goes on very well with his friends, agreeing most cordially about everything, till he finds that his public virtue cannot swallow some little detail, and then he resigns. Or some one, perhaps, on the other side has attacked him, and in the mêlée he is hurt, and so he resigns. But when he has resigned, and made his parting speech full of love and gratitude, I know well after that where to look for the bitterest hostility to his late friends. Yes, I am beginning to understand the way in which politics are done in England." All this was rather severe upon Laurence Fitzgibbon; but he was a man of the world, and bore it better than Phineas had borne his defeat. The dinner, taken altogether, was not a success, and so Madame Goesler understood. Lord Fawn, after he had been contradicted by Phineas, hardly opened his mouth. Phineas himself talked rather too much and rather too loudly; and Mrs. Bonteen, who was well enough inclined to flatter Lord Fawn, contradicted him. "I made a mistake," said Madame Goesler afterwards, "in having four members of Parliament who all of them were or had been in office. I never will have two men in office together again." This she said to Mrs. Bonteen. "My dear Madame Max," said Mrs. Bonteen, "your resolution ought to be that you will never again have two claimants for the same young lady." In the drawing-room up-stairs Madame Goesler managed to be alone for three minutes with Phineas Finn. "And it is as you say, my friend?" she asked. Her voice was plaintive and soft, and there was a look of real sympathy in her eyes. Phineas almost felt that if they two had been quite alone he could have told her everything, and have wept at her feet. "Yes," he said, "it is so." "I never doubted it when you had declared it. May I venture to say that I wish it had been otherwise?" "It is too late now, Madame Goesler. A man of course is a fool to show that he has any feelings in such a matter. The fact is, I heard it just before I came here, and had made up my mind to send you an excuse. I wish I had now." "Do not say that, Mr. Finn." "I have made such an ass of myself." "In my estimation you have done yourself honour. But if I may venture to give you counsel, do not speak of this affair again as though you had been personally concerned in it. In the world now-a-days the only thing disgraceful is to admit a failure." "And I have failed." "But you need not admit it, Mr. Finn. I know I ought not to say as much to you." "I, rather, am deeply indebted to you. I will go now, Madame Goesler, as I do not wish to leave the house with Lord Fawn." "But you will come and see me soon." Then Phineas promised that he would come soon; and felt as he made the promise that he would have an opportunity of talking over his love with his new friend at any rate without fresh shame as to his failure. Laurence Fitzgibbon went away with Phineas, and Mr. Bonteen, having sent his wife away by herself, walked off towards the clubs with Lord Fawn. He was very anxious to have a few words with Lord Fawn. Lord Fawn had evidently been annoyed by Phineas, and Mr. Bonteen did not at all love the young Under-Secretary. "That fellow has become the most consummate puppy I ever met," said he, as he linked himself on to the lord, "Monk, and one or two others among them, have contrived to spoil him altogether." "I don't believe a word of what he said about Lord Chiltern," said Lord Fawn. "About his marriage with Miss Effingham?" "It would be such an abominable shame to sacrifice the girl," said Lord Fawn. "Only think of it. Everything is gone. The man is a drunkard, and I don't believe he is any more reconciled to his father than you are. Lady Laura Kennedy must have had some object in saying so." "Perhaps an invention of Finn's altogether," said Mr. Bonteen. "Those Irish fellows are just the men for that kind of thing." "A man, you know, so violent that nobody can hold him," said Lord Fawn, thinking of Chiltern. "And so absurdly conceited," said Mr. Bonteen, thinking of Phineas. "A man who has never done anything, with all his advantages in the world,--and never will." "He won't hold his place long," said Mr. Bonteen. "Whom do you mean?" "Phineas Finn." "Oh, Mr. Finn. I was talking of Lord Chiltern. I believe Finn to be a very good sort of a fellow, and he is undoubtedly clever. They say Cantrip likes him amazingly. He'll do very well. But I don't believe a word of this about Lord Chiltern." Then Mr. Bonteen felt himself to be snubbed, and soon afterwards left Lord Fawn alone. CHAPTER LIV Consolation On the day following Madame Goesler's dinner party, Phineas, though he was early at his office, was not able to do much work, still feeling that as regarded the realities of the world, his back was broken. He might no doubt go on learning, and, after a time, might be able to exert himself in a perhaps useful, but altogether uninteresting kind of way, doing his work simply because it was there to be done,--as the carter or the tailor does his;--and from the same cause, knowing that a man must have bread to live. But as for ambition, and the idea of doing good, and the love of work for work's sake,--as for the elastic springs of delicious and beneficent labour,--all that was over for him. He would have worked from day till night, and from night till day, and from month till month throughout the year to have secured for Violet Effingham the assurance that her husband's position was worthy of her own. But now he had no motive for such work as this. As long as he took the public pay, he would earn it; and that was all. On the next day things were a little better with him. He received a note in the morning from Lord Cantrip saying that they two were to see the Prime Minister that evening, in order that the whole question of the railway to the Rocky Mountains might be understood, and Phineas was driven to his work. Before the time of the meeting came he had once more lost his own identity in great ideas of colonial welfare, and had planned and peopled a mighty region on the Red River, which should have no sympathy with American democracy. When he waited upon Mr. Gresham in the afternoon he said nothing about the mighty region; indeed, he left it to Lord Cantrip to explain most of the proposed arrangements,--speaking only a word or two here and there as occasion required. But he was aware that he had so far recovered as to be able to save himself from losing ground during the interview. "He's about the first Irishman we've had that has been worth his salt," said Mr. Gresham to his colleague afterwards. "That other Irishman was a terrible fellow," said Lord Cantrip, shaking his head. On the fourth day after his sorrow had befallen him, Phineas went again to the cottage in Park Lane. And in order that he might not be balked in his search for sympathy he wrote a line to Madame Goesler to ask if she would be at home. "I will be at home from five to six,--and alone.--M. M. G." That was the answer from Marie Max Goesler, and Phineas was of course at the cottage a few minutes after five. It is not, I think, surprising that a man when he wants sympathy in such a calamity as that which had now befallen Phineas Finn, should seek it from a woman. Women sympathise most effectually with men, as men do with women. But it is, perhaps, a little odd that a man when he wants consolation because his heart has been broken, always likes to receive it from a pretty woman. One would be disposed to think that at such a moment he would be profoundly indifferent to such a matter, that no delight could come to him from female beauty, and that all he would want would be the softness of a simply sympathetic soul. But he generally wants a soft hand as well, and an eye that can be bright behind the mutual tear, and lips that shall be young and fresh as they express their concern for his sorrow. All these things were added to Phineas when he went to Madame Goesler in his grief. "I am so glad to see you," said Madame Max. "You are very good-natured to let me come." "No;--but it is so good of you to trust me. But I was sure you would come after what took place the other night. I saw that you were pained, and I was so sorry for it." "I made such a fool of myself." "Not at all. And I thought that you were right to tell them when the question had been asked. If the thing was not to be kept a secret, it was better to speak it out. You will get over it quicker in that way than in any other. I have never seen the young lord, myself." "Oh, there is nothing amiss about him. As to what Lord Fawn said, the half of it is simply exaggeration, and the other half is misunderstood." "In this country it is so much to be a lord," said Madame Goesler. Phineas thought a moment of that matter before he replied. All the Standish family had been very good to him, and Violet Effingham had been very good. It was not the fault of any of them that he was now wretched and back-broken. He had meditated much on this, and had resolved that he would not even think evil of them. "I do not in my heart believe that that has had anything to do with it," he said. "But it has, my friend,--always. I do not know your Violet Effingham." "She is not mine." "Well;--I do not know this Violet that is not yours. I have met her, and did not specially admire her. But then the tastes of men and women about beauty are never the same. But I know she is one that always lives with lords and countesses. A girl who always lived with countesses feels it to be hard to settle down as a plain Mistress." "She has had plenty of choice among all sorts of men. It was not the title. She would not have accepted Chiltern unless she had--. But what is the use of talking of it?" "They had known each other long?" "Oh, yes,--as children. And the Earl desired it of all things." "Ah;--then he arranged it." "Not exactly. Nobody could arrange anything for Chiltern,--nor, as far as that goes, for Miss Effingham. They arranged it themselves, I fancy." "You had asked her?" "Yes;--twice. And she had refused him more than twice. I have nothing for which to blame her; but yet I had thought,--I had thought--" "She is a jilt then?" "No;--I will not let you say that of her. She is no jilt. But I think she has been strangely ignorant of her own mind. What is the use of talking of it, Madame Goesler?" "None;--only sometimes it is better to speak a word, than to keep one's sorrow to oneself." "So it is;--and there is not one in the world to whom I can speak such a word, except yourself. Is not that odd? I have sisters, but they have never heard of Miss Effingham, and would be quite indifferent." "Perhaps they have some other favourites." "Ah;--well. That does not matter, And my best friend here in London is Lord Chiltern's own sister." "She knew of your attachment?" "Oh, yes." "And she told you of Miss Effingham's engagement. Was she glad of it?" "She has always desired the marriage. And yet I think she would have been satisfied had it been otherwise. But of course her heart must be with her brother. I need not have troubled myself to go to Blankenberg after all." "It was for the best, perhaps. Everybody says you behaved so well." "I could not but go, as things were then." "What if you had--shot him?" "There would have been an end of everything. She would never have seen me after that. Indeed I should have shot myself next, feeling that there was nothing else left for me to do." "Ah;--you English are so peculiar. But I suppose it is best not to shoot a man. And, Mr. Finn, there are other ladies in the world prettier than Miss Violet Effingham. No;--of course you will not admit that now. Just at this moment, and for a month or two, she is peerless, and you will feel yourself to be of all men the most unfortunate. But you have the ball at your feet. I know no one so young who has got the ball at his feet so well. I call it nothing to have the ball at your feet if you are born with it there. It is so easy to be a lord if your father is one before you,--and so easy to marry a pretty girl if you can make her a countess. But to make yourself a lord, or to be as good as a lord, when nothing has been born to you,--that I call very much. And there are women, and pretty women too, Mr. Finn, who have spirit enough to understand this, and to think that the man, after all, is more important than the lord." Then she sang the old well-worn verse of the Scotch song with wonderful spirit, and with a clearness of voice and knowledge of music for which he had hitherto never given her credit. "A prince can mak' a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' that." "I did not know that you sung, Madame Goesler." "Only now and then when something specially requires it. And I am very fond of Scotch songs. I will sing to you now if you like it." Then she sang the whole song,--"A man's a man for a' that," she said as she finished. "Even though he cannot get the special bit of painted Eve's flesh for which his heart has had a craving." Then she sang again:-- "There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." "But young Lochinvar got his bride," said Phineas. "Take the spirit of the lines, Mr. Finn, which is true; and not the tale as it is told, which is probably false. I often think that Jock of Hazledean, and young Lochinvar too, probably lived to repent their bargains. We will hope that Lord Chiltern may not do so." "I am sure he never will." "That is all right. And as for you, do you for a while think of your politics, and your speeches, and your colonies, rather than of your love. You are at home there, and no Lord Chiltern can rob you of your success. And if you are down in the mouth, come to me, and I will sing you a Scotch song. And, look you, the next time I ask you to dinner I will promise you that Mrs. Bonteen shall not be here. Good-bye." She gave him her hand, which was very soft, and left it for a moment in his, and he was consoled. Madame Goesler, when she was alone, threw herself on to her chair and began to think of things. In these days she would often ask herself what in truth was the object of her ambition, and the aim of her life. Now at this moment she had in her hand a note from the Duke of Omnium. The Duke had allowed himself to say something about a photograph, which had justified her in writing to him,--or which she had taken for such justification. And the Duke had replied. "He would not," he said, "lose the opportunity of waiting upon her in person which the presentation of the little gift might afford him." It would be a great success to have the Duke of Omnium at her house,--but to what would the success reach? What was her definite object,--or had she any? In what way could she make herself happy? She could not say that she was happy yet. The hours with her were too long and the days too many. The Duke of Omnium should come,--if he would. And she was quite resolved as to this,--that if the Duke did come she would not be afraid of him. Heavens and earth! What would be the feelings of such a woman as her, were the world to greet her some fine morning as Duchess of Omnium! Then she made up her mind very resolutely on one subject. Should the Duke give her any opportunity she would take a very short time in letting him know what was the extent of her ambition. CHAPTER LV Lord Chiltern at Saulsby Lord Chiltern did exactly as he said he would do. He wrote to his father as he passed through Carlisle, and at once went on to his hunting at Willingford. But his letter was very stiff and ungainly, and it may be doubted whether Miss Effingham was not wrong in refusing the offer which he had made to her as to the dictation of it. He began his letter, "My Lord," and did not much improve the style as he went on with it. The reader may as well see the whole letter;-- Railway Hotel, Carlisle, December 27, 186--. MY LORD, I am now on my way from Loughlinter to London, and write this letter to you in compliance with a promise made by me to my sister and to Miss Effingham. I have asked Violet to be my wife, and she has accepted me, and they think that you will be pleased to hear that this has been done. I shall be, of course, obliged, if you will instruct Mr. Edwards to let me know what you would propose to do in regard to settlements. Laura thinks that you will wish to see both Violet and myself at Saulsby. For myself, I can only say that, should you desire me to come, I will do so on receiving your assurance that I shall be treated neither with fatted calves nor with reproaches. I am not aware that I have deserved either. I am, my lord, yours affect., CHILTERN. P.S.--My address will be "The Bull, Willingford." That last word, in which he half-declared himself to be joined in affectionate relations to his father, caused him a world of trouble. But he could find no term for expressing, without a circumlocution which was disagreeable to him, exactly that position of feeling towards his father which really belonged to him. He would have written "yours with affection," or "yours with deadly enmity," or "yours with respect," or "yours with most profound indifference," exactly in accordance with the state of his father's mind, if he had only known what was that state. He was afraid of going beyond his father in any offer of reconciliation, and was firmly fixed in his resolution that he would never be either repentant or submissive in regard to the past. If his father had wishes for the future, he would comply with them if he could do so without unreasonable inconvenience, but he would not give way a single point as to things done and gone. If his father should choose to make any reference to them, his father must prepare for battle. The Earl was of course disgusted by the pertinacious obstinacy of his son's letter, and for an hour or two swore to himself that he would not answer it. But it is natural that the father should yearn for the son, while the son's feeling for the father is of a very much weaker nature. Here, at any rate, was that engagement made which he had ever desired. And his son had made a step, though it was so very unsatisfactory a step, towards reconciliation. When the old man read the letter a second time, he skipped that reference to fatted calves which had been so peculiarly distasteful to him, and before the evening had passed he had answered his son as follows;-- Saulsby, December 29, 186--. MY DEAR CHILTERN, I have received your letter, and am truly delighted to hear that dear Violet has accepted you as her husband. Her fortune will be very material to you, but she herself is better than any fortune. You have long known my opinion of her. I shall be proud to welcome her as a daughter to my house. I shall of course write to her immediately, and will endeavour to settle some early day for her coming here. When I have done so, I will write to you again, and can only say that I will endeavour to make Saulsby comfortable to you. Your affectionate father, BRENTFORD. Richards, the groom, is still here. You had perhaps better write to him direct about your horses. By the middle of February arrangements had all been made, and Violet met her lover at his father's house. She in the meantime had been with her aunt, and had undergone a good deal of mild unceasing persecution. "My dear Violet," said her aunt to her on her arrival at Baddingham, speaking with a solemnity that ought to have been terrible to the young lady, "I do not know what to say to you." "Say 'how d'you do?' aunt," said Violet. "I mean about this engagement," said Lady Baldock, with an increase of awe-inspiring severity in her voice. "Say nothing about it at all, if you don't like it," said Violet. "How can I say nothing about it? How can I be silent? Or how am I to congratulate you?" "The least said, perhaps, the soonest mended," and Violet smiled as she spoke. "That is very well, and if I had no duty to perform, I would be silent. But, Violet, you have been left in my charge. If I see you shipwrecked in life, I shall ever tell myself that the fault has been partly mine." "Nay, aunt, that will be quite unnecessary. I will always admit that you did everything in your power to--to--to--make me run straight, as the sporting men say." "Sporting men! Oh, Violet." "And you know, aunt, I still hope that I shall be found to have kept on the right side of the posts. You will find that poor Lord Chiltern is not so black as he is painted." "But why take anybody that is black at all?" "I like a little shade in the picture, aunt." "Look at Lord Fawn." "I have looked at him." "A young nobleman beginning a career of useful official life, that will end in--; there is no knowing what it may end in." "I daresay not;--but it never could have begun or ended in my being Lady Fawn." "And Mr. Appledom!" "Poor Mr. Appledom. I do like Mr. Appledom. But, you see, aunt, I like Lord Chiltern so much better. A young woman will go by her feelings." "And yet you refused him a dozen times." "I never counted the times, aunt; but not quite so many as that." The same thing was repeated over and over again during the month that Miss Effingham remained at Baddingham, but Lady Baldock had no power of interfering, and Violet bore her persecution bravely. Her future husband was generally spoken of as "that violent young man," and hints were thrown out as to the personal injuries to which his wife might be possibly subjected. But the threatened bride only laughed, and spoke of these coming dangers as part of the general lot of married women. "I daresay, if the truth were known, my uncle Baldock did not always keep his temper," she once said. Now, the truth was, as Violet well knew, that "my uncle Baldock" had been dumb as a sheep before the shearers in the hands of his wife, and had never been known to do anything improper by those who had been most intimate with him even in his earlier days. "Your uncle Baldock, miss," said the outraged aunt, "was a nobleman as different in his manner of life from Lord Chiltern as chalk from cheese." "But then comes the question, which is the cheese?" said Violet. Lady Baldock would not argue the question any further, but stalked out of the room. Lady Laura Kennedy met them at Saulsby, having had something of a battle with her husband before she left her home to do so. When she told him of her desire to assist at this reconciliation between her father and brother, he replied by pointing out that her first duty was at Loughlinter, and before the interview was ended had come to express an opinion that that duty was very much neglected. She in the meantime had declared that she would go to Saulsby, or that she would explain to her father that she was forbidden by her husband to do so. "And I also forbid any such communication," said Mr. Kennedy. In answer to which, Lady Laura told him that there were some marital commands which she should not consider it to be her duty to obey. When matters had come to this pass, it may be conceived that both Mr. Kennedy and his wife were very unhappy. She had almost resolved that she would take steps to enable her to live apart from her husband; and he had begun to consider what course he would pursue if such steps were taken. The wife was subject to her husband by the laws both of God and man; and Mr. Kennedy was one who thought much of such laws. In the meantime, Lady Laura carried her point and went to Saulsby, leaving her husband to go up to London and begin the session by himself. Lady Laura and Violet were both at Saulsby before Lord Chiltern arrived, and many were the consultations which were held between them as to the best mode in which things might be arranged. Violet was of opinion that there had better be no arrangement, that Lord Chiltern should be allowed to come in and take his father's hand, and sit down to dinner,--and that so things should fall into their places. Lady Laura was rather in favour of some scene. But the interview had taken place before either of them were able to say a word. Lord Chiltern, on his arrival, had gone immediately to his father, taking the Earl very much by surprise, and had come off best in the encounter. "My lord," said he, walking up to his father with his hand out, "I am very glad to come back to Saulsby." He had written to his sister to say that he would be at Saulsby on that day, but had named no hour. He now appeared between ten and eleven in the morning, and his father had as yet made no preparation for him,--had arranged no appropriate words. He had walked in at the front door, and had asked for the Earl. The Earl was in his own morning-room,--a gloomy room, full of dark books and darker furniture, and thither Lord Chiltern had at once gone. The two women still were sitting together over the fire in the breakfast-room, and knew nothing of his arrival. "Oswald!" said his father, "I hardly expected you so early." "I have come early. I came across country, and slept at Birmingham. I suppose Violet is here." "Yes, she is here,--and Laura. They will be very glad to see you. So am I." And the father took the son's hand for the second time. "Thank you, sir," said Lord Chiltern, looking his father full in the face. "I have been very much pleased by this engagement," continued the Earl. "What do you think I must be, then?" said the son, laughing. "I have been at it, you know, off and on, ever so many years; and have sometimes thought I was quite a fool not to get it out of my head. But I couldn't get it out of my head. And now she talks as though it were she who had been in love with me all the time!" "Perhaps she was," said the father. "I don't believe it in the least. She may be a little so now." "I hope you mean that she always shall be so." "I shan't be the worst husband in the world, I hope; and I am quite sure I shan't be the best. I will go and see her now. I suppose I shall find her somewhere in the house. I thought it best to see you first." "Stop half a moment, Oswald," said the Earl. And then Lord Brentford did make something of a shambling speech, in which he expressed a hope that they two might for the future live together on friendly terms, forgetting the past. He ought to have been prepared for the occasion, and the speech was poor and shambling. But I think that it was more useful than it might have been, had it been uttered roundly and with that paternal and almost majestic effect which he would have achieved had he been thoroughly prepared. But the roundness and the majesty would have gone against the grain with his son, and there would have been a danger of some outbreak. As it was, Lord Chiltern smiled, and muttered some word about things being "all right," and then made his way out of the room. "That's a great deal better than I had hoped," he said to himself; "and it has all come from my going in without being announced." But there was still a fear upon him that his father even yet might prepare a speech, and speak it, to the great peril of their mutual comfort. His meeting with Violet was of course pleasant enough. Now that she had succumbed, and had told herself and had told him that she loved him, she did not scruple to be as generous as a maiden should be who has acknowledged herself to be conquered, and has rendered herself to the conqueror. She would walk with him and ride with him, and take a lively interest in the performances of all his horses, and listen to hunting stories as long as he chose to tell them. In all this, she was so good and so loving that Lady Laura was more than once tempted to throw in her teeth her old, often-repeated assertions, that she was not prone to be in love,--that it was not her nature to feel any ardent affection for a man, and that, therefore, she would probably remain unmarried. "You begrudge me my little bits of pleasure," Violet said, in answer to one such attack. "No;--but it is so odd to see you, of all women, become so love-lorn," "I am not love-lorn," said Violet, "but I like the freedom of telling him everything and of hearing everything from him, and of having him for my own best friend. He might go away for twelve months, and I should not be unhappy, believing, as I do, that he would be true to me." All of which set Lady Laura thinking whether her friend had not been wiser than she had been. She had never known anything of that sort of friendship with her husband which already seemed to be quite established between these two. In her misery one day Lady Laura told the whole story of her own unhappiness to her brother, saying nothing of Phineas Finn,--thinking nothing of him as she told her story, but speaking more strongly perhaps than she should have done, of the terrible dreariness of her life at Loughlinter, and of her inability to induce her husband to alter it for her sake. "Do you mean that he,--ill-treats you?" said the brother, with a scowl on his face which seemed to indicate that he would like no task better than that of resenting such ill-treatment. "He does not beat me, if you mean that." "Is he cruel to you? Does he use harsh language?" "He never said a word in his life either to me or, as I believe, to any other human being, that he would think himself bound to regret." "What is it then?" "He simply chooses to have his own way, and his way cannot be my way. He is hard, and dry, and just, and dispassionate, and he wishes me to be the same. That is all." "I tell you fairly, Laura, as far as I am concerned, I never could speak to him. He is antipathetic to me. But then I am not his wife." "I am;--and I suppose I must bear it." "Have you spoken to my father?" "No." "Or to Violet?" "Yes." "And what does she say?" "What can she say? She has nothing to say. Nor have you. Nor, if I am driven to leave him, can I make the world understand why I do so. To be simply miserable, as I am, is nothing to the world." "I could never understand why you married him." "Do not be cruel to me, Oswald." "Cruel! I will stick by you in any way that you wish. If you think well of it, I will go off to Loughlinter to-morrow, and tell him that you will never return to him. And if you are not safe from him here at Saulsby, you shall go abroad with us. I am sure Violet would not object. I will not be cruel to you." But in truth neither of Lady Laura's councillors was able to give her advice that could serve her. She felt that she could not leave her husband without other cause than now existed, although she felt, also, that to go back to him was to go back to utter wretchedness. And when she saw Violet and her brother together there came to her dreams of what might have been her own happiness had she kept herself free from those terrible bonds in which she was now held a prisoner. She could not get out of her heart the remembrance of that young man who would have been her lover, if she would have let him,--of whose love for herself she had been aware before she had handed herself over as a bale of goods to her unloved, unloving husband. She had married Mr. Kennedy because she was afraid that otherwise she might find herself forced to own that she loved that other man who was then a nobody;--almost nobody. It was not Mr. Kennedy's money that had bought her. This woman in regard to money had shown herself to be as generous as the sun. But in marrying Mr. Kennedy she had maintained herself in her high position, among the first of her own people,--among the first socially and among the first politically. But had she married Phineas,--had she become Lady Laura Finn,--there would have been a great descent. She could not have entertained the leading men of her party. She would not have been on a level with the wives and daughters of Cabinet Ministers. She might, indeed, have remained unmarried! But she knew that had she done so,--had she so resolved,--that which she called her fancy would have been too strong for her. She would not have remained unmarried. At that time it was her fate to be either Lady Laura Kennedy or Lady Laura Finn. And she had chosen to be Lady Laura Kennedy. To neither Violet Effingham nor to her brother could she tell one half of the sorrow which afflicted her. "I shall go back to Loughlinter," she said to her brother. "Do not, unless you wish it," he answered. "I do not wish it. But I shall do it. Mr. Kennedy is in London now, and has been there since Parliament met, but he will be in Scotland again in March, and I will go and meet him there. I told him that I would do so when I left." "But you will go up to London?" "I suppose so. I must do as he tells me, of course. What I mean is, I will try it for another year." "If it does not succeed, come to us." "I cannot say what I will do. I would die if I knew how. Never be a tyrant, Oswald; or at any rate, not a cold tyrant. And remember this, there is no tyranny to a woman like telling her of her duty. Talk of beating a woman! Beating might often be a mercy." Lord Chiltern remained ten days at Saulsby, and at last did not get away without a few unpleasant words with his father,--or without a few words that were almost unpleasant with his mistress. On his first arrival he had told his sister that he should go on a certain day, and some intimation to this effect had probably been conveyed to the Earl. But when his son told him one evening that the post-chaise had been ordered for seven o'clock the next morning, he felt that his son was ungracious and abrupt. There were many things still to be said, and indeed there had been no speech of any account made at all as yet. "That is very sudden," said the Earl. "I thought Laura had told you." "She has not told me a word lately. She may have said something before you came here. What is there to hurry you?" "I thought ten days would be as long as you would care to have me here, and as I said that I would be back by the first, I would rather not change my plans." "You are going to hunt?" "Yes;--I shall hunt till the end of March." "You might have hunted here, Oswald." But the son made no sign of changing his plans; and the father, seeing that he would not change them, became solemn and severe. There were a few words which he must say to his son,--something of a speech that he must make;--so he led the way into the room with the dark books and the dark furniture, and pointed to a great deep arm-chair for his son's accommodation. But as he did not sit down himself, neither did Lord Chiltern. Lord Chiltern understood very well how great is the advantage of a standing orator over a sitting recipient of his oratory, and that advantage he would not give to his father. "I had hoped to have an opportunity of saying a few words to you about the future," said the Earl. "I think we shall be married in July," said Lord Chiltern. "So I have heard;--but after that. Now I do not want to interfere, Oswald, and of course the less so, because Violet's money will to a great degree restore the inroads which have been made upon the property." "It will more than restore them altogether." "Not if her estate be settled on a second son, Oswald, and I hear from Lady Baldock that that is the wish of her relations." "She shall have her own way,--as she ought. What that way is I do not know. I have not even asked about it. She asked me, and I told her to speak to you." "Of course I should wish it to go with the family property. Of course that would be best." "She shall have her own way,--as far as I am concerned." "But it is not about that, Oswald, that I would speak. What are your plans of life when you are married?" "Plans of life?" "Yes;--plans of life. I suppose you have some plans. I suppose you mean to apply yourself to some useful occupation?" "I don't know really, sir, that I am of much use for any purpose." Lord Chiltern laughed as he said this, but did not laugh pleasantly. "You would not be a drone in the hive always?" "As far as I can see, sir, we who call ourselves lords generally are drones." "I deny it," said the Earl, becoming quite energetic as he defended his order. "I deny it utterly. I know no class of men who do work more useful or more honest. Am I a drone? Have I been so from my youth upwards? I have always worked, either in the one House or in the other, and those of my fellows with whom I have been most intimate have worked also. The same career is open to you." "You mean politics?" "Of course I mean politics." "I don't care for politics. I see no difference in parties." "But you should care for politics, and you should see a difference in parties. It is your duty to do so. My wish is that you should go into Parliament." "I can't do that, sir." "And why not?" "In the first place, sir, you have not got a seat to offer me. You have managed matters among you in such a way that poor little Loughton has been swallowed up. If I were to canvass the electors of Smotherem, I don't think that many would look very sweet on me." "There is the county, Oswald." "And whom am I to turn out? I should spend four or five thousand pounds, and have nothing but vexation in return for it. I had rather not begin that game, and indeed I am too old for Parliament. I did not take it up early enough to believe in it." All this made the Earl very angry, and from these things they went on to worse things. When questioned again as to the future, Lord Chiltern scowled, and at last declared that it was his idea to live abroad in the summer for his wife's recreation, and somewhere down in the shires during the winter for his own. He would admit of no purpose higher than recreation, and when his father again talked to him of a nobleman's duty, he said that he knew of no other special duty than that of not exceeding his income. Then his father made a longer speech than before, and at the end of it Lord Chiltern simply wished him good night. "It's getting late, and I've promised to see Violet before I go to bed. Good-bye." Then he was off, and Lord Brentford was left there, standing with his back to the fire. After that Lord Chiltern had a discussion with Violet, which lasted nearly half the night; and during the discussion she told him more than once that he was wrong. "Such as I am you must take me, or leave me," he said, in anger. "Nay; there is no choice now," she answered. "I have taken you, and I will stick by you,--whether you are right or wrong. But when I think you wrong, I shall say so." He swore to her as he pressed her to his heart that she was the finest, grandest, sweetest woman that ever the world had produced. But still there was present on his palate, when he left her, the bitter taste of her reprimand. CHAPTER LVI What the People in Marylebone Thought Phineas Finn, when the session began, was still hard at work upon his Canada bill, and in his work found some relief for his broken back. He went into the matter with all his energy, and before the debate came on, knew much more about the seven thousand inhabitants of some hundreds of thousands of square miles at the back of Canada, than he did of the people of London or of County Clare. And he found some consolation also in the good-nature of Madame Goesler, whose drawing-room was always open to him. He could talk freely now to Madame Goesler about Violet, and had even ventured to tell her that once, in old days, he had thought of loving Lady Laura Standish. He spoke of those days as being very old; and then he perhaps said some word to her about dear little Mary Flood Jones. I think that there was not much in his career of which he did not say something to Madame Goesler, and that he received from her a good deal of excellent advice and encouragement in the direction of his political ambition. "A man should work," she said,--"and you do work. A woman can only look on, and admire and long. What is there that I can do? I can learn to care for these Canadians, just because you care for them. If it was the beavers that you told me of, I should have to care for the beavers." Then Phineas of course told her that such sympathy from her was all and all to him. But the reader must not on this account suppose that he was untrue in his love to Violet Effingham. His back was altogether broken by his fall, and he was quite aware that such was the fact. Not as yet, at least, had come to him any remotest idea that a cure was possible. Early in March he heard that Lady Laura was up in town, and of course he was bound to go to her. The information was given to him by Mr. Kennedy himself, who told him that he had been to Scotland to fetch her. In these days there was an acknowledged friendship between these two, but there was no intimacy. Indeed, Mr. Kennedy was a man who was hardly intimate with any other man. With Phineas he now and then exchanged a few words in the lobby of the House, and when they chanced to meet each other, they met as friends. Mr. Kennedy had no strong wish to see again in his house the man respecting whom he had ventured to caution his wife; but he was thoughtful; and thinking over it all, he found it better to ask him there. No one must know that there was any reason why Phineas should not come to his house; especially as all the world knew that Phineas had protected him from the garrotters. "Lady Laura is in town now," he said; "you must go and see her before long." Phineas of course promised that he would go. In these days Phineas was beginning to be aware that he had enemies,--though he could not understand why anybody should be his enemy now that Violet Effingham had decided against him. There was poor Laurence Fitzgibbon, indeed, whom he had superseded at the Colonial Office, but Laurence Fitzgibbon, to give merit where merit was due, felt no animosity against him at all. "You're welcome, me boy; you're welcome,--as far as yourself goes. But as for the party, bedad, it's rotten to the core, and won't stand another session. Mind, it's I who tell you so." And the poor idle Irishman, in so speaking, spoke the truth as well as he knew it. But the Ratlers and the Bonteens were Finn's bitter foes, and did not scruple to let him know that such was the case. Barrington Erle had scruples on the subject, and in a certain mildly apologetic way still spoke well of the young man, whom he had himself first introduced into political life only four years since;--but there was no earnestness or cordiality in Barrington Erle's manner, and Phineas knew that his first staunch friend could no longer be regarded as a pillar of support. But there was a set of men, quite as influential,--so Phineas thought,--as the busy politicians of the club, who were very friendly to him. These were men, generally of high position, of steady character,--hard workers,--who thought quite as much of what a man did in his office as what he said in the House. Lords Cantrip, Thrift, and Fawn were of this class,--and they were all very courteous to Phineas. Envious men began to say of him that he cared little now for any one of the party who had not a handle to his name, and that he preferred to live with lords and lordlings. This was hard upon him, as the great political ambition of his life was to call Mr. Monk his friend; and he would sooner have acted with Mr. Monk than with any other man in the Cabinet. But though Mr. Monk had not deserted him, there had come to be little of late in common between the two. His life was becoming that of a parliamentary official rather than that of a politician;--whereas, though Mr. Monk was in office, his public life was purely political. Mr. Monk had great ideas of his own which he intended to hold, whether by holding them he might remain in office or be forced out of office; and he was indifferent as to the direction which things in this respect might take with him. But Phineas, who had achieved his declared object in getting into place, felt that he was almost constrained to adopt the views of others, let them be what they might. Men spoke to him, as though his parliamentary career were wholly at the disposal of the Government,--as though he were like a proxy in Mr. Gresham's pocket,--with this difference, that when directed to get up and speak on a subject he was bound to do so. This annoyed him, and he complained to Mr. Monk; but Mr. Monk only shrugged his shoulders and told him that he must make his choice. He soon discovered Mr. Monk's meaning. "If you choose to make Parliament a profession,--as you have chosen,--you can have no right even to think of independence. If the country finds you out when you are in Parliament, and then invites you to office, of course the thing is different. But the latter is a slow career, and probably would not have suited you." That was the meaning of what Mr. Monk said to him. After all, these official and parliamentary honours were greater when seen at a distance than he found them to be now that he possessed them. Mr. Low worked ten hours a day, and could rarely call a day his own; but, after all, with all this work, Mr. Low was less of a slave, and more independent, than was he, Phineas Finn, Under-Secretary of State, the friend of Cabinet Ministers, and Member of Parliament since his twenty-fifth year! He began to dislike the House, and to think it a bore to sit on the Treasury bench;--he, who a few years since had regarded Parliament as the British heaven on earth, and who, since he had been in Parliament, had looked at that bench with longing envious eyes. Laurence Fitzgibbon, who seemed to have as much to eat and drink as ever, and a bed also to lie on, could come and go in the House as he pleased, since his--resignation. And there was a new trouble coming. The Reform Bill for England had passed; but now there was to be another Reform Bill for Ireland. Let them pass what bill they might, this would not render necessary a new Irish election till the entire House should be dissolved. But he feared that he would be called upon to vote for the abolition of his own borough,--and for other points almost equally distasteful to him. He knew that he would not be consulted,--but would be called upon to vote, and perhaps to speak; and was certain that if he did so, there would be war between him and his constituents. Lord Tulla had already communicated to him his ideas that, for certain excellent reasons, Loughshane ought to be spared. But this evil was, he hoped, a distant one. It was generally thought that, as the English Reform Bill had been passed last year, and as the Irish bill, if carried, could not be immediately operative, the doing of the thing might probably be postponed to the next session. When he first saw Lady Laura he was struck by the great change in her look and manner. She seemed to him to be old and worn, and he judged her to be wretched,--as she was. She had written to him to say that she would be at her father's house on such and such a morning, and he had gone to her there. "It is of no use your coming to Grosvenor Place," she said. "I see nobody there, and the house is like a prison." Later in the interview she told him not to come and dine there, even though Mr. Kennedy should ask him. "And why not?" he demanded. "Because everything would be stiff, and cold, and uncomfortable. I suppose you do not wish to make your way into a lady's house if she asks you not." There was a sort of smile on her face as she said this, but he could perceive that it was a very bitter smile. "You can easily excuse yourself." "Yes, I can excuse myself." "Then do so. If you are particularly anxious to dine with Mr. Kennedy, you can easily do so at your club." In the tone of her voice, and the words she used, she hardly attempted to conceal her dislike of her husband. "And now tell me about Miss Effingham," he said. "There is nothing for me to tell." "Yes there is;--much to tell. You need not spare me. I do not pretend to deny to you that I have been hit hard,--so hard, that I have been nearly knocked down; but it will not hurt me now to hear of it all. Did she always love him?" "I cannot say. I think she did after her own fashion." "I sometimes think women would be less cruel," he said, "if they knew how great is the anguish they can cause." "Has she been cruel to you?" "I have nothing to complain of. But if she loved Chiltern, why did she not tell him so at once? And why--" "This is complaining, Mr. Finn." "I will not complain. I would not even think of it, if I could help it. Are they to be married soon?" "In July;--so they now say." "And where will they live?" "Ah! no one can tell. I do not think that they agree as yet as to that. But if she has a strong wish Oswald will yield to it. He was always generous." "I would not even have had a wish,--except to have her with me." There was a pause for a moment, and then Lady Laura answered him with a touch of scorn in her voice,--and with some scorn, too, in her eye:--"That is all very well, Mr. Finn; but the season will not be over before there is some one else." "There you wrong me." "They tell me that you are already at Madame Goesler's feet." "Madame Goesler!" "What matters who it is as long as she is young and pretty, and has the interest attached to her of something more than ordinary position? When men tell me of the cruelty of women, I think that no woman can be really cruel because no man is capable of suffering. A woman, if she is thrown aside, does suffer." "Do you mean to tell me, then, that I am indifferent to Miss Effingham?" When he thus spoke, I wonder whether he had forgotten that he had ever declared to this very woman to whom he was speaking, a passion for herself. "Psha!" "It suits you, Lady Laura, to be harsh to me, but you are not speaking your thoughts." Then she lost all control of herself, and poured out to him the real truth that was in her. "And whose thoughts did you speak when you and I were on the braes of Loughlinter? Am I wrong in saying that change is easy to you, or have I grown to be so old that you can talk to me as though those far-away follies ought to be forgotten? Was it so long ago? Talk of love! I tell you, sir, that your heart is one in which love can have no durable hold. Violet Effingham! There may be a dozen Violets after her, and you will be none the worse." Then she walked away from him to the window, and he stood still, dumb, on the spot that he had occupied. "You had better go now," she said, "and forget what has passed between us. I know that you are a gentleman, and that you will forget it." The strong idea of his mind when he heard all this was the injustice of her attack,--of the attack as coming from her, who had all but openly acknowledged that she had married a man whom she had not loved because it suited her to escape from a man whom she did love. She was reproaching him now for his fickleness in having ventured to set his heart upon another woman, when she herself had been so much worse than fickle,--so profoundly false! And yet he could not defend himself by accusing her. What would she have had of him? What would she have proposed to him, had he questioned her as to his future, when they were together on the braes of Loughlinter? Would she not have bid him to find some one else whom he could love? Would she then have suggested to him the propriety of nursing his love for herself,--for her who was about to become another man's wife,--for her after she should have become another man's wife? And yet because he had not done so, and because she had made herself wretched by marrying a man whom she did not love, she reproached him! He could not tell her of all this, so he fell back for his defence on words which had passed between them since the day when they had met on the braes. "Lady Laura," he said, "it is only a month or two since you spoke to me as though you wished that Violet Effingham might be my wife." "I never wished it. I never said that I wished it. There are moments in which we try to give a child any brick on the chimney top for which it may whimper." Then there was another silence which she was the first to break. "You had better go," she said. "I know that I have committed myself, and of course I would rather be alone." "And what would you wish that I should do?" "Do?" she said. "What you do can be nothing to me." "Must we be strangers, you and I, because there was a time in which we were almost more than friends?" "I have spoken nothing about myself, sir,--only as I have been drawn to do so by your pretence of being love-sick. You can do nothing for me,--nothing,--nothing. What is it possible that you should do for me? You are not my father, or my brother." It is not to be supposed that she wanted him to fall at her feet. It is to be supposed that had he done so her reproaches would have been hot and heavy on him; but yet it almost seemed to him as though he had no other alternative. No!--He was not her father or her brother;--nor could he be her husband. And at this very moment, as she knew, his heart was sore with love for another woman. And yet he hardly knew how not to throw himself at her feet, and swear, that he would return now and for ever to his old passion, hopeless, sinful, degraded as it would be. "I wish it were possible for me to do something," he said, drawing near to her. "There is nothing to be done," she said, clasping her hands together. "For me nothing. I have before me no escape, no hope, no prospect of relief, no place of consolation. You have everything before you. You complain of a wound! You have at least shown that such wounds with you are capable of cure. You cannot but feel that when I hear your wailings, I must be impatient. You had better leave me now, if you please." "And are we to be no longer friends?" he asked. "As far as friendship can go without intercourse, I shall always be your friend." Then he went, and as he walked down to his office, so intent was he on that which had just passed that he hardly saw the people as he met them, or was aware of the streets through which his way led him. There had been something in the later words which Lady Laura had spoken that had made him feel almost unconsciously that the injustice of her reproaches was not so great as he had at first felt it to be, and that she had some cause for her scorn. If her case was such as she had so plainly described it, what was his plight as compared with hers? He had lost his Violet, and was in pain. There must be much of suffering before him. But though Violet were lost, the world was not all blank before his eyes. He had not told himself, even in his dreariest moments, that there was before him "no escape, no hope, no prospect of relief, no place of consolation." And then he began to think whether this must in truth be the case with Lady Laura. What if Mr. Kennedy were to die? What in such case as that would he do? In ten or perhaps in five years time might it not be possible for him to go through the ceremony of falling upon his knees, with stiffened joints indeed, but still with something left of the ardour of his old love, of his oldest love of all? As he was thinking of this he was brought up short in his walk as he was entering the Green Park beneath the Duke's figure, by Laurence Fitzgibbon. "How dare you not be in your office at such an hour as this, Finn, me boy,--or, at least, not in the House,--or serving your masters after some fashion?" said the late Under-Secretary. "So I am. I've been on a message to Marylebone, to find what the people there think about the Canadas." "And what do they think about the Canadas in Marylebone?" "Not one man in a thousand cares whether the Canadians prosper or fail to prosper. They care that Canada should not go to the States, because,--though they don't love the Canadians, they do hate the Americans. That's about the feeling in Marylebone,--and it's astonishing how like the Maryleboners are to the rest of the world." "Dear me, what a fellow you are for an Under-Secretary! You've heard the news about little Violet." "What news?" "She has quarrelled with Chiltern, you know." "Who says so?" "Never mind who says so, but they tell me it's true. Take an old friend's advice, and strike while the iron's hot." Phineas did not believe what he had heard, but though he did not believe it, still the tidings set his heart beating. He would have believed it less perhaps had he known that Laurence had just received the news from Mrs. Bonteen. CHAPTER LVII The Top Brick of the Chimney Madame Max Goesler was a lady who knew that in fighting the battles which fell to her lot, in arranging the social difficulties which she found in her way, in doing the work of the world which came to her share, very much more care was necessary,--and care too about things apparently trifling,--than was demanded by the affairs of people in general. And this was not the case so much on account of any special disadvantage under which she laboured, as because she was ambitious of doing the very uttermost with those advantages which she possessed. Her own birth had not been high, and that of her husband, we may perhaps say, had been very low. He had been old when she had married him, and she had had little power of making any progress till he had left her a widow. Then she found herself possessed of money, certainly; of wit,--as she believed; and of a something in her personal appearance which, as she plainly told herself, she might perhaps palm off upon the world as beauty. She was a woman who did not flatter herself, who did not strongly believe in herself, who could even bring herself to wonder that men and women in high position should condescend to notice such a one as her. With all her ambition, there was a something of genuine humility about her; and with all the hardness she had learned there was a touch of womanly softness which would sometimes obtrude itself upon her heart. When she found a woman really kind to her, she would be very kind in return. And though she prized wealth, and knew that her money was her only rock of strength, she could be lavish with it, as though it were dirt. But she was highly ambitious, and she played her game with great skill and great caution. Her doors were not open to all callers;--were shut even to some who find but few doors closed against them;--were shut occasionally to those whom she most specially wished to see within them. She knew how to allure by denying, and to make the gift rich by delaying it. We are told by the Latin proverb that he who gives quickly gives twice; but I say that she who gives quickly seldom gives more than half. When in the early spring the Duke of Omnium first knocked at Madame Max Goesler's door, he was informed that she was not at home. The Duke felt very cross as he handed his card out from his dark green brougham,--on the panel of which there was no blazon to tell the owner's rank. He was very cross. She had told him that she was always at home between four and six on a Thursday. He had condescended to remember the information, and had acted upon it,--and now she was not at home! She was not at home, though he had come on a Thursday at the very hour she had named to him. Any duke would have been cross, but the Duke of Omnium was particularly cross. No;--he certainly would give himself no further trouble by going to the cottage in Park Lane. And yet Madame Max Goesler had been in her own drawing-room, while the Duke was handing out his card from the brougham below. On the next morning there came to him a note from the cottage,--such a pretty note!--so penitent, so full of remorse,--and, which was better still, so laden with disappointment, that he forgave her. MY DEAR DUKE, I hardly know how to apologise to you, after having told you that I am always at home on Thursdays; and I was at home yesterday when you called. But I was unwell, and I had told the servant to deny me, not thinking how much I might be losing. Indeed, indeed, I would not have given way to a silly headache, had I thought that your Grace would have been here. I suppose that now I must not even hope for the photograph. Yours penitently, MARIE M. G. The note-paper was very pretty note-paper, hardly scented, and yet conveying a sense of something sweet, and the monogram was small and new, and fantastic without being grotesque, and the writing was of that sort which the Duke, having much experience, had learned to like,--and there was something in the signature which pleased him. So he wrote a reply,-- DEAR MADAME MAX GOESLER, I will call again next Thursday, or, if prevented, will let you know. Yours faithfully, O. When the green brougham drew up at the door of the cottage on the next Thursday, Madame Goesler was at home, and had no headache. She was not at all penitent now. She had probably studied the subject, and had resolved that penitence was more alluring in a letter than when acted in person. She received her guest with perfect ease, and apologised for the injury done to him in the preceding week, with much self-complacency. "I was so sorry when I got your card," she said; "and yet I am so glad now that you were refused." "If you were ill," said the Duke, "it was better." "I was horribly ill, to tell the truth;--as pale as a death's head, and without a word to say for myself. I was fit to see no one." "Then of course you were right." "But it flashed upon me immediately that I had named a day, and that you had been kind enough to remember it. But I did not think you came to London till the March winds were over." "The March winds blow everywhere in this wretched island, Madame Goesler, and there is no escaping them. Youth may prevail against them; but on me they are so potent that I think they will succeed in driving me out of my country. I doubt whether an old man should ever live in England if he can help it." The Duke certainly was an old man, if a man turned of seventy be old;--and he was a man too who did not bear his years with hearty strength. He moved slowly, and turned his limbs, when he did turn them, as though the joints were stiff in their sockets. But there was nevertheless about him a dignity of demeanour, a majesty of person, and an upright carriage which did not leave an idea of old age as the first impress on the minds of those who encountered the Duke of Omnium. He was tall and moved without a stoop; and though he moved slowly, he had learned to seem so to do because it was the proper kind of movement for one so high up in the world as himself. And perhaps his tailor did something for him. He had not been long under Madame Max Goesler's eyes before she perceived that his tailor had done a good deal for him. When he alluded to his own age and to her youth, she said some pleasant little word as to the difference between oak-trees and currant-bushes; and by that time she was seated comfortably on her sofa, and the Duke was on a chair before her,--just as might have been any man who was not a Duke. After a little time the photograph was brought forth from his Grace's pocket. That bringing out and giving of photographs, with the demand for counter photographs, is the most absurd practice of the day. "I don't think I look very nice, do I?" "Oh yes,--very nice, but a little too old; and certainly you haven't got those spots all over your forehead. These are the remarks which on such occasions are the most common. It may be said that to give a photograph or to take a photograph without the utterance of some words which would be felt by a bystander to be absurd, is almost an impossibility. At this moment there was no bystander, and therefore the Duke and the lady had no need for caution. Words were spoken that were very absurd. Madame Goesler protested that the Duke's photograph was more to her than the photographs of all the world beside; and the Duke declared that he would carry the lady's picture next to his heart,--I am afraid he said for ever and ever. Then he took her hand and pressed it, and was conscious that for a man over seventy years of age he did that kind of thing very well. "You will come and dine with me, Duke?" she said, when he began to talk of going. "I never dine out." "That is just the reason you should dine with me. You shall meet nobody you do not wish to meet." "I would so much rather see you in this way,--I would indeed. I do dine out occasionally, but it is at big formal parties, which I cannot escape without giving offence." "And you cannot escape my little not formal party,--without giving offence." She looked into his face as she spoke, and he knew that she meant it. And he looked into hers, and thought that her eyes were brighter than any he was in the habit of seeing in these latter days. "Name your own day, Duke. Will a Sunday suit you?" "If I must come--" "You must come." As she spoke her eyes sparkled more and more, and her colour went and came, and she shook her curls till they emitted through the air the same soft feeling of a perfume that her note had produced. Then her foot peeped out from beneath the black and yellow drapery of her dress, and the Duke saw that it was perfect. And she put out her finger and touched his arm as she spoke. Her hand was very fair, and her fingers were bright with rich gems. To men such as the Duke, a hand, to be quite fair, should be bright with rich gems. "You must come," she said,--not imploring him now but commanding him. "Then I will come," he answered, and a certain Sunday was fixed. The arranging of the guests was a little difficulty, till Madame Goesler begged the Duke to bring with him Lady Glencora Palliser, his nephew's wife. This at last he agreed to do. As the wife of his nephew and heir, Lady Glencora was to the Duke all that a woman could be. She was everything that was proper as to her own conduct, and not obtrusive as to his. She did not bore him, and yet she was attentive. Although in her husband's house she was a fierce politician, in his house she was simply an attractive woman. "Ah; she is very clever," the Duke once said, "she adapts herself. If she were to go from any one place to any other, she would be at home in both." And the movement of his Grace's hand as he spoke seemed to indicate the widest possible sphere for travelling and the widest possible scope for adaptation. The dinner was arranged, and went off very pleasantly. Madame Goesler's eyes were not quite so bright as they were during that morning visit, nor did she touch her guest's arm in a manner so alluring. She was very quiet, allowing her guests to do most of the talking. But the dinner and the flowers and the wine were excellent, and the whole thing was so quiet that the Duke liked it. "And now you must come and dine with me," the Duke said as he took his leave. "A command to that effect will be one which I certainly shall not disobey," whispered Madame Goesler. "I am afraid he is going to get fond of that woman." These words were spoken early on the following morning by Lady Glencora to her husband, Mr. Palliser. "He is always getting fond of some woman, and he will to the end," said Mr. Palliser. "But this Madame Max Goesler is very clever." "So they tell me. I have generally thought that my uncle likes talking to a fool the best." "Every man likes a clever woman the best," said Lady Glencora, "if the clever woman only knows how to use her cleverness." "I'm sure I hope he'll be amused," said Mr. Palliser innocently. "A little amusement is all that he cares for now." "Suppose you were told some day that he was going--to be married?" said Lady Glencora. "My uncle married!" "Why not he as well as another?" "And to Madame Goesler?" "If he be ever married it will be to some such woman." "There is not a man in all England who thinks more of his own position than my uncle," said Mr. Palliser somewhat proudly,--almost with a touch of anger. "That is all very well, Plantagenet, and true enough in a kind of way. But a child will sacrifice all that it has for the top brick of the chimney, and old men sometimes become children. You would not like to be told some morning that there was a little Lord Silverbridge in the world." Now the eldest son of the Duke of Omnium, when the Duke of Omnium had a son, was called the Earl of Silverbridge; and Mr. Palliser, when this question was asked him, became very pale. Mr. Palliser knew well how thoroughly the cunning of the serpent was joined to the purity of the dove in the person of his wife, and he was sure that there was cause for fear when she hinted at danger. "Perhaps you had better keep your eye upon him," he said to his wife. "And upon her," said Lady Glencora. When Madame Goesler dined at the Duke's house in St. James's Square there was a large party, and Lady Glencora knew that there was no need for apprehension then. Indeed Madame Goesler was no more than any other guest, and the Duke hardly spoke to her. There was a Duchess there,--the Duchess of St. Bungay, and old Lady Hartletop, who was a dowager marchioness,--an old lady who pestered the Duke very sorely,--and Madame Max Goesler received her reward, and knew that she was receiving it, in being asked to meet these people. Would not all these names, including her own, be blazoned to the world in the columns of the next day's _Morning Post_? There was no absolute danger here, as Lady Glencora knew; and Lady Glencora, who was tolerant and begrudged nothing to Madame Max except the one thing, was quite willing to meet the lady at such a grand affair as this. But the Duke, even should he become ever so childish a child in his old age, still would have that plain green brougham at his command, and could go anywhere in that at any hour in the day. And then Madame Goesler was so manifestly a clever woman. A Duchess of Omnium might be said to fill,--in the estimation, at any rate, of English people,--the highest position in the world short of royalty. And the reader will remember that Lady Glencora intended to be a Duchess of Omnium herself,--unless some very unexpected event should intrude itself. She intended also that her little boy, her fair-haired, curly-pated, bold-faced little boy, should be Earl of Silverbridge when the sand of the old man should have run itself out. Heavens, what a blow would it be, should some little wizen-cheeked half-monkey baby, with black brows, and yellow skin, be brought forward and shown to her some day as the heir! What a blow to herself;--and what a blow to all England! "We can't prevent it if he chooses to do it," said her husband, who had his budget to bring forward that very night, and who in truth cared more for his budget than he did for his heirship at that moment. "But we must prevent it," said Lady Glencora. "If I stick to him by the tail of his coat, I'll prevent it." At the time when she thus spoke, the dark green brougham had been twice again brought up at the door in Park Lane. And the brougham was standing there a third time. It was May now, the latter end of May, and the park opposite was beautiful with green things, and the air was soft and balmy, as it will be sometimes even in May, and the flowers in the balcony were full of perfume, and the charm of London,--what London can be to the rich,--was at its height. The Duke was sitting in Madame Goesler's drawing-room, at some distance from her, for she had retreated. The Duke had a habit of taking her hand, which she never would permit for above a few seconds. At such times she would show no anger, but would retreat. "Marie," said the Duke, "you will go abroad when the summer is over." As an old man he had taken the privilege of calling her Marie, and she had not forbidden it. Yes, probably; to Vienna. I have property in Vienna you know, which must be looked after. "Do not mind Vienna this year. Come to Italy." "What; in summer, Duke?" "The lakes are charming in August. I have a villa on Como which is empty now, and I think I shall go there. If you do not know the Italian lakes, I shall be so happy to show them to you." "I know them well, my lord. When I was young I was on the Maggiore almost alone. Some day I will tell you a history of what I was in those days." "You shall tell it me there." "No, my lord, I fear not. I have no villa there." "Will you not accept the loan of mine? It shall be all your own while you use it." "My own,--to deny the right of entrance to its owner?" "If it so pleases you." "It would not please me. It would so far from please me that I will never put myself in a position that might make it possible for me to require to do so. No, Duke; it behoves me to live in houses of my own. Women of whom more is known can afford to be your guests." "Marie, I would have no other guest than you." "It cannot be so, Duke." "And why not?" "Why not? Am I to be put to the blush by being made to answer such a question as that? Because the world would say that the Duke of Omnium had a new mistress, and that Madame Goesler was the woman. Do you think that I would be any man's mistress;--even yours? Or do you believe that for the sake of the softness of a summer evening on an Italian lake, I would give cause to the tongues of the women here to say that I was such a thing? You would have me lose all that I have gained by steady years of sober work for the sake of a week or two of dalliance such as that! No, Duke; not for your dukedom!" How his Grace might have got through his difficulty had they been left alone, cannot be told. For at this moment the door was opened, and Lady Glencora Palliser was announced. CHAPTER LVIII Rara Avis in Terris "Come and see the country and judge for yourself," said Phineas. "I should like nothing better," said Mr. Monk. "It has often seemed to me that men in Parliament know less about Ireland than they do of the interior of Africa," said Phineas. "It is seldom that we know anything accurately on any subject that we have not made matter of careful study," said Mr. Monk, "and very often do not do so even then. We are very apt to think that we men and women understand one another; but most probably you know nothing even of the modes of thought of the man who lives next door to you." "I suppose not." "There are general laws current in the world as to morality. 'Thou shalt not steal,' for instance. That has necessarily been current as a law through all nations. But the first man you meet in the street will have ideas about theft so different from yours, that, if you knew them as you know your own, you would say that this law and yours were not even founded on the same principle. It is compatible with this man's honesty to cheat you in a matter of horseflesh, with that man's in a traffic of railway shares, with that other man's as to a woman's fortune; with a fourth's anything may be done for a seat in Parliament, while the fifth man, who stands high among us, and who implores his God every Sunday to write that law on his heart, spends every hour of his daily toil in a system of fraud, and is regarded as a pattern of the national commerce!" Mr. Monk and Phineas were dining together at Mr. Monk's house, and the elder politician of the two in this little speech had recurred to certain matters which had already been discussed between them. Mr. Monk was becoming somewhat sick of his place in the Cabinet, though he had not as yet whispered a word of his sickness to any living ears; and he had begun to pine for the lost freedom of a seat below the gangway. He had been discussing political honesty with Phineas, and hence had come the sermon of which I have ventured to reproduce the concluding denunciations. Phineas was fond of such discussions and fond of holding them with Mr. Monk,--in this matter fluttering like a moth round a candle. He would not perceive that as he had made up his mind to be a servant of the public in Parliament, he must abandon all idea of independent action; and unless he did so he could be neither successful as regarded himself, or useful to the public whom he served. Could a man be honest in Parliament, and yet abandon all idea of independence? When he put such questions to Mr. Monk he did not get a direct answer. And indeed the question was never put directly. But the teaching which he received was ever of a nature to make him uneasy. It was always to this effect: "You have taken up the trade now, and seem to be fit for success in it. You had better give up thinking about its special honesty." And yet Mr. Monk would on an occasion preach to him such a sermon as that which he had just uttered! Perhaps there is no question more difficult to a man's mind than that of the expediency or inexpediency of scruples in political life. Whether would a candidate for office be more liable to rejection from a leader because he was known to be scrupulous, or because he was known to be the reverse? "But putting aside the fourth commandment and all the theories, you will come to Ireland?" said Phineas. "I shall be delighted." "I don't live in a castle, you know." "I thought everybody did live in a castle in Ireland," said Mr. Monk. "They seemed to do when I was there twenty years ago. But for myself, I prefer a cottage." This trip to Ireland had been proposed in consequence of certain ideas respecting tenant-right which Mr. Monk was beginning to adopt, and as to which the minds of politicians were becoming moved. It had been all very well to put down Fenianism, and Ribandmen, and Repeal,--and everything that had been put down in Ireland in the way of rebellion for the last seventy-five years. England and Ireland had been apparently joined together by laws of nature so fixed, that even politicians liberal as was Mr. Monk,--liberal as was Mr. Turnbull,--could not trust themselves to think that disunion could be for the good of the Irish. They had taught themselves that it certainly could not be good for the English. But if it was incumbent on England to force upon Ireland the maintenance of the Union for her own sake, and for England's sake, because England could not afford independence established so close against her own ribs,--it was at any rate necessary to England's character that the bride thus bound in a compulsory wedlock should be endowed with all the best privileges that a wife can enjoy. Let her at least not be a kept mistress. Let it be bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, if we are to live together in the married state. Between husband and wife a warm word now and then matters but little, if there be a thoroughly good understanding at bottom. But let there be that good understanding at bottom. What about this Protestant Church; and what about this tenant-right? Mr. Monk had been asking himself these questions for some time past. In regard to the Church, he had long made up his mind that the Establishment in Ireland was a crying sin. A man had married a woman whom he knew to be of a religion different from his own, and then insisted that his wife should say that she believed those things which he knew very well that she did not believe. But, as Mr. Monk well knew, the subject of the Protestant Endowments in Ireland was so difficult that it would require almost more than human wisdom to adjust it. It was one of those matters which almost seemed to require the interposition of some higher power,--the coming of some apparently chance event,--to clear away the evil; as a fire comes, and pestilential alleys are removed; as a famine comes, and men are driven from want and ignorance and dirt to seek new homes and new thoughts across the broad waters; as a war comes, and slavery is banished from the face of the earth. But in regard to tenant-right, to some arrangement by which a tenant in Ireland might be at least encouraged to lay out what little capital he might have in labour or money without being at once called upon to pay rent for that outlay which was his own, as well as for the land which was not his own,--Mr. Monk thought that it was possible that if a man would look hard enough he might perhaps be able to see his way as to that. He had spoken to two of his colleagues on the subject, the two men in the Cabinet whom he believed to be the most thoroughly honest in their ideas as public servants, the Duke and Mr. Gresham. There was so much to be done;--and then so little was known upon the subject! "I will endeavour to study it," said Mr. Monk. "If you can see your way, do;" said Mr. Gresham,--"but of course we cannot bind ourselves." "I should be glad to see it named in the Queen's speech at the beginning of the next session," said Mr. Monk. "That is a long way off as yet," said Mr. Gresham, laughing. "Who will be in then, and who will be out?" So the matter was disposed of at the time, but Mr. Monk did not abandon his idea. He rather felt himself the more bound to cling to it because he received so little encouragement. What was a seat in the Cabinet to him that he should on that account omit a duty? He had not taken up politics as a trade. He had sat far behind the Treasury bench or below the gangway for many a year, without owing any man a shilling,--and could afford to do so again. But it was different with Phineas Finn, as Mr. Monk himself understood;--and, understanding this, he felt himself bound to caution his young friend. But it may be a question whether his cautions did not do more harm than good. "I shall be delighted," he said, "to go over with you in August, but I do not think that if I were you, I would take up this matter." "And why not? You don't want to fight the battle singlehanded?" "No; I desire no such glory, and would wish to have no better lieutenant than you. But you have a subject of which you are really fond, which you are beginning to understand, and in regard to which you can make yourself useful." "You mean this Canada business?" "Yes;--and that will grow to other matters as regards the colonies. There is nothing so important to a public man as that he should have his own subject;--the thing which he understands, and in respect of which he can make himself really useful." "Then there comes a change." "Yes;--and the man who has half learned how to have a ship built without waste is sent into opposition, and is then brought back to look after regiments, or perhaps has to take up that beautiful subject, a study of the career of India. But, nevertheless, if you have a subject, stick to it at any rate as long as it will stick to you." "But," said Phineas, "if a man takes up his own subject, independent of the Government, no man can drive him from it." "And how often does he do anything? Look at the annual motions which come forward in the hands of private men,--Maynooth and the ballot for instance. It is becoming more and more apparent every day that all legislation must be carried by the Government, and must be carried in obedience to the expressed wish of the people. The truest democracy that ever had a chance of living is that which we are now establishing in Great Britain." "Then leave tenant-right to the people and the Cabinet. Why should you take it up?" Mr. Monk paused a moment or two before he replied. "If I choose to run a-muck, there is no reason why you should follow me. I am old and you are young. I want nothing from politics as a profession, and you do. Moreover, you have a congenial subject where you are, and need not disturb yourself. For myself, I tell you, in confidence, that I cannot speak so comfortably of my own position." "We will go and see, at any rate," said Phineas. "Yes," said Mr. Monk, "we will go and see." And thus, in the month of May, it was settled between them that, as soon as the session should be over, and the incidental work of his office should allow Phineas to pack up and be off, they two should start together for Ireland. Phineas felt rather proud as he wrote to his father and asked permission to bring home with him a Cabinet Minister as a visitor. At this time the reputation of Phineas at Killaloe, as well in the minds of the Killaloeians generally as in those of the inhabitants of the paternal house, stood very high indeed. How could a father think that a son had done badly when before he was thirty years of age he was earning £2,000 a year? And how could a father not think well of a son who had absolutely paid back certain moneys into the paternal coffers? The moneys so repaid had not been much; but the repayment of any such money at Killaloe had been regarded as little short of miraculous. The news of Mr. Monk's coming flew about the town, about the county, about the diocese, and all people began to say all good things about the old doctor's only son. Mrs. Finn had long since been quite sure that a real black swan had been sent forth out of her nest. And the sisters Finn, for some time past, had felt in all social gatherings they stood quite on a different footing than formerly because of their brother. They were asked about in the county, and two of them had been staying only last Easter with the Molonys,--the Molonys of Poldoodie! How should a father and a mother and sisters not be grateful to such a son, to such a brother, to such a veritable black swan out of the nest! And as for dear little Mary Flood Jones, her eyes became suffused with tears as in her solitude she thought how much out of her reach this swan was flying. And yet she took joy in his swanhood, and swore that she would love him still;--that she would love him always. Might he bring home with him to Killaloe, Mr. Monk, the Cabinet Minister! Of course he might. When Mrs. Finn first heard of this august arrival, she felt as though she would like to expend herself in entertaining, though but an hour, the whole cabinet. Phineas, during the spring, had, of course, met Mr. Kennedy frequently in and about the House, and had become aware that Lady Laura's husband, from time to time, made little overtures of civility to him,--taking him now and again by the button-hole, walking home with him as far as their joint paths allowed, and asking him once or twice to come and dine in Grosvenor Place. These little advances towards a repetition of the old friendship Phineas would have avoided altogether, had it been possible. The invitation to Mr. Kennedy's house he did refuse, feeling himself positively bound to do so by Lady Laura's command, let the consequences be what they might. When he did refuse, Mr. Kennedy would assume a look of displeasure and leave him, and Phineas would hope that the work was done. Then there would come another encounter, and the invitation would be repeated. At last, about the middle of May, there came another note. "Dear Finn, will you dine with us on Wednesday, the 28th? I give you a long notice, because you seem to have so many appointments. Yours always, Robert Kennedy." He had no alternative. He must refuse, even though double the notice had been given. He could only think that Mr. Kennedy was a very obtuse man and one who would not take a hint, and hope that he might succeed at last. So he wrote an answer, not intended to be conciliatory. "My dear Kennedy, I am sorry to say that I am engaged on the 28th. Yours always, Phineas Finn." At this period he did his best to keep out of Mr. Kennedy's way, and would be very cunning in his manoeuvres that they should not be alone together. It was difficult, as they sat on the same bench in the House, and consequently saw each other almost every day of their lives. Nevertheless, he thought that with a little cunning he might prevail, especially as he was not unwilling to give so much of offence as might assist his own object. But when Mr. Kennedy called upon him at his office the day after he had written the above note, he had no means of escape. "I am sorry you cannot come to us on the 28th," Mr. Kennedy said, as soon as he was seated. Phineas was taken so much by surprise that all his cunning failed him. "Well, yes," said he; "I was very sorry;--very sorry indeed." "It seems to me, Finn, that you have had some reason for avoiding me of late. I do not know that I have done anything to offend you." "Nothing on earth," said Phineas. "I am wrong, then, in supposing that anything beyond mere chance has prevented you from coming to my house?" Phineas felt that he was in a terrible difficulty, and he felt also that he was being rather ill-used in being thus cross-examined as to his reasons for not going to a gentleman's dinner. He thought that a man ought to be allowed to choose where he would go and where he would not go, and that questions such as these were very uncommon. Mr. Kennedy was sitting opposite to him, looking more grave and more sour than usual;--and now his own countenance also became a little solemn. It was impossible that he should use Lady Laura's name, and yet he must, in some way, let his persecuting friend know that no further invitation would be of any use;--that there was something beyond mere chance in his not going to Grosvenor Place. But how was he to do this? The difficulty was so great that he could not see his way out of it. So he sat silent with a solemn face. Mr. Kennedy then asked him another question, which made the difficulty ten times greater. "Has my wife asked you not to come to our house?" It was necessary now that he should make a rush and get out of his trouble in some way. "To tell you the truth, Kennedy, I don't think she wants to see me there." "That does not answer my question. Has she asked you not to come?" "She said that which left on my mind an impression that she would sooner that I did not come." "What did she say?" "How can I answer such a question as that, Kennedy? Is it fair to ask it?" "Quite fair,--I think." "I think it quite unfair, and I must decline to answer it. I cannot imagine what you expect to gain by cross-questioning me in this way. Of course no man likes to go to a house if he does not believe that everybody there will make him welcome." "You and Lady Laura used to be great friends." "I hope we are not enemies now. But things will occur that cause friendships to grow cool." "Have you quarrelled with her father?" "With Lord Brentford?--no." "Or with her brother,--since the duel I mean?" "Upon my word and honour I cannot stand this, and I will not. I have not as yet quarrelled with anybody; but I must quarrel with you, if you go on in this way. It is quite unusual that a man should be put through his facings after such a fashion, and I must beg that there may be an end of it." "Then I must ask Lady Laura." "You can say what you like to your own wife of course. I cannot hinder you." Upon that Mr. Kennedy formally shook hands with him, in token that there was no positive breach between them,--as two nations may still maintain their alliance, though they have made up their minds to hate each other, and thwart each other at every turn,--and took his leave. Phineas, as he sat at his window, looking out into the park, and thinking of what had passed, could not but reflect that, disagreeable as Mr. Kennedy had been to him, he would probably make himself much more disagreeable to his wife. And, for himself, he thought that he had got out of the scrape very well by the exhibition of a little mock anger. CHAPTER LIX The Earl's Wrath The reader may remember that a rumour had been conveyed to Phineas,--a rumour indeed which reached him from a source which he regarded as very untrustworthy,--that Violet Effingham had quarrelled with her lover. He would probably have paid no attention to the rumour, beyond that which necessarily attached itself to any tidings as to a matter so full of interest to him, had it not been repeated to him in another quarter. "A bird has told me that your Violet Effingham has broken with her lover," Madame Goesler said to him one day. "What bird?" he asked. "Ah, that I cannot tell you. But this I will confess to you, that these birds which tell us news are seldom very credible,--and are often not very creditable, You must take a bird's word for what it may be worth. It is said that they have quarrelled. I daresay, if the truth were known, they are billing and cooing in each other's arms at this moment." Phineas did not like to be told of their billing and cooing,--did not like to be told even of their quarrelling. Though they were to quarrel, it would do him no good. He would rather that nobody should mention their names to him;--so that his back, which had been so utterly broken, might in process of time get itself cured. From what he knew of Violet he thought it very improbable that, even were she to quarrel with one lover, she would at once throw herself into the arms of another. And he did feel, too, that there would be some meanness in taking her, were she willing to be so taken. But, nevertheless, these rumours, coming to him in this way from different sources, almost made it incumbent on him to find out the truth. He began to think that his broken back was not cured;--that perhaps, after all, it was not in the way of being cured, And was it not possible that there might be explanations? Then he went to work and built castles in the air, so constructed as to admit of the possibility of Violet Effingham becoming his wife. This had been in April, and at that time all that he knew of Violet was, that she was not yet in London. And he thought that he knew the same as to Lord Chiltern. The Earl had told him that Chiltern was not in town, nor expected in town as yet; and in saying so had seemed to express displeasure against his son. Phineas had met Lady Baldock at some house which he frequented, and had been quite surprised to find himself graciously received by the old woman. She had said not a word of Violet, but had spoken of Lord Chiltern,--mentioning his name in bitter wrath. "But he is a friend of mine," said Phineas, smiling. "A friend indeed! Mr. Finn. I know what sort of a friend. I don't believe that you are his friend. I am afraid he is not worthy of having any friend." Phineas did not quite understand from this that Lady Baldock was signifying to him that, badly as she had thought of him as a suitor for her niece, she would have preferred him,--especially now when people were beginning to speak well of him,--to that terrible young man, who, from his youth upwards, had been to her a cause of fear and trembling. Of course it was desirable that Violet should marry an elder son, and a peer's heir. All that kind of thing, in Lady Baldock's eyes, was most desirable. But, nevertheless, anything was better than Lord Chiltern. If Violet would not take Mr. Appledom or Lord Fawn, in heaven's name let her take this young man, who was kind, worthy, and steady, who was civilised in his manners, and would no doubt be amenable in regard to settlements. Lady Baldock had so far fallen in the world that she would have consented to make a bargain with her niece,--almost any bargain, so long as Lord Chiltern was excluded. Phineas did not quite understand all this; but when Lady Baldock asked him to come to Berkeley Square, he perceived that help was being proffered to him where he certainly had not looked for help. He was frequently with Lord Brentford, who talked to him constantly on matters connected with his parliamentary life. After having been the intimate friend of the daughter and of the son, it now seemed to be his lot to be the intimate friend of the father. The Earl had constantly discussed with him his arrangements with his son, and had lately expressed himself as only half satisfied with such reconciliation as had taken place. And Phineas could perceive that from day to day the Earl was less and less satisfied. He would complain bitterly of his son,--complain of his silence, complain of his not coming to London, complain of his conduct to Violet, complain of his idle indifference to anything like proper occupation; but he had never as yet said a word to show that there had been any quarrel between Violet and her lover, and Phineas had felt that he could not ask the question. "Mr. Finn," said the Earl to him one morning, as soon as he entered the room, "I have just heard a story which has almost seemed to me to be incredible." The nobleman's manner was very stern, and the fact that he called his young friend "Mr. Finn", showed at once that something was wrong. "What is it you have heard, my lord?" said Phineas. "That you and Chiltern went over,--last year to,--Belgium, and fought,--a duel there!" Now it must have been the case that, in the set among which they all lived,--Lord Brentford and his son and daughter and Phineas Finn,--the old lord was the only man who had not heard of the duel before this. It had even penetrated to the dull ears of Mr. Kennedy, reminding him, as it did so, that his wife had,--told him a lie! But it was the fact that no rumour of the duel had reached the Earl till this morning. "It is true," said Phineas. "I have never been so much shocked in my life;--never. I had no idea that you had any thought of aspiring to the hand of Miss Effingham." The lord's voice as he said this was very stern. "As I aspired in vain, and as Chiltern has been successful, that need not now be made a reproach against me." "I do not know what to think of it, Mr. Finn. I am so much surprised that I hardly know what to say. I must declare my opinion at once, that you behaved,--very badly." "I do not know how much you know, my lord, and how much you do not know; and the circumstances of the little affair do not permit me to be explicit about them; but, as you have expressed your opinion so openly you must allow me to express mine, and to say that, as far as I can judge of my own actions, I did not behave badly at all." "Do you intend to defend duelling, sir?" "No. If you mean to tell me that a duel is of itself sinful, I have nothing to say. I suppose it is. My defence of myself merely goes to the manner in which this duel was fought, and the fact that I fought it with your son." "I cannot conceive how you can have come to my house as my guest, and stood upon my interest for my borough, when you at the time were doing your very best to interpose yourself between Chiltern and the lady whom you so well knew I wished to become his wife." Phineas was aware that the Earl must have been very much moved indeed when he thus permitted himself to speak of "his" borough. He said nothing now, however, though the Earl paused;--and then the angry lord went on. "I must say that there was something,--something almost approaching to duplicity in such conduct." "If I were to defend myself by evidence, Lord Brentford, I should have to go back to exact dates,--and dates not of facts which I could verify, but dates as to my feelings which could not be verified,--and that would be useless. I can only say that I believe I know what the honour and truth of a gentleman demand,--even to the verge of self-sacrifice, and that I have done nothing that ought to place my character as a gentleman in jeopardy. If you will ask your son, I think he will tell you the same." "I have asked him. It was he who told me of the duel." "When did he tell you, my lord?" "Just now; this morning." Thus Phineas learned that Lord Chiltern was at this moment in the house,--or at least in London. "And did he complain of my conduct?" "I complain of it, sir. I complain of it very bitterly. I placed the greatest confidence in you, especially in regard to my son's affairs, and you deceived me." The Earl was very angry, and was more angry from the fact that this young man who had offended him, to whom he had given such vital assistance when assistance was needed, had used that assistance to its utmost before his sin was found out. Had Phineas still been sitting for Loughton, so that the Earl could have said to him, "You are now bound to retreat from this borough because you have offended me, your patron," I think that he would have forgiven the offender and allowed him to remain in his seat. There would have been a scene, and the Earl would have been pacified. But now the offender was beyond his reach altogether, having used the borough as a most convenient stepping-stone over his difficulties, and having so used it just at the time when he was committing this sin. There was a good fortune about Phineas which added greatly to the lord's wrath. And then, to tell the truth, he had not that rich consolation for which Phineas gave him credit. Lord Chiltern had told him that morning that the engagement between him and Violet was at an end. "You have so preached to her, my lord, about my duties," the son had said to his father, "that she finds herself obliged to give me your sermons at second hand, till I can bear them no longer." But of this Phineas knew nothing as yet. The Earl, however, was so imprudent in his anger that before this interview was over he had told the whole story. "Yes;--you deceived me," he continued; "and I can never trust you again." "Was it for me, my lord, to tell you of that which would have increased your anger against your own son? When he wanted me to fight was I to come, like a sneak at school, and tell you the story? I know what you would have thought of me had I done so. And when it was over was I to come and tell you then? Think what you yourself would have done when you were young, and you may be quite sure that I did the same. What have I gained? He has got all that he wanted; and you have also got all that you wanted;--and I have helped you both. Lord Brentford, I can put my hand on my heart and say that I have been honest to you." "I have got nothing that I wanted," said the Earl in his despair. "Lord Chiltern and Miss Effingham will be man and wife." "No;--they will not. He has quarrelled with her. He is so obstinate that she will not bear with him." Then it was all true, even though the rumours had reached him through Laurence Fitzgibbon and Madame Max Goesler. "At any rate, my lord, that has not been my fault," he said, after a moment's hesitation. The Earl was walking up and down the room, angry with himself at his own mistake in having told the story, and not knowing what further to say to his visitor. He had been in the habit of talking so freely to Phineas about his son that he could hardly resist the temptation of doing so still; and yet it was impossible that he could swallow his anger and continue in the same strain. "My lord," said Phineas, after a while, "I can assure you that I grieve that you should be grieved. I have received so much undeserved favour from your family, that I owe you a debt which I can never pay. I am sorry that you should be angry with me now; but I hope that a time may come when you will think less severely of my conduct." He was about to leave the room when the Earl stopped him. "Will you give me your word," said the Earl, "that you will think no more of Miss Effingham?" Phineas stood silent, considering how he might answer this proposal, resolving that nothing should bring him to such a pledge as that suggested while there was yet a ledge for hope to stand on. "Say that, Mr. Finn, and I will forgive everything." "I cannot acknowledge that I have done anything to be forgiven." "Say that," repeated the Earl, "and everything shall be forgotten." "There need be no cause for alarm, my lord," said Phineas. "You may be sure that Miss Effingham will not think of me." "Will you give me your word?" "No, my lord;--certainly not. You have no right to ask it, and the pursuit is open to me as to any other man who may choose to follow it. I have hardly a vestige of a hope of success. It is barely possible that I should succeed. But if it be true that Miss Effingham be disengaged, I shall endeavour to find an opportunity of urging my suit. I would give up everything that I have, my seat in Parliament, all the ambition of my life, for the barest chance of success. When she had accepted your son, I desisted,--of course. I have now heard, from more sources than one, that she or he or both of them have changed their minds. If this be so, I am free to try again." The Earl stood opposite to him, scowling at him, but said nothing. "Good morning, my lord." "Good morning, sir." "I am afraid it must be good-bye, for some long days to come." "Good morning, sir," And the Earl as he spoke rang the bell. Then Phineas took up his hat and departed. As he walked away his mind filled itself gradually with various ideas, all springing from the words which Lord Brentford had spoken. What account had Lord Chiltern given to his father of the duel? Our hero was a man very sensitive as to the good opinion of others, and in spite of his bold assertion of his own knowledge of what became a gentleman, was beyond measure solicitous that others should acknowledge his claim at any rate to that title. He thought that he had been generous to Lord Chiltern; and as he went back in his memory over almost every word that had been spoken in the interview that had just passed, he fancied that he was able to collect evidence that his antagonist at Blankenberg had not spoken ill of him. As to the charge of deceit which the Earl had made against him, he told himself that the Earl had made it in anger. He would not even think hardly of the Earl who had been so good a friend to him, but he believed in his heart that the Earl had made the accusation out of his wrath and not out of his judgment. "He cannot think that I have been false to him," Phineas said to himself. But it was very sad to him that he should have to quarrel with all the family of the Standishes, as he could not but feel that it was they who had put him on his feet. It seemed as though he were never to see Lady Laura again except when they chanced to meet in company,--on which occasions he simply bowed to her. Now the Earl had almost turned him out of his house. And though there had been to a certain extent a reconciliation between him and Lord Chiltern, he in these days never saw the friend who had once put him upon Bonebreaker; and now,--now that Violet Effingham was again free,--how was it possible to avoid some renewal of enmity between them? He would, however, endeavour to see Lord Chiltern at once. And then he thought of Violet,--of Violet again free, of Violet as again a possible wife for himself, of Violet to whom he might address himself at any rate without any scruple as to his own unworthiness. Everybody concerned, and many who were not concerned at all, were aware that he had been among her lovers, and he thought that he could perceive that those who interested themselves on the subject, had regarded him as the only horse in the race likely to run with success against Lord Chiltern. She herself had received his offers without scorn, and had always treated him as though he were a favoured friend, though not favoured as a lover. And now even Lady Baldock was smiling upon him, and asking him to her house as though the red-faced porter in the hall in Berkeley Square had never been ordered to refuse him a moment's admission inside the doors. He had been very humble in speaking of his own hopes to the Earl, but surely there might be a chance. What if after all the little strain which he had had in his back was to be cured after such a fashion as this! When he got to his lodgings, he found a card from Lady Baldock, informing him that Lady Baldock would be at home on a certain night, and that there would be music. He could not go to Lady Baldock's on the night named, as it would be necessary that he should be in the House;--nor did he much care to go there, as Violet Effingham was not in town. But he would call and explain, and endeavour to curry favour in that way. He at once wrote a note to Lord Chiltern, which he addressed to Portman Square. "As you are in town, can we not meet? Come and dine with me at the ---- Club on Saturday." That was the note. After a few days he received the following answer, dated from the Bull at Willingford. Why on earth should Chiltern be staying at the Bull at Willingford in May? The old Shop at W----, Friday. DEAR PHINEAS, I can't dine with you, because I am down here, looking after the cripples, and writing a sporting novel. They tell me I ought to do something, so I am going to do that. I hope you don't think I turned informer against you in telling the Earl of our pleasant little meeting on the sands. It had become necessary, and you are too much of a man to care much for any truth being told. He was terribly angry both with me and with you; but the fact is, he is so blindly unreasonable that one cannot regard his anger. I endeavoured to tell the story truly, and, so told, it certainly should not have injured you in his estimation. But it did. Very sorry, old fellow, and I hope you'll get over it. It is a good deal more important to me than to you. Yours, C. There was not a word about Violet. But then it was hardly to be expected that there should be words about Violet. It was not likely that a man should write to his rival of his own failure. But yet there was a flavour of Violet in the letter which would not have been there, so Phineas thought, if the writer had been despondent. The pleasant little meeting on the sands had been convened altogether in respect of Violet. And the telling of the story to the Earl must have arisen from discussions about Violet. Lord Chiltern must have told his father that Phineas was his rival. Could the rejected suitor have written on such a subject in such a strain to such a correspondent if he had believed his own rejection to be certain? But then Lord Chiltern was not like anybody else in the world, and it was impossible to judge of him by one's experience of the motives of others. Shortly afterwards Phineas did call in Berkeley Square, and was shown up at once into Lady Baldock's drawing-room. The whole aspect of the porter's countenance was changed towards him, and from this, too, he gathered good auguries This had surprised him; but his surprise was far greater, when, on entering the room, he found Violet Effingham there alone. A little fresh colour came to her face as she greeted him, though it cannot be said that she blushed. She behaved herself admirably, not endeavouring to conceal some little emotion at thus meeting him, but betraying none that was injurious to her composure. "I am so glad to see you, Mr. Finn," she said. "My aunt has just left me, and will be back directly." He was by no means her equal in his management of himself on the occasion; but perhaps it may be acknowledged that his position was the more difficult of the two. He had not seen her since her engagement had been proclaimed to the world, and now he had heard from a source which was not to be doubted, that it had been broken off. Of course there was nothing to be said on that matter. He could not have congratulated her in the one case, nor could he either congratulate her or condole with her on the other. And yet he did not know how to speak to her as though no such events had occurred. "I did not know that you were in town," he said. "I only came yesterday. I have been, you know, at Rome with the Effinghams; and since that I have been--; but, indeed, I have been such a vagrant that I cannot tell you of all my comings and goings. And you,--you are hard at work!" "Oh yes;--always." "That is right. I wish I could be something, if it were only a stick in waiting, or a door-keeper. It is so good to be something." Was it some such teaching as this that had jarred against Lord Chiltern's susceptibilities, and had seemed to him to be a repetition of his father's sermons? "A man should try to be something," said Phineas. "And a woman must be content to be nothing,--unless Mr. Mill can pull us through! And now, tell me,--have you seen Lady Laura?" "Not lately." "Nor Mr. Kennedy?" "I sometimes see him in the House." The visit to the Colonial Office of which the reader has been made aware had not at that time as yet been made. "I am sorry for all that," she said. Upon which Phineas smiled and shook his head. "I am very sorry that there should be a quarrel between you two." "There is no quarrel." "I used to think that you and he might do so much for each other,--that is, of course, if you could make a friend of him." "He is a man of whom it is very hard to make a friend," said Phineas, feeling that he was dishonest to Mr. Kennedy in saying so, but thinking that such dishonesty was justified by what he owed to Lady Laura. "Yes;--he is hard, and what I call ungenial. We won't say anything about him,--will we? Have you seen much of the Earl?" This she asked as though such a question had no reference whatever to Lord Chiltern. "Oh dear,--alas, alas!" "You have not quarrelled with him too?" "He has quarrelled with me. He has heard, Miss Effingham, of what happened last year, and he thinks that I was wrong." "Of course you were wrong, Mr. Finn." "Very likely. To him I chose to defend myself, but I certainly shall not do so to you. At any rate, you did not think it necessary to quarrel with me." "I ought to have done so. I wonder why my aunt does not come." Then she rang the bell. "Now I have told you all about myself," said he; "you should tell me something of yourself." "About me? I am like the knife-grinder, who had no story to tell,--none at least to be told. We have all, no doubt, got our little stories, interesting enough to ourselves." "But your story, Miss Effingham," he said, "is of such intense interest to me." At that moment, luckily, Lady Baldock came into the room, and Phineas was saved from the necessity of making a declaration at a moment which would have been most inopportune. Lady Baldock was exceedingly gracious to him, bidding Violet use her influence to persuade him to come to the gathering. "Persuade him to desert his work to come and hear some fiddlers!" said Miss Effingham. "Indeed I shall not, aunt. Who can tell but what the colonies might suffer from it through centuries, and that such a lapse of duty might drive a province or two into the arms of our mortal enemies?" "Herr Moll is coming," said Lady Baldock, "and so is Signor Scrubi, and Pjinskt, who, they say, is the greatest man living on the flageolet. Have you ever heard Pjinskt, Mr. Finn?" Phineas never had heard Pjinskt. "And as for Herr Moll, there is nothing equal to him, this year, at least." Lady Baldock had taken up music this season, but all her enthusiasm was unable to shake the conscientious zeal of the young Under-Secretary of State. At such a gathering he would have been unable to say a word in private to Violet Effingham. CHAPTER LX Madame Goesler's Politics It may be remembered that when Lady Glencora Palliser was shown into Madame Goesler's room, Madame Goesler had just explained somewhat forcibly to the Duke of Omnium her reasons for refusing the loan of his Grace's villa at Como. She had told the Duke in so many words that she did not mean to give the world an opportunity of maligning her, and it would then have been left to the Duke to decide whether any other arrangements might have been made for taking Madame Goesler to Como, had he not been interrupted. That he was very anxious to take her was certain. The green brougham had already been often enough at the door in Park Lane to make his Grace feel that Madame Goesler's company was very desirable,--was, perhaps, of all things left for his enjoyment, the one thing the most desirable. Lady Glencora had spoken to her husband of children crying for the top brick of the chimney. Now it had come to this, that in the eyes of the Duke of Omnium Marie Max Goesler was the top brick of the chimney. She had more wit for him than other women,--more of that sort of wit which he was capable of enjoying. She had a beauty which he had learned to think more alluring than other beauty. He was sick of fair faces, and fat arms, and free necks. Madame Goesler's eyes sparkled as other eyes did not sparkle, and there was something of the vagueness of mystery in the very blackness and gloss and abundance of her hair,--as though her beauty was the beauty of some world which he had not yet known. And there was a quickness and yet a grace of motion about her which was quite new to him. The ladies upon whom the Duke had of late most often smiled had been somewhat slow,--perhaps almost heavy,--though, no doubt, graceful withal. In his early youth he remembered to have seen, somewhere in Greece, such a houri as was this Madame Goesler. The houri in that case had run off with the captain of a Russian vessel engaged in the tallow trade; but not the less was there left on his Grace's mind some dreamy memory of charms which had impressed him very strongly when he was simply a young Mr. Palliser, and had had at his command not so convenient a mode of sudden abduction as the Russian captain's tallow ship. Pressed hard by such circumstances as these, there is no knowing how the Duke might have got out of his difficulties had not Lady Glencora appeared upon the scene. Since the future little Lord Silverbridge had been born, the Duke had been very constant in his worship of Lady Glencora, and as, from year to year, a little brother was added, thus making the family very strong and stable, his acts of worship had increased; but with his worship there had come of late something almost of dread,--something almost of obedience, which had made those who were immediately about the Duke declare that his Grace was a good deal changed. For, hitherto, whatever may have been the Duke's weaknesses, he certainly had known no master. His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, had been always subject to him. His other relations had been kept at such a distance as hardly to be more than recognised; and though his Grace no doubt had had his intimacies, they who had been intimate with him had either never tried to obtain ascendancy, or had failed. Lady Glencora, whether with or without a struggle, had succeeded, and people about the Duke said that the Duke was much changed. Mr. Fothergill,--who was his Grace's man of business, and who was not a favourite with Lady Glencora,--said that he was very much changed indeed. Finding his Grace so much changed, Mr. Fothergill had made a little attempt at dictation himself, but had receded with fingers very much scorched in the attempt. It was indeed possible that the Duke was becoming in the slightest degree weary of Lady Glencora's thraldom, and that he thought that Madame Max Goesler might be more tender with him. Madame Max Goesler, however, intended to be tender only on one condition. When Lady Glencora entered the room, Madame Goesler received her beautifully. "How lucky that you should have come just when his Grace is here!" she said. "I saw my uncle's carriage, and of course I knew it," said Lady Glencora. "Then the favour is to him," said Madame Goesler, smiling. "No, indeed; I was coming. If my word is to be doubted in that point, I must insist on having the servant up; I must, certainly. I told him to drive to this door, as far back as Grosvenor Street. Did I not, Planty?" Planty was the little Lord Silverbridge as was to be, if nothing unfortunate intervened, who was now sitting on his granduncle's knee. "Dou said to the little house in Park Lane," said the boy. "Yes,--because I forgot the number." "And it is the smallest house in Park Lane, so the evidence is complete," said Madame Goesler. Lady Glencora had not cared much for evidence to convince Madame Goesler, but she had not wished her uncle to think that he was watched and hunted down. It might be necessary that he should know that he was watched, but things had not come to that as yet. "How is Plantagenet?" asked the Duke. "Answer for papa," said Lady Glencora to her child. "Papa is very well, but he almost never comes home." "He is working for his country," said the Duke. "Your papa is a busy, useful man, and can't afford time to play with a little boy as I can." "But papa is not a duke." "He will be some day, and that probably before long, my boy. He will be a duke quite as soon as he wants to be a duke. He likes the House of Commons better than the strawberry leaves, I fancy. There is not a man in England less in a hurry than he is." "No, indeed," said Lady Glencora. "How nice that is," said Madame Goesler. "And I ain't in a hurry either,--am I, mamma?" said the little future Lord Silverbridge. "You are a wicked little monkey," said his grand-uncle, kissing him. At this moment Lady Glencora was, no doubt, thinking how necessary it was that she should be careful to see that things did turn out in the manner proposed,--so that people who had waited should not be disappointed; and the Duke was perhaps thinking that he was not absolutely bound to his nephew by any law of God or man; and Madame Max Goesler,--I wonder whether her thoughts were injurious to the prospects of that handsome bold-faced little boy. Lady Glencora rose to take her leave first. It was not for her to show any anxiety to force the Duke out of the lady's presence. If the Duke were resolved to make a fool of himself, nothing that she could do would prevent it. But she thought that this little inspection might possibly be of service, and that her uncle's ardour would be cooled by the interruption to which he had been subjected. So she went, and immediately afterwards the Duke followed her. The interruption had, at any rate, saved him on that occasion from making the highest bid for the pleasure of Madame Goesler's company at Como. The Duke went down with the little boy in his hand, so that there was not an opportunity for a single word of interest between the gentleman and the lady. Madame Goesler, when she was alone, seated herself on her sofa, tucking her feet up under her as though she were seated somewhere in the East, pushed her ringlets back roughly from her face, and then placed her two hands to her sides so that her thumbs rested lightly on her girdle. When alone with something weighty on her mind she would sit in this form for the hour together, resolving, or trying to resolve, what should be her conduct. She did few things without much thinking, and though she walked very boldly, she walked warily. She often told herself that such success as she had achieved could not have been achieved without much caution. And yet she was ever discontented with herself, telling herself that all that she had done was nothing, or worse than nothing. What was it all, to have a duke and to have lords dining with her, to dine with lords or with a duke itself, if life were dull with her, and the hours hung heavy! Life with her was dull, and the hours did hang heavy. And what if she caught this old man, and became herself a duchess,--caught him by means of his weakness, to the inexpressible dismay of all those who were bound to him by ties of blood,--would that make her life happier, or her hours less tedious? That prospect of a life on the Italian lakes with an old man tied to her side was not so charming in her eyes as it was in those of the Duke. Were she to succeed, and to be blazoned forth to the world as Duchess of Omnium, what would she have gained? She perfectly understood the motive of Lady Glencora's visit, and thought that she would at any rate gain something in the very triumph of baffling the manoeuvres of so clever a woman. Let Lady Glencora throw her ægis before the Duke, and it would be something to carry off his Grace from beneath the protection of so thick a shield. The very flavour of the contest was pleasing to Madame Goesler. But, the victory gained, what then would remain to her? Money she had already; position, too, she had of her own. She was free as air, and should it suit her at any time to go off to some lake of Como in society that would personally be more agreeable to her than that of the Duke of Omnium, there was nothing to hinder her for a moment. And then came a smile over her face,--but the saddest smile,--as she thought of one with whom it might be pleasant to look at the colour of Italian skies and feel the softness of Italian breezes. In feigning to like to do this with an old man, in acting the raptures of love on behalf of a worn-out duke who at the best would scarce believe in her acting, there would not be much delight for her. She had never yet known what it was to have anything of the pleasure of love. She had grown, as she often told herself, to be a hard, cautious, selfish, successful woman, without any interference or assistance from such pleasure. Might there not be yet time left for her to try it without selfishness,--with an absolute devotion of self,--if only she could find the right companion? There was one who might be such a companion, but the Duke of Omnium certainly could not be such a one. But to be Duchess of Omnium! After all, success in this world is everything;--is at any rate the only thing the pleasure of which will endure. There was the name of many a woman written in a black list within Madame Goesler's breast,--written there because of scorn, because of rejected overtures, because of deep social injury; and Madame Goesler told herself often that it would be a pleasure to her to use the list, and to be revenged on those who had ill-used and scornfully treated her. She did not readily forgive those who had injured her. As Duchess of Omnium she thought that probably she might use that list with efficacy. Lady Glencora had treated her well, and she had no such feeling against Lady Glencora. As Duchess of Omnium she would accept Lady Glencora as her dearest friend, if Lady Glencora would admit it. But if it should be necessary that there should be a little duel between them, as to which of them should take the Duke in hand, the duel must of course be fought. In a matter so important, one woman would of course expect no false sentiment from another. She and Lady Glencora would understand each other;--and no doubt, respect each other. I have said that she would sit there resolving, or trying to resolve. There is nothing in the world so difficult as that task of making up one's mind. Who is there that has not longed that the power and privilege of selection among alternatives should be taken away from him in some important crisis of his life, and that his conduct should be arranged for him, either this way or that, by some divine power if it were possible,--by some patriarchal power in the absence of divinity,--or by chance even, if nothing better than chance could be found to do it? But no one dares to cast the die, and to go honestly by the hazard. There must be the actual necessity of obeying the die, before even the die can be of any use. As it was, when Madame Goesler had sat there for an hour, till her legs were tired beneath her, she had not resolved. It must be as her impulse should direct her when the important moment came. There was not a soul on earth to whom she could go for counsel, and when she asked herself for counsel, the counsel would not come. Two days afterwards the Duke called again. He would come generally on a Thursday,--early, so that he might be there before other visitors; and he had already quite learned that when he was there other visitors would probably be refused admittance. How Lady Glencora had made her way in, telling the servant that her uncle was there, he had not understood. That visit had been made on the Thursday, but now he came on the Saturday,--having, I regret to say, sent down some early fruit from his own hot-houses,--or from Covent Garden,--with a little note on the previous day. The grapes might have been pretty well, but the note was injudicious. There were three lines about the grapes, as to which there was some special history, the vine having been brought from the garden of some villa in which some ill-used queen had lived and died; and then there was a postscript in one line to say that the Duke would call on the following morning. I do not think that he had meant to add this when he began his note; but then children, who want the top brick, want it so badly, and cry for it so perversely! Of course Madame Goesler was at home. But even then she had not made up her mind. She had made up her mind only to this,--that he should be made to speak plainly, and that she would take time for her reply. Not even with such a gem as the Duke's coronet before her eyes, would she jump at it. Where there was so much doubt, there need at least be no impatience. "You ran away the other day, Duke, because you could not resist the charm of that little boy," she said, laughing. "He is a dear little boy,--but it was not that," he answered. "Then what was it? Your niece carried you off in a whirl-wind. She was come and gone, taking you with her, in half a minute." "She had disturbed me when I was thinking of something," said the Duke. "Things shouldn't be thought of,--not so deeply as that." Madame Goesler was playing with a bunch of his grapes now, eating one or two from a small china plate which had stood upon the table, and he thought that he had never seen a woman so graceful and yet so natural. "Will you not eat your own grapes with me? They are delicious;--flavoured with the poor queen's sorrows." He shook his head, knowing that it did not suit his gastric juices to have to deal with fruit eaten at odd times. "Never think, Duke. I am convinced that it does no good. It simply means doubting, and doubt always leads to error. The safest way in the world is to do nothing." "I believe so," said the Duke. "Much the safest. But if you have not sufficient command over yourself to enable you to sit in repose, always quiet, never committing yourself to the chance of any danger,--then take a leap in the dark; or rather many leaps. A stumbling horse regains his footing by persevering in his onward course. As for moving cautiously, that I detest." "And yet one must think;--for instance, whether one will succeed or not." "Take that for granted always. Remember, I do not recommend motion at all. Repose is my idea of life;--repose and grapes." The Duke sat for a while silent, taking his repose as far as the outer man was concerned, looking at his top brick of the chimney, as from time to time she ate one of his grapes. Probably she did not eat above half-a-dozen of them altogether, but he thought that the grapes must have been made for the woman, she was so pretty in the eating of them. But it was necessary that he should speak at last. "Have you been thinking of coming to Como?" he said. "I told you that I never think." "But I want an answer to my proposition." "I thought I had answered your Grace on that question." Then she put down the grapes, and moved herself on her chair, so that she sat with her face turned away from him. "But a request to a lady may be made twice." "Oh, yes. And I am grateful, knowing how far it is from your intention to do me any harm. And I am somewhat ashamed of my warmth on the other day. But still there can be but one answer. There are delights which a woman must deny herself, let them be ever so delightful." "I had thought,--" the Duke began, and then he stopped himself. "Your Grace was saying that you thought,--" "Marie, a man at my age does not like to be denied." "What man likes to be denied anything by a woman at any age? A woman who denies anything is called cruel at once,--even though it be her very soul." She had turned round upon him now, and was leaning forward towards him from her chair, so that he could touch her if he put out his hand. He put out his hand and touched her. "Marie," he said, "will you deny me if I ask?" "Nay, my lord; how shall I say? There is many a trifle I would deny you. There is many a great gift I would give you willingly." "But the greatest gift of all?" "My lord, if you have anything to say, you must say it plainly. There never was a woman worse than I am at the reading of riddles." "Could you endure to live in the quietude of an Italian lake with an old man?" Now he touched her again, and had taken her hand. "No, my lord;--nor with a young one,--for all my days. But I do not know that age would guide me." Then the Duke rose and made his proposition in form. "Marie, you know that I love you. Why it is that I at my age should feel so sore a love, I cannot say." "So sore a love!" "So sore, if it be not gratified. Marie, I ask you to be my wife." "Duke of Omnium, this from you!" "Yes, from me. My coronet is at your feet. If you will allow me to raise it, I will place it on your brow." Then she went away from him, and seated herself at a distance. After a moment or two he followed her, and stood with his arm upon her shoulder. "You will give me an answer, Marie?" "You cannot have thought of this, my lord." "Nay; I have thought of it much." "And your friends?" "My dear, I may venture to please myself in this,--as in everything. Will you not answer me?" "Certainly not on the spur of the moment, my lord. Think how high is the position you offer me, and how immense is the change you propose to me. Allow me two days, and I will answer you by letter. I am so fluttered now that I must leave you." Then he came to her, took her hand, kissed her brow, and opened the door for her. CHAPTER LXI Another Duel It happened that there were at this time certain matters of business to be settled between the Duke of Omnium and his nephew Mr. Palliser, respecting which the latter called upon his uncle on the morning after the Duke had committed himself by his offer. Mr. Palliser had come by appointment made with Mr. Fothergill, the Duke's man of business, and had expected to meet Mr. Fothergill. Mr. Fothergill, however, was not with the Duke, and the uncle told the nephew that the business had been postponed. Then Mr. Palliser asked some question as to the reason of such postponement, not meaning much by his question,--and the Duke, after a moment's hesitation, answered him, meaning very much by his answer. "The truth is, Plantagenet, that it is possible that I may marry, and if so this arrangement would not suit me." "Are you going to be married?" asked the astonished nephew. "It is not exactly that,--but it is possible that I may do so. Since I proposed this matter to Fothergill, I have been thinking over it, and I have changed my mind. It will make but little difference to you; and after all you are a far richer man than I am." "I am not thinking of money, Duke," said Plantagenet Palliser. "Of what then were you thinking?" "Simply of what you told me. I do not in the least mean to interfere." "I hope not, Plantagenet." "But I could not hear such a statement from you without some surprise. Whatever you do I hope will tend to make you happy." So much passed between the uncle and the nephew, and what the uncle told to the nephew, the nephew of course told to his wife. "He was with her again, yesterday," said Lady Glencora, "for more than an hour. And he had been half the morning dressing himself before he went to her." "He is not engaged to her, or he would have told me," said Plantagenet Palliser. "I think he would, but there is no knowing. At the present moment I have only one doubt,--whether to act upon him or upon her." "I do not see that you can do good by going to either." "Well, we will see. If she be the woman I take her to be, I think I could do something with her. I have never supposed her to be a bad woman,--never. I will think of it." Then Lady Glencora left her husband, and did not consult him afterwards as to the course she would pursue. He had his budget to manage, and his speeches to make. The little affair of the Duke and Madame Goesler, she thought it best to take into her own hands without any assistance from him. "What a fool I was," she said to herself, "to have her down there when the Duke was at Matching!" Madame Goesler, when she was left alone, felt that now indeed she must make up her mind. She had asked for two days. The intervening day was a Sunday, and on the Monday she must send her answer. She might doubt at any rate for this one night,--the Saturday night,--and sit playing, as it were, with the coronet of a duchess in her lap. She had been born the daughter of a small country attorney, and now a duke had asked her to be his wife,--and a duke who was acknowledged to stand above other dukes! Nothing at any rate could rob her of that satisfaction. Whatever resolution she might form at last, she had by her own resources reached a point of success in remembering which there would always be a keen gratification. It would be much to be Duchess of Omnium; but it would be something also to have refused to be a Duchess of Omnium. During that evening, that night, and the next morning, she remained playing with the coronet in her lap. She would not go to church. What good could any sermon do her while that bauble was dangling before her eyes? After church-time, about two o'clock, Phineas Finn came to her. Just at this period Phineas would come to her often;--sometimes full of a new decision to forget Violet Effingham altogether, at others minded to continue his siege let the hope of success be ever so small. He had now heard that Violet and Lord Chiltern had in truth quarrelled, and was of course anxious to be advised to continue the siege. When he first came in and spoke a word or two, in which there was no reference to Violet Effingham, there came upon Madame Goesler a strong wish to decide at once that she would play no longer with the coronet, that the gem was not worth the cost she would be called upon to pay for it. There was something in the world better for her than the coronet,--if only it might be had. But within ten minutes he had told her the whole tale about Lord Chiltern, and how he had seen Violet at Lady Baldock's,--and how there might yet be hope for him. What would she advise him to do? "Go home, Mr. Finn," she said, "and write a sonnet to her eyebrow. See if that will have any effect." "Ah, well! It is natural that you should laugh at me; but somehow, I did not expect it from you." "Do not be angry with me. What I mean is that such little things seem to influence this Violet of yours." "Do they? I have not found that they do so." "If she had loved Lord Chiltern she would not have quarrelled with him for a few words. If she had loved you, she would not have accepted Lord Chiltern. If she loves neither of you, she should say so. I am losing my respect for her." "Do not say that, Madame Goesler. I respect her as strongly as I love her." Then Madame Goesler almost made up her mind that she would have the coronet. There was a substance about the coronet that would not elude her grasp. Late that afternoon, while she was still hesitating, there came another caller to the cottage in Park Lane. She was still hesitating, feeling that she had as yet another night before her. Should she be Duchess of Omnium or not? All that she wished to be, she could not be;--but to be Duchess of Omnium was within her reach. Then she began to ask herself various questions. Would the Queen refuse to accept her in her new rank? Refuse! How could any Queen refuse to accept her? She had not done aught amiss in life. There was no slur on her name; no stain on her character. What though her father had been a small attorney, and her first husband a Jew banker! She had broken no law of God or man, had been accused of breaking no law, which breaking or which accusation need stand in the way of her being as good a duchess as any other woman! She was sitting thinking of this, almost angry with herself at the awe with which the proposed rank inspired her, when Lady Glencora was announced to her. "Madame Goesler," said Lady Glencora, "I am very glad to find you." "And I more than equally so, to be found," said Madame Goesler, smiling with all her grace. "My uncle has been with you since I saw you last?" "Oh yes;--more than once if I remember right. He was here yesterday at any rate." "He comes often to you then?" "Not so often as I would wish, Lady Glencora. The Duke is one of my dearest friends." "It has been a quick friendship." "Yes;--a quick friendship," said Madame Goesler. Then there was a pause for some moments which Madame Goesler was determined that she would not break. It was clear to her now on what ground Lady Glencora had come to her, and she was fully minded that if she could bear the full light of the god himself in all his glory, she would not allow herself to be scorched by any reflected heat coming from the god's niece. She thought she could endure anything that Lady Glencora might say; but she would wait and hear what might be said. "I think, Madame Goesler, that I had better hurry on to my subject at once," said Lady Glencora, almost hesitating as she spoke, and feeling that the colour was rushing up to her cheeks and covering her brow. "Of course what I have to say will be disagreeable. Of course I shall offend you. And yet I do not mean it." "I shall be offended at nothing, Lady Glencora, unless I think that you mean to offend me." "I protest that I do not. You have seen my little boy." "Yes, indeed. The sweetest child! God never gave me anything half so precious as that." "He is the Duke's heir." "So I understand." "For myself, by my honour as a woman, I care nothing. I am rich and have all that the world can give me. For my husband, in this matter, I care nothing. His career he will make for himself, and it will depend on no title." "Why all this to me, Lady Glencora? What have I to do with your husband's titles?" "Much;--if it be true that there is an idea of marriage between you and the Duke of Omnium." "Psha!" said Madame Goesler, with all the scorn of which she was mistress. "It is untrue, then?" asked Lady Glencora. "No;--it is not untrue. There is an idea of such a marriage." "And you are engaged to him?" "No;--I am not engaged to him." "Has he asked you?" "Lady Glencora, I really must say that such a cross-questioning from one lady to another is very unusual. I have promised not to be offended, unless I thought that you wished to offend me. But do not drive me too far." "Madame Goesler, if you will tell me that I am mistaken, I will beg your pardon, and offer to you the most sincere friendship which one woman can give another." "Lady Glencora, I can tell you nothing of the kind." "Then it is to be so! And have you thought what you would gain?" "I have thought much of what I should gain:--and something also of what I should lose." "You have money." "Yes, indeed; plenty,--for wants so moderate as mine." "And position." "Well, yes; a sort of position. Not such as yours, Lady Glencora. That, if it be not born to a woman, can only come to her from a husband. She cannot win it for herself." "You are free as air, going where you like, and doing what you like." "Too free, sometimes," said Madame Goesler. "And what will you gain by changing all this simply for a title?" "But for such a title, Lady Glencora! It may be little to you to be Duchess of Omnium, but think what it must be to me!" "And for this you will not hesitate to rob him of all his friends, to embitter his future life, to degrade him among his peers,--" "Degrade him! Who dares say that I shall degrade him? He will exalt me, but I shall no whit degrade him. You forget yourself, Lady Glencora." "Ask any one. It is not that I despise you. If I did, would I offer you my hand in friendship? But an old man, over seventy, carrying the weight and burden of such rank as his, will degrade himself in the eyes of his fellows, if he marries a young woman without rank, let her be ever so clever, ever so beautiful. A Duke of Omnium may not do as he pleases, as may another man." "It may be well, Lady Glencora, for other dukes, and for the daughters and heirs and cousins of other dukes, that his Grace should try that question. I will, if you wish it, argue this matter with you on many points, but I will not allow you to say that I should degrade any man whom I might marry. My name is as unstained as your own." "I meant nothing of that," said Lady Glencora. "For him;--I certainly would not willingly injure him. Who wishes to injure a friend? And, in truth, I have so little to gain, that the temptation to do him an injury, if I thought it one, is not strong. For your little boy, Lady Glencora, I think your fears are premature." As she said this, there came a smile over her face, which threatened to break from control and almost become laughter. "But, if you will allow me to say so, my mind will not be turned against this marriage half so strongly by any arguments you can use as by those which I can adduce myself. You have nearly driven me into it by telling me I should degrade his house. It is almost incumbent on me to prove that you are wrong. But you had better leave me to settle the matter in my own bosom. You had indeed." After a while Lady Glencora did leave her,--to settle the matter within her own bosom,--having no other alternative. CHAPTER LXII The Letter That Was Sent to Brighton Monday morning came and Madame Goesler had as yet written no answer to the Duke of Omnium. Had not Lady Glencora gone to Park Lane on the Sunday afternoon, I think the letter would have been written on that day; but, whatever may have been the effect of Lady Glencora's visit, it so far disturbed Madame Goesler as to keep her from her writing-table. There was yet another night for thought, and then the letter should be written on the Monday morning. When Lady Glencora left Madame Goesler she went at once to the Duke's house. It was her custom to see her husband's uncle on a Sunday, and she would most frequently find him just at this hour,--before he went up-stairs to dress for dinner. She usually took her boy with her, but on this occasion she went alone. She had tried what she could do with Madame Goesler, and she found that she had failed. She must now make her attempt upon the Duke. But the Duke, perhaps anticipating some attack of the kind, had fled. "Where is his Grace, Barker?" said Lady Glencora to the porter. "We do not know, your ladyship. His Grace went away yesterday evening with nobody but Lapoule." Lapoule was the Duke's French valet. Lady Glencora could only return home and consider in her own mind what batteries might yet be brought to bear upon the Duke, towards stopping the marriage, even after the engagement should have been made,--if it were to be made. Lady Glencora felt that such batteries might still be brought up as would not improbably have an effect on a proud, weak old man. If all other resources failed, royalty in some of its branches might be induced to make a request, and every august relation in the peerage should interfere. The Duke no doubt might persevere and marry whom he pleased,--if he were strong enough. But it requires much personal strength,--that standing alone against the well-armed batteries of all one's friends. Lady Glencora had once tried such a battle on her own behalf, and had failed. She had wished to be imprudent when she was young; but her friends had been too strong for her. She had been reduced, and kept in order, and made to run in a groove,--and was now, when she sat looking at her little boy with his bold face, almost inclined to think that the world was right, and that grooves were best. But if she had been controlled when she was young, so ought the Duke to be controlled now that he was old. It is all very well for a man or woman to boast that he,--or she,--may do what he likes with his own,--or with her own. But there are circumstances in which such self-action is ruinous to so many that coercion from the outside becomes absolutely needed. Nobody had felt the injustice of such coercion when applied to herself more sharply than had Lady Glencora. But she had lived to acknowledge that such coercion might be proper, and was now prepared to use it in any shape in which it might be made available. It was all very well for Madame Goesler to laugh and exclaim, "Psha!" when Lady Glencora declared her real trouble. But should it ever come to pass that a black-browed baby with a yellow skin should be shown to the world as Lord Silverbridge, Lady Glencora knew that her peace of mind would be gone for ever. She had begun the world desiring one thing, and had missed it. She had suffered much, and had then reconciled herself to other hopes. If those other hopes were also to be cut away from her, the world would not be worth a pinch of snuff to her. The Duke had fled, and she could do nothing to-day; but to-morrow she would begin with her batteries. And she herself had done the mischief! She had invited this woman down to Matching! Heaven and earth!--that such a man as the Duke should be such a fool!--The widow of a Jew banker! He, the Duke of Omnium,--and thus to cut away from himself, for the rest of his life, all honour, all peace of mind, all the grace of a noble end to a career which, if not very noble in itself, had received the praise of nobility! And to do this for a thin, black-browed, yellow-visaged woman with ringlets and devil's eyes, and a beard on her upper lip,--a Jewess,--a creature of whose habits of life and manners of thought they all were absolutely ignorant; who drank, possibly; who might have been a forger, for what any one knew; an adventuress who had found her way into society by her art and perseverance,--and who did not even pretend to have a relation in the world! That such a one should have influence enough to intrude herself into the house of Omnium, and blot the scutcheon, and,-- what was worst of all,--perhaps be the mother of future dukes! Lady Glencora, in her anger, was very unjust to Madame Goesler, thinking all evil of her, accusing her in her mind of every crime, denying her all charm, all beauty. Had the Duke forgotten himself and his position for the sake of some fair girl with a pink complexion and grey eyes, and smooth hair, and a father, Lady Glencora thought that she would have forgiven it better. It might be that Madame Goesler would win her way to the coronet; but when she came to put it on, she should find that there were sharp thorns inside the lining of it. Not a woman worth the knowing in all London should speak to her;--nor a man either of those men with whom a Duchess of Omnium would wish to hold converse. She should find her husband rated as a doting fool, and herself rated as a scheming female adventuress. And it should go hard with Lady Glencora, if the Duke were not separated from his new Duchess before the end of the first year! In her anger Lady Glencora was very unjust. The Duke, when he left his house without telling his household whither he was going, did send his address to,--the top brick of the chimney. His note, which was delivered at Madame Goesler's house late on the Sunday evening, was as follows:--"I am to have your answer on Monday. I shall be at Brighton. Send it by a private messenger to the Bedford Hotel there. I need not tell you with what expectation, with what hope, with what fear I shall await it.--O." Poor old man! He had run through all the pleasures of life too quickly, and had not much left with which to amuse himself. At length he had set his eyes on a top brick, and being tired of everything else, wanted it very sorely. Poor old man! How should it do him any good, even if he got it? Madame Goesler, when she received the note, sat with it in her hand, thinking of his great want. "And he would be tired of his new plaything after a month," she said to herself. But she had given herself to the next morning, and she would not make up her mind that night. She would sleep once more with the coronet of a duchess within her reach. She did do so; and woke in the morning with her mind absolutely in doubt. When she walked down to breakfast, all doubt was at an end. The time had come when it was necessary that she should resolve, and while her maid was brushing her hair for her she did make her resolution. "What a thing it is to be a great lady," said the maid, who may probably have reflected that the Duke of Omnium did not come here so often for nothing. "What do you mean by that, Lotta?" "The women I know, madame, talk so much of their countesses, and ladyships, and duchesses. I would never rest till I had a title in this country, if I were a lady,--and rich and beautiful." "And can the countesses, and the ladyships, and the duchesses do as they please?" "Ah, madame;--I know not that." "But I know. That will do, Lotta. Now leave me." Then Madame Goesler had made up her mind; but I do not know whether that doubt as to having her own way had much to do with it. As the wife of an old man she would probably have had much of her own way. Immediately after breakfast she wrote her answer to the Duke, which was as follows:-- Park Lane, Monday. MY DEAR DUKE OF OMNIUM, I find so great a difficulty in expressing myself to your Grace in a written letter, that since you left me I have never ceased to wish that I had been less nervous, less doubting, and less foolish when you were present with me here in my room. I might then have said in one word what will take so many awkward words to explain. Great as is the honour you propose to confer on me, rich as is the gift you offer me, I cannot accept it. I cannot be your Grace's wife. I may almost say that I knew it was so when you parted from me; but the surprise of the situation took away from me a part of my judgment, and made me unable to answer you as I should have done. My lord, the truth is, that I am not fit to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. I should injure you; and though I should raise myself in name, I should injure myself in character. But you must not think, because I say this, that there is any reason why I should not be an honest man's wife. There is none. I have nothing on my conscience which I could not tell you,--or to another man; nothing that I need fear to tell to all the world. Indeed, my lord, there is nothing to tell but this,--that I am not fitted by birth and position to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. You would have to blush for me, and that no man shall ever have to do on my account. I will own that I have been ambitious, too ambitious, and have been pleased to think that one so exalted as you are, one whose high position is so rife in the eyes of all men, should have taken pleasure in my company. I will confess to a foolish woman's silly vanity in having wished to be known to be the friend of the Duke of Omnium. I am like the other moths that flutter near the light and have their wings burned. But I am wiser than they in this, that having been scorched, I know that I must keep my distance. You will easily believe that a woman, such as I am, does not refuse to ride in a carriage with your Grace's arms on the panels without a regret. I am no philosopher. I do not pretend to despise the rich things of the world, or the high things. According to my way of thinking a woman ought to wish to be Duchess of Omnium;--but she ought to wish also to be able to carry her coronet with a proper grace. As Madame Goesler I can live, even among my superiors, at my ease. As your Grace's wife, I should be easy no longer; --nor would your Grace. You will think perhaps that what I write is heartless, that I speak altogether of your rank, and not at all of the affection you have shown me, or of that which I might possibly bear towards you. I think that when the first flush of passion is over in early youth men and women should strive to regulate their love, as they do their other desires, by their reason. I could love your Grace, fondly, as your wife, if I thought it well for your Grace or for myself that we should be man and wife. As I think it would be ill for both of us, I will restrain that feeling, and remember your Grace ever with the purest feeling of true friendship. Before I close this letter, I must utter a word of gratitude. In the kind of life which I have led as a widow, a life which has been very isolated as regards true fellowship, it has been my greatest effort to obtain the good opinion of those among whom I have attempted to make my way. I may, perhaps, own to you now that I have had many difficulties. A woman who is alone in the world is ever regarded with suspicion. In this country a woman with a foreign name, with means derived from foreign sources, with a foreign history, is specially suspected. I have striven to live that down, and I have succeeded. But in my wildest dreams I never dreamed of such success as this,--that the Duke of Omnium should think me the worthiest of the worthy. You may be sure that I am not ungrateful,--that I never will be ungrateful. And I trust it will not derogate from your opinion of my worth, that I have known what was due to your Grace's highness. I have the honour to be, My Lord Duke, Your most obliged and faithful servant, MARIE MAX GOESLER. "How many unmarried women in England are there would do the same?" she said to herself, as she folded the paper, and put it into an envelope, and sealed the cover. The moment that the letter was completed she sent it off, as she was directed to send it, so that there might be no possibility of repentance and subsequent hesitation. She had at last made up her mind, and she would stand by the making. She knew that there would come moments in which she would deeply regret the opportunity that she had lost,--the chance of greatness that she had flung away from her. But so would she have often regretted it, also, had she accepted the greatness. Her position was one in which there must be regret, let her decision have been what it might. But she had decided, and the thing was done. She would still be free,--Marie Max Goesler,--unless in abandoning her freedom she would obtain something that she might in truth prefer to it. When the letter was gone she sat disconsolate, at the window of an up-stairs room in which she had written, thinking much of the coronet, much of the name, much of the rank, much of that position in society which she had flattered herself she might have won for herself as Duchess of Omnium by her beauty, her grace, and her wit. It had not been simply her ambition to be a duchess, without further aim or object. She had fancied that she might have been such a duchess as there is never another, so that her fame might have been great throughout Europe, as a woman charming at all points. And she would have had friends, then,--real friends, and would not have lived alone as it was now her fate to do. And she would have loved her ducal husband, old though he was, and stiff with pomp and ceremony. She would have loved him, and done her best to add something of brightness to his life. It was indeed true that there was one whom she loved better; but of what avail was it to love a man who, when he came to her, would speak to her of nothing but of the charms which he found in another woman! She had been sitting thus at her window, with a book in her hand, at which she never looked, gazing over the park which was now beautiful with its May verdure, when on a sudden a thought struck her. Lady Glencora Palliser had come to her, trying to enlist her sympathy for the little heir, behaving, indeed, not very well, as Madame Goesler had thought, but still with an earnest purpose which was in itself good. She would write to Lady Glencora and put her out of her misery. Perhaps there was some feeling of triumph in her mind as she returned to the desk from which her epistle had been sent to the Duke;--not of that triumph which would have found its gratification in boasting of the offer that had been made to her, but arising from a feeling that she could now show the proud mother of the bold-faced boy that though she would not pledge herself to any woman as to what she might do or not do, she was nevertheless capable of resisting such a temptation as would have been irresistible to many. Of the Duke's offer to her she would have spoken to no human being, had not this woman shown that the Duke's purpose was known at least to her, and now, in her letter, she would write no plain word of that offer. She would not state, in words intelligible to any one who might read, that the Duke had offered her his hand and his coronet. But she would write so that Lady Glencora should understand her. And she would be careful that there should be no word in the letter to make Lady Glencora think that she supposed herself to be unfit for the rank offered to her. She had been very humble in what she had written to the Duke, but she would not be at all humble in what she was about to write to the mother of the bold-faced boy. And this was the letter when it was written:-- MY DEAR LADY GLENCORA, I venture to send you a line to put you out of your misery;--for you were very miserable when you were so good as to come here yesterday. Your dear little boy is safe from me;--and, what is more to the purpose, so are you and your husband,--and your uncle, whom, in truth, I love. You asked me a downright question which I did not then choose to answer by a downright answer. The downright answer was not at that time due to you. It has since been given, and as I like you too well to wish you to be in torment, I send you a line to say that I shall never be in the way of you or your boy. And now, dear Lady Glencora, one word more. Should it ever again appear to you to be necessary to use your zeal for the protection of your husband or your child, do not endeavour to dissuade a woman by trying to make her think that she, by her alliance, would bring degradation into any house, or to any man. If there could have been an argument powerful with me, to make me do that which you wished to prevent, it was the argument which you used. But my own comfort, and the happiness of another person whom I value almost as much as myself, were too important to be sacrificed even to a woman's revenge. I take mine by writing to you and telling you that I am better and more rational and wiser than you took me to be. If, after this, you choose to be on good terms with me, I shall be happy to be your friend. I shall want no further revenge. You owe me some little apology; but whether you make it or not, I will be contented, and will never do more than ask whether your darling's prospects are still safe. There are more women than one in the world, you know, and you must not consider yourself to be out of the wood because you have escaped from a single danger. If there arise another, come to me, and we will consult together. Dear Lady Glencora, yours always sincerely, MARIE M. G. There was a thing or two besides which she longed to say, laughing as she thought of them. But she refrained, and her letter, when finished, was as it is given above. On the day following, Lady Glencora was again in Park Lane. When she first read Madame Goesler's letter, she felt herself to be annoyed and angry, but her anger was with herself rather than with her correspondent. Ever since her last interview with the woman whom she had feared, she had been conscious of having been indiscreet. All her feelings had been too violent, and it might well have been that she should have driven this woman to do the very thing that she was so anxious to avoid. "You owe me some little apology," Madame Goesler had said. It was true,--and she would apologise. Undue pride was not a part of Lady Glencora's character. Indeed, there was not enough of pride in her composition. She had been quite ready to hate this woman, and to fight her on every point as long as the danger existed; but she was equally willing to take the woman to her heart now that the danger was over. Apologise! Of course she would apologise. And she would make a friend of the woman if the woman wished it. But she would not have the woman and the Duke at Matching together again, lest, after all, there might be a mistake. She did not show Madame Goesler's letter to her husband, or tell him anything of the relief she had received. He had cared but little for the danger, thinking more of his budget than of the danger; and would be sufficiently at his ease if he heard no more rumours of his uncle's marriage. Lady Glencora went to Park Lane early on the Tuesday morning, but she did not take her boy with her. She understood that Madame Goesler might perhaps indulge in a little gentle raillery at the child's expense, and the mother felt that this might be borne the more easily if the child were not present. "I have come to thank you for your letter, Madame Goesler," said Lady Glencora, before she sat down. "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, or to dance at our bridal?" said Madame Goesler, standing up from her chair and laughing, as she sang the lines. "Certainly not to dance at your bridal," said Lady Glencora. "Alas! no. You have forbidden the banns too effectually for that, and I sit here wearing the willow all alone. Why shouldn't I be allowed to get married as well as another woman, I wonder? I think you have been very hard upon me among you. But sit down, Lady Glencora. At any rate you come in peace." "Certainly in peace, and with much admiration,--and a great deal of love and affection, and all that kind of thing, if you will only accept it." "I shall be too proud, Lady Glencora;--for the Duke's sake, if for no other reason." "And I have to make my apology." "It was made as soon as your carriage stopped at my door with friendly wheels. Of course I understand. I can know how terrible it all was to you,--even though the dear little Plantagenet might not have been in much danger. Fancy what it would be to disturb the career of a Plantagenet! I am far too well read in history, I can assure you." "I said a word for which I am sorry, and which I should not have said." "Never mind the word. After all, it was a true word. I do not hesitate to say so now myself, though I will allow no other woman to say it,--and no man either. I should have degraded him,--and disgraced him." Madame Goesler now had dropped the bantering tone which she had assumed, and was speaking in sober earnest. "I, for myself, have nothing about me of which I am ashamed. I have no history to hide, no story to be brought to light to my discredit. But I have not been so born, or so placed by circumstances, as make me fit to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. I should not have been happy, you know." "You want nothing, dear Madame Goesler. You have all that society can give you." "I do not know about that. I have much given to me by society, but there are many things that I want;--a bright-faced little boy, for instance, to go about with me in my carriage. Why did you not bring him, Lady Glencora?" "I came out in my penitential sheet, and when one goes in that guise, one goes alone. I had half a mind to walk." "You will bring him soon?" "Oh, yes. He was very anxious to know the other day who was the beautiful lady with the black hair." "You did not tell him that the beautiful lady with the black hair was a possible aunt, was a possible--? But we will not think any more of things so horrible." "I told him nothing of my fears, you may be sure." "Some day, when I am a very old woman, and when his father is quite an old duke, and when he has a dozen little boys and girls of his own, you will tell him the story. Then he will reflect what a madman his great-uncle must have been, to have thought of making a duchess out of such a wizened old woman as that." They parted the best of friends, but Lady Glencora was still of opinion that if the lady and the Duke were to be brought together at Matching, or elsewhere, there might still be danger. CHAPTER LXIII Showing How the Duke Stood His Ground Mr. Low the barrister, who had given so many lectures to our friend Phineas Finn, lectures that ought to have been useful, was now himself in the House of Commons, having reached it in the legitimate course of his profession. At a certain point of his career, supposing his career to have been sufficiently prosperous, it becomes natural to a barrister to stand for some constituency, and natural for him also to form his politics at that period of his life with a view to his further advancement, looking, as he does so, carefully at the age and standing of the various candidates for high legal office. When a man has worked as Mr. Low had worked, he begins to regard the bench wistfully, and to calculate the profits of a two years' run in the Attorney-Generalship. It is the way of the profession, and thus a proper and sufficient number of real barristers finds its way into the House. Mr. Low had been angry with Phineas because he, being a barrister, had climbed into it after another fashion, having taken up politics, not in the proper way as an assistance to his great profession, but as a profession in itself. Mr. Low had been quite sure that his pupil had been wrong in this, and that the error would at last show itself, to his pupil's cost. And Mrs. Low had been more sure than Mr. Low, having not unnaturally been jealous that a young whipper-snapper of a pupil,--as she had once called Phineas,--should become a Parliament man before her husband, who had worked his way up gallantly, in the usual course. She would not give way a jot even now,--not even when she heard that Phineas was going to marry this and that heiress. For at this period of his life such rumours were afloat about him, originating probably in his hopes as to Violet Effingham and his intimacy with Madame Goesler. "Oh, heiresses!" said Mrs. Low. "I don't believe in heiresses' money till I see it. Three or four hundred a year is a great fortune for a woman, but it don't go far in keeping a house in London. And when a woman has got a little money she generally knows how to spend it. He has begun at the wrong end, and they who do that never get themselves right at the last." At this time Phineas had become somewhat of a fine gentleman, which made Mrs. Low the more angry with him. He showed himself willing enough to go to Mrs. Low's house, but when there he seemed to her to give himself airs. I think that she was unjust to him, and that it was natural that he should not bear himself beneath her remarks exactly as he had done when he was nobody. He had certainly been very successful. He was always listened to in the House, and rarely spoke except on subjects which belonged to him, or had been allotted to him as part of his business. He lived quite at his ease with people of the highest rank,--and those of his own mode of life who disliked him did so simply because they regarded with envy his too rapid rise. He rode upon a pretty horse in the park, and was careful in his dress, and had about him an air of comfortable wealth which Mrs. Low thought he had not earned. When her husband told her of his sufficient salary, she would shake her head and express her opinion that a good time was coming. By which she perhaps meant to imply a belief that a time was coming in which her husband would have a salary much better than that now enjoyed by Phineas, and much more likely to be permanent. The Radicals were not to have office for ever, and when they were gone, what then? "I don't suppose he saves a shilling," said Mrs. Low. "How can he, keeping a horse in the park, and hunting down in the country, and living with lords? I shouldn't wonder if he isn't found to be over head and ears in debt when things come to be looked into." Mrs. Low was fond of an assured prosperity, of money in the funds, and was proud to think that her husband lived in a house of his own. "£19 10s. ground-rent to the Portman estate is what we pay, Mr. Bunce," she once said to that gallant Radical, "and that comes of beginning at the right end. Mr. Low had nothing when he began the world, and I had just what made us decent the day we married. But he began at the right end, and let things go as they may he can't get a fall." Mr. Bunce and Mrs. Low, though they differed much in politics, sympathised in reference to Phineas. "I never believes, ma'am, in nobody doing any good by getting a place," said Mr. Bunce. "Of course I don't mean judges and them like, which must be. But when a young man has ever so much a year for sitting in a big room down at Whitehall, and reading a newspaper with his feet up on a chair, I don't think it honest, whether he's a Parliament man or whether he ain't." Whence Mr. Bunce had got his notions as to the way in which officials at Whitehall pass their time, I cannot say; but his notions are very common notions. The British world at large is slow to believe that the great British housekeeper keeps no more cats than what kill mice. Mr. Low, who was now frequently in the habit of seeing Phineas at the House, had somewhat changed his opinions, and was not so eager in condemning Phineas as was his wife. He had begun to think that perhaps Phineas had shown some knowledge of his own aptitudes in the career which he had sought, and was aware, at any rate, that his late pupil was somebody in the House of Commons. A man will almost always respect him whom those around him respect, and will generally look up to one who is evidently above himself in his own daily avocation. Now Phineas was certainly above Mr. Low in parliamentary reputation. He sat on a front bench. He knew the leaders of parties. He was at home amidst the forms of the House. He enjoyed something of the prestige of Government power. And he walked about familiarly with the sons of dukes and the brothers of earls in a manner which had its effect even on Mr. Low. Seeing these things Mr. Low could not maintain his old opinion as stoutly as did his wife. It was almost a privilege to Mr. Low to be intimate with Phineas Finn. How then could he look down upon him? He was surprised, therefore, one day when Phineas discussed the matter with him fully. Phineas had asked him what would be his chance of success if even now he were to give up politics and take to the Bar as the means of earning his livelihood. "You would have uphill work at first, as a matter of course," said Mr. Low. "But it might be done, I suppose. To have been in office would not be fatal to me?" "No, not fatal, Nothing of the kind need be fatal. Men have succeeded, and have sat on the bench afterwards, who did not begin till they were past forty. You would have to live down a prejudice created against yourself; that is all. The attorneys do not like barristers who are anything else but barristers." "The attorneys are very arbitrary, I know," said Phineas. "Yes;--and there would be this against you--that it is so difficult for a man to go back to the verdure and malleability of pupildom, who has once escaped from the necessary humility of its conditions. You will find it difficult to sit and wait for business in a Vice-Chancellor's Court, after having had Vice-Chancellors, or men as big as Vice-Chancellors, to wait upon you." "I do not think much of that." "But others would think of it, and you would find that there were difficulties. But you are not thinking of it in earnest?" "Yes, in earnest." "Why so? I should have thought that every day had removed you further and further from any such idea." "The ground I'm on at present is so slippery." "Well, yes. I can understand that. But yet it is less slippery than it used to be." "Ah;--you do not exactly see. What if I were to lose my seat?" "You are safe at least for the next four years, I should say." "Ah;--no one can tell. And suppose I took it into my head to differ from the Government?" "You must not do that. You have put yourself into a boat with these men, and you must remain in the boat. I should have thought all that was easy to you." "It is not so easy as it seems. The very necessity of sitting still in the boat is in itself irksome,--very irksome. And then there comes some crisis in which a man cannot sit still." "Is there any such crisis at hand now?" "I cannot say that;--but I am beginning to find that sitting still is very disagreeable to me. When I hear those fellows below having their own way, and saying just what they like, it makes me furious. There is Robson. He tried office for a couple of years, and has broken away; and now, by George, there is no man they think so much of as they do of Robson. He is twice the man he was when he sat on the Treasury Bench." "He is a man of fortune;--is he not?" "I suppose so. Of course he is, because he lives. He never earns anything. His wife had money." "My dear Finn, that makes all the difference. When a man has means of his own he can please himself. Do you marry a wife with money, and then you may kick up your heels, and do as you like about the Colonial Office. When a man hasn't money, of course he must fit himself to the circumstances of a profession." "Though his profession may require him to be dishonest." "I did not say that." "But I say it, my dear Low. A man who is ready to vote black white because somebody tells him, is dishonest. Never mind, old fellow. I shall pull through, I daresay. Don't go and tell your wife all this, or she'll be harder upon me than ever when she sees me." After that Mr. Low began to think that his wife's judgment in this matter had been better than his own. Robson could do as he liked because he had married a woman with money. Phineas told himself that that game was also open to him. He, too, might marry money. Violet Effingham had money;--quite enough to make him independent were he married to her. And Madame Goesler had money;--plenty of money. And an idea had begun to creep upon him that Madame Goesler would take him were he to offer himself. But he would sooner go back to the Bar as the lowest pupil, sooner clean boots for barristers,--so he told himself,--than marry a woman simply because she had money, than marry any other woman as long as there was a chance that Violet might be won. But it was very desirable that he should know whether Violet might be won or not. It was now July, and everybody would be gone in another month. Before August would be over he was to start for Ireland with Mr. Monk, and he knew that words would be spoken in Ireland which might make it indispensable for him to be, at any rate, able to throw up his office. In these days he became more anxious than he used to be about Miss Effingham's fortune. He had never spoken as yet to Lord Brentford since the day on which the Earl had quarrelled with him, nor had he ever been at the house in Portman Square. Lady Laura he met occasionally, and had always spoken to her. She was gracious to him, but there had been no renewal of their intimacy. Rumours had reached him that things were going badly with her and her husband; but when men repeated such rumours in his presence, he said little or nothing on the subject. It was not for him, at any rate, to speak of Lady Laura's unhappiness. Lord Chiltern he had seen once or twice during the last month, and they had met cordially as friends. Of course he could ask no question from Lord Chiltern as to Violet; but he did learn that his friend had again patched up some reconciliation with his father. "He has quarrelled with me, you know," said Phineas. "I am very sorry, but what could I do? As things went, I was obliged to tell him." "Do not suppose for a moment that I am blaming you. It is, no doubt, much better that he should know it all." "And it cannot make much difference to you, I should say." "One doesn't like to quarrel with those who have been kind to one," said Phineas. "But it isn't your doing. He'll come right again after a time. When I can get my own affairs settled, you may be sure I'll do my best to bring him round. But what's the reason you never see Laura now?" "What's the reason that everything goes awry?" said Phineas, bitterly. "When I mentioned your name to Kennedy the other day, he looked as black as thunder. But it is not odd that any one should quarrel with him. I can't stand him. Do you know, I sometimes think that Laura will have to give it up. Then there will be another mess in the family!" This was all very well as coming from Lord Chiltern; but there was no word about Violet, and Phineas did not know how to get a word from any one. Lady Laura could have told him everything, but he could not go to Lady Laura. He did go to Lady Baldock's house as often as he thought he could with propriety, and occasionally he saw Violet. But he could do no more than see her, and the days and weeks were passing by, and the time was coming in which he would have to go away, and be with her no more. The end of the season, which was always to other men,--to other working men such as our hero,--a period of pleasurable anticipation, to him was a time of sadness, in which he felt that he was not exactly like to, or even equal to, the men with whom he lived in London. In the old days, in which he was allowed to go to Loughlinter or to Saulsby, when all men and women were going to their Loughlinters and their Saulsbys, it was very well with him; but there was something melancholy to him in his yearly journey to Ireland. He loved his father and mother and sisters as well as do other men; but there was a falling off in the manner of his life which made him feel that he had been in some sort out of his own element in London. He would have liked to have shot grouse at Loughlinter, or pheasants at Saulsby, or to have hunted down at Willingford,--or better still, to have made love to Violet Effingham wherever Violet Effingham might have placed herself. But all this was closed to him now; and there would be nothing for him but to remain at Killaloe, or to return to his work in Downing Street, from August to February. Mr. Monk, indeed, was going with him for a few weeks; but even this association did not make up for that sort of society which he would have preferred. The session went on very quietly. The question of the Irish Reform Bill was postponed till the next year, which was a great thing gained. He carried his bill about the Canada Railway, with sundry other small bills appertaining to it, through the House in a manner which redounded infinitely to his credit. There was just enough of opposition to give a zest to the work, and to make the affair conspicuous among the affairs of the year. As his chief was in the other house, the work fell altogether into his hands, so that he came to be conspicuous among Under-Secretaries. It was only when he said a word to any leaders of his party about other matters,--about Irish Tenant-right, for instance, which was beginning to loom very large, that he found himself to be snubbed. But there was no room for action this year in reference to Irish Tenant-right, and therefore any deep consideration of that discomfort might be legitimately postponed. If he did by chance open his mouth on the subject to Mr. Monk, even Mr. Monk discouraged him. In the early days of July, when the weather was very hot, and people were beginning to complain of the Thames, and members were becoming thirsty after grouse, and the remaining days of parliamentary work were being counted up, there came to him news,--news that was soon known throughout the fashionable world,--that the Duke of Omnium was going to give a garden party at a certain villa residence on the banks of the Thames above Richmond. It was to be such a garden party as had never been seen before. And it would be the more remarkable because the Duke had never been known to do such a thing. The villa was called The Horns, and had, indeed, been given by the Duke to Lady Glencora on her marriage; but the party was to be the Duke's party, and The Horns, with all its gardens, conservatories, lawns, shrubberies, paddocks, boat-houses, and boats, was to be made bright and beautiful for the occasion. Scores of workmen were about the place through the three first weeks of July. The world at large did not at all know why the Duke was doing so unwonted a thing,--why he should undertake so new a trouble. But Lady Glencora knew, and Madame Goesler shrewdly guessed, the riddle. When Madame Goesler's unexpected refusal had reached his Grace, he felt that he must either accept the lady's refusal, or persevere. After a day's consideration, he resolved that he would accept it. The top brick of the chimney was very desirable; but perhaps it might be well that he should endeavour to live without it. Then, accepting this refusal, he must either stand his ground and bear the blow,--or he must run away to that villa at Como, or elsewhere. The running away seemed to him at first to be the better, or at least the more pleasant, course; but at last he determined that he would stand his ground and bear the blow. Therefore he gave his garden party at The Horns. Who was to be invited? Before the first week in July was over, many a bosom in London was fluttering with anxiety on that subject. The Duke, in giving his short word of instruction to Lady Glencora, made her understand that he would wish her to be particular in her invitations. Her Royal Highness the Princess, and his Royal Highness the Prince, had both been so gracious as to say that they would honour his fête. The Duke himself had made out a short list, with not more than a dozen names. Lady Glencora was employed to select the real crowd,--the five hundred out of the ten thousand who were to be blessed. On the Duke's own private list was the name of Madame Goesler. Lady Glencora understood it all. When Madame Goesler got her card, she thought that she understood it too. And she thought also that the Duke was behaving in a gallant way. There was, no doubt, much difficulty about the invitations, and a considerable amount of ill-will was created. And they who considered themselves entitled to be asked, and were not asked, were full of wrath against their more fortunate friends, instead of being angry with the Duke or with Lady Glencora, who had neglected them. It was soon known that Lady Glencora was the real dispenser of the favours, and I fancy that her ladyship was tired of her task before it was completed. The party was to take place on Wednesday, the 27th of July, and before the day had come, men and women had become so hardy in the combat that personal applications were made with unflinching importunity; and letters were written to Lady Glencora putting forward this claim and that claim with a piteous clamour. "No, that is too bad," Lady Glencora said to her particular friend, Mrs. Grey, when a letter came from Mrs. Bonteen, stating all that her husband had ever done towards supporting Mr. Palliser in Parliament,--and all that he ever would do. "She shan't have it, even though she could put Plantagenet into a minority to-morrow." Mrs. Bonteen did not get a card; and when she heard that Phineas Finn had received one, her wrath against Phineas was very great. He was "an Irish adventurer," and she regretted deeply that Mr. Bonteen had ever interested himself in bringing such an upstart forward in the world of politics. But as Mr. Bonteen never had done anything towards bringing Phineas forward, there was not much cause for regret on this head. Phineas, however, got his card, and, of course, accepted the invitation. The grounds were opened at four. There was to be an early dinner out in tents at five; and after dinner men and women were to walk about, or dance, or make love--or hay, as suited them. The haycocks, however, were ready prepared, while it was expected that they should bring the love with them. Phineas, knowing that he should meet Violet Effingham, took a great deal with him ready made. For an hour and a half Lady Glencora kept her position in a saloon through which the guests passed to the grounds, and to every comer she imparted the information that the Duke was on the lawn;--to every comer but one. To Madame Goesler she said no such word. "So glad to see you, my dear," she said, as she pressed her friend's hand: "if I am not killed by this work, I'll make you out again by-and-by." Then Madame Goesler passed on, and soon found herself amidst a throng of acquaintance. After a few minutes she saw the Duke seated in an arm-chair, close to the river-bank, and she bravely went up to him, and thanked him for the invitation. "The thanks are due to you for gracing our entertainment," said the Duke, rising to greet her. There were a dozen people standing round, and so the thing was done without difficulty. At that moment there came a notice that their royal highnesses were on the ground, and the Duke, of course, went off to meet them. There was not a word more spoken between the Duke and Madame Goesler on that afternoon. Phineas did not come till late,--till seven, when the banquet was over. I think he was right in this, as the banqueting in tents loses in comfort almost more than it gains in romance. A small picnic may be very well, and the distance previously travelled may give to a dinner on the ground the seeming excuse of necessity. Frail human nature must be supported,--and human nature, having gone so far in pursuit of the beautiful, is entitled to what best support the unaccustomed circumstances will allow. Therefore, out with the cold pies, out with the salads, and the chickens, and the champagne. Since no better may be, let us recruit human nature sitting upon this moss, and forget our discomforts in the glory of the verdure around us. And dear Mary, seeing that the cushion from the waggonet is small, and not wishing to accept the too generous offer that she should take it all for her own use, will admit a contact somewhat closer than the ordinary chairs of a dining-room render necessary. That in its way is very well;--but I hold that a banquet on narrow tables in a tent is displeasing. Phineas strolled into the grounds when the tent was nearly empty, and when Lady Glencora, almost sinking beneath her exertions, was taking rest in an inner room. The Duke at this time was dining with their royal highnesses, and three or four others, specially selected, very comfortably within doors. Out of doors the world had begun to dance,--and the world was beginning to say that it would be much nicer to go and dance upon the boards inside as soon as possible. For, though of all parties a garden party is the nicest, everybody is always anxious to get out of the garden as quick as may be. A few ardent lovers of suburban picturesque effect were sitting beneath the haycocks, and four forlorn damsels were vainly endeavouring to excite the sympathy of manly youth by playing croquet in a corner. I am not sure, however, that the lovers beneath the haycocks and the players at croquet were not actors hired by Lady Glencora for the occasion. Phineas had not been long on the lawn before he saw Lady Laura Kennedy. She was standing with another lady, and Barrington Erle was with them. "So you have been successful?" said Barrington, greeting him. "Successful in what?" "In what? In getting a ticket. I have had to promise three tide-waiterships, and to give deep hints about a bishopric expected to be vacant, before I got in. But what matters? Success pays for everything. My only trouble now is how I'm to get back to London." Lady Laura shook hands with Phineas, and then as he was passing on, followed him for a step and whispered a word to him. "Mr. Finn," she said, "if you are not going yet, come back to me presently. I have something to say to you. I shall not be far from the river, and shall stay here for about an hour." Phineas said that he would, and then went on, not knowing exactly where he was going. He had one desire,--to find Violet Effingham, but when he should find her he could not carry her off, and sit with her beneath a haycock. CHAPTER LXIV The Horns While looking for Violet Effingham, Phineas encountered Madame Goesler, among a crowd of people who were watching the adventurous embarkation of certain daring spirits in a pleasure-boat. There were watermen there in the Duke's livery, ready to take such spirits down to Richmond or up to Teddington lock, and many daring spirits did take such trips,--to the great peril of muslins, ribbons, and starch, to the peril also of ornamental summer white garments, so that when the thing was over, the boats were voted to have been a bore. "Are you going to venture?" said Phineas to the lady. "I should like it of all things if I were not afraid for my clothes. Will you come?" "I was never good upon the water. I should be sea-sick to a certainty. They are going down beneath the bridge too, and we should be splashed by the steamers. I don't think my courage is high enough." Thus Phineas excused himself, being still intent on prosecuting his search for Violet. "Then neither will I," said Madame Goesler. "One dash from a peccant oar would destroy the whole symmetry of my dress. Look. That green young lady has already been sprinkled." "But the blue young gentleman has been sprinkled also," said Phineas, "and they will be happy in a joint baptism." Then they strolled along the river path together, and were soon alone. "You will be leaving town soon, Madame Goesler?" "Almost immediately." "And where do you go?" "Oh,--to Vienna. I am there for a couple of months every year, minding my business. I wonder whether you would know me, if you saw me;--sometimes sitting on a stool in a counting-house, sometimes going about among old houses, settling what must be done to save them from tumbling down. I dress so differently at such times, and talk so differently, and look so much older, that I almost fancy myself to be another person." "Is it a great trouble to you?" "No,--I rather like it. It makes me feel that I do something in the world." "Do you go alone?" "Quite alone. I take a German maid with me, and never speak a word to any one else on the journey." "That must be very bad," said Phineas. "Yes; it is the worst of it. But then I am so much accustomed to be alone. You see me in society, and in society only, and therefore naturally look upon me as one of a gregarious herd; but I am in truth an animal that feeds alone and lives alone. Take the hours of the year all through, and I am a solitary during four-fifths of them. And what do you intend to do?" "I go to Ireland." "Home to your own people. How nice! I have no people to go to. I have one sister, who lives with her husband at Riga. She is my only relation, and I never see her." "But you have thousands of friends in England." "Yes,--as you see them,"--and she turned and spread out her hands towards the crowded lawn, which was behind them. "What are such friends worth? What would they do for me?" "I do not know that the Duke would do much," said Phineas laughing. Madame Goesler laughed also. "The Duke is not so bad," she said. "The Duke would do as much as any one else. I won't have the Duke abused." "He may be your particular friend, for what I know," said Phineas. "Ah;--no. I have no particular friend. And were I to wish to choose one, I should think the Duke a little above me." "Oh, yes;--and too stiff, and too old, and too pompous, and too cold, and too make-believe, and too gingerbread." "Mr. Finn!" "The Duke is all buckram, you know." "Then why do you come to his house?" "To see you, Madame Goesler." "Is that true, Mr. Finn?" "Yes;--it is true in its way. One goes about to meet those whom one likes, not always for the pleasure of the host's society. I hope I am not wrong because I go to houses at which I like neither the host nor the hostess." Phineas as he said this was thinking of Lady Baldock, to whom of late he had been exceedingly civil,--but he certainly did not like Lady Baldock. "I think you have been too hard upon the Duke of Omnium. Do you know him well?" "Personally? certainly not. Do you? Does anybody?" "I think he is a gracious gentleman," said Madame Goesler, "and though I cannot boast of knowing him well, I do not like to hear him called buckram. I do not think he is buckram. It is not very easy for a man in his position to live so as to please all people. He has to maintain the prestige of the highest aristocracy in Europe." "Look at his nephew, who will be the next Duke, and who works as hard as any man in the country. Will he not maintain it better? What good did the present man ever do?" "You believe only in motion, Mr. Finn;--and not at all in quiescence. An express train at full speed is grander to you than a mountain with heaps of snow. I own that to me there is something glorious in the dignity of a man too high to do anything,--if only he knows how to carry that dignity with a proper grace. I think that there should be breasts made to carry stars." "Stars which they have never earned," said Phineas. "Ah;--well; we will not fight about it. Go and earn your star, and I will say that it becomes you better than any glitter on the coat of the Duke of Omnium." This she said with an earnestness which he could not pretend not to notice or not to understand. "I too may be able to see that the express train is really greater than the mountain." "Though, for your own life, you would prefer to sit and gaze upon the snowy peaks?" "No;--that is not so. For myself, I would prefer to be of use somewhere,--to some one, if it were possible. I strive sometimes." "And I am sure successfully." "Never mind. I hate to talk about myself. You and the Duke are fair subjects for conversation; you as the express train, who will probably do your sixty miles an hour in safety, but may possibly go down a bank with a crash." "Certainly I may," said Phineas. "And the Duke, as the mountain, which is fixed in its stateliness, short of the power of some earthquake, which shall be grander and more terrible than any earthquake yet known. Here we are at the house again. I will go in and sit down for a while." "If I leave you, Madame Goesler, I will say good-bye till next winter." "I shall be in town again before Christmas, you know. You will come and see me?" "Of course I will." "And then this love trouble of course will be over,--one way or the other;--will it not?" "Ah!--who can say?" "Faint heart never won fair lady. But your heart is never faint. Farewell." Then he left her. Up to this moment he had not seen Violet, and yet he knew that she was to be there. She had herself told him that she was to accompany Lady Laura, whom he had already met. Lady Baldock had not been invited, and had expressed great animosity against the Duke in consequence. She had gone so far as to say that the Duke was a man at whose house a young lady such as her niece ought not to be seen. But Violet had laughed at this, and declared her intention of accepting the invitation. "Go," she had said; "of course I shall go. I should have broken my heart if I could not have got there." Phineas therefore was sure that she must be in the place. He had kept his eyes ever on the alert, and yet he had not found her. And now he must keep his appointment with Lady Laura Kennedy. So he went down to the path by the river, and there he found her seated close by the water's edge. Her cousin Barrington Erle was still with her, but as soon as Phineas joined them, Erle went away. "I had told him," said Lady Laura, "that I wished to speak to you, and he stayed with me till you came. There are worse men than Barrington a great deal." "I am sure of that." "Are you and he still friends, Mr. Finn?" "I hope so. I do not see so much of him as I did when I had less to do." "He says that you have got into altogether a different set." "I don't know that. I have gone as circumstances have directed me, but I have certainly not intended to throw over so old and good a friend as Barrington Erle." "Oh,--he does not blame you. He tells me that you have found your way among what he calls the working men of the party, and he thinks you will do very well,--if you can only be patient enough. We all expected a different line from you, you know,--more of words and less of deeds, if I may say so;--more of liberal oratory and less of government action; but I do not doubt that you are right." "I think that I have been wrong," said Phineas. "I am becoming heartily sick of officialities." "That comes from the fickleness about which papa is so fond of quoting his Latin. The ox desires the saddle. The charger wants to plough." "And which am I?" "Your career may combine the dignity of the one with the utility of the other. At any rate you must not think of changing now. Have you seen Mr. Kennedy lately?" She asked the question abruptly, showing that she was anxious to get to the matter respecting which she had summoned him to her side, and that all that she had said hitherto had been uttered as it were in preparation of that subject. "Seen him? yes; I see him daily. But we hardly do more than speak," "Why not?" Phineas stood for a moment in silence, hesitating. "Why is it that he and you do not speak?" "How can I answer that question, Lady Laura?" "Do you know any reason? Sit down, or, if you please, I will get up and walk with you. He tells me that you have chosen to quarrel with him, and that I have made you do so. He says that you have confessed to him that I have asked you to quarrel with him." "He can hardly have said that." "But he has said it,--in so many words. Do you think that I would tell you such a story falsely?" "Is he here now?" "No;--he is not here. He would not come. I came alone." "Is not Miss Effingham with you?" "No;--she is to come with my father later. She is here no doubt, now. But answer my question, Mr. Finn;--unless you find that you cannot answer it. What was it that you did say to my husband?" "Nothing to justify what he has told you." "Do you mean to say that he has spoken falsely?" "I mean to use no harsh word,--but I think that Mr. Kennedy when troubled in his spirit looks at things gloomily, and puts meaning upon words which they should not bear." "And what has troubled his spirit?" "You must know that better than I can do, Lady Laura. I will tell you all that I can tell you. He invited me to his house and I would not go, because you had forbidden me. Then he asked me some questions about you. Did I refuse because of you,--or of anything that you had said? If I remember right, I told him that I did fancy that you would not be glad to see me,--and that therefore I would rather stay away. What was I to say?" "You should have said nothing." "Nothing with him would have been worse than what I did say. Remember that he asked me the question point-blank, and that no reply would have been equal to an affirmation. I should have confessed that his suggestion was true." "He could not then have twitted me with your words." "If I have erred, Lady Laura, and brought any sorrow on you, I am indeed grieved." "It is all sorrow. There is nothing but sorrow. I have made up my mind to leave him." "Oh, Lady Laura!" "It is very bad,--but not so bad, I think, as the life I am now leading. He has accused me--, of what do you think? He says that you are my lover!" "He did not say that,--in those words?" "He said it in words which made me feel that I must part from him." "And how did you answer him?" "I would not answer him at all. If he had come to me like a man,--not accusing me, but asking me,--I would have told him everything. And what was there to tell? I should have broken my faith to you, in speaking of that scene at Loughlinter, but women always tell such stories to their husbands when their husbands are good to them, and true, and just. And it is well that they should be told. But to Mr. Kennedy I can tell nothing. He does not believe my word." "Not believe you, Lady Laura?" "No! Because I did not blurt out to him all that story about your foolish duel,--because I thought it best to keep my brother's secret, as long as there was a secret to be kept, he told me that I had,--lied to him!" "What!--with that word?" "Yes,--with that very word. He is not particular about his words, when he thinks it necessary to express himself strongly. And he has told me since that because of that he could never believe me again. How is it possible that a woman should live with such a man?" But why did she come to him with this story,--to him whom she had been accused of entertaining as a lover;--to him who of all her friends was the last whom she should have chosen as the recipient for such a tale? Phineas as he thought how he might best answer her, with what words he might try to comfort her, could not but ask himself this question. "The moment that the word was out of his mouth," she went on to say, "I resolved that I would tell you. The accusation is against you as it is against me, and is equally false to both. I have written to him, and there is my letter." "But you will see him again?" "No;--I will go to my father's house. I have already arranged it. Mr. Kennedy has my letter by this time, and I go from hence home with my father." "Do you wish that I should read the letter?" "Yes,--certainly. I wish that you should read it. Should I ever meet him again, I shall tell him that you saw it." They were now standing close upon the river's bank, at a corner of the grounds, and, though the voices of people sounded near to them, they were alone. Phineas had no alternative but to read the letter, which was as follows:-- After what you have said to me it is impossible that I should return to your house. I shall meet my father at the Duke of Omnium's, and have already asked him to give me an asylum. It is my wish to remain wherever he may be, either in town or in the country. Should I change my purpose in this, and change my residence, I will not fail to let you know where I go and what I propose to do. You I think must have forgotten that I was your wife; but I will never forget it. You have accused me of having a lover. You cannot have expected that I should continue to live with you after such an accusation. For myself I cannot understand how any man can have brought himself to bring such a charge against his wife. Even had it been true the accusation should not have been made by your mouth to my ears. That it is untrue I believe you must be as well aware as I am myself. How intimate I was with. Mr. Finn, and what were the limits of my intimacy with him you knew before I married you. After our marriage I encouraged his friendship till I found that there was something in it that displeased you,--and, after learning that, I discouraged it. You have said that he is my lover, but you have probably not defined for yourself that word very clearly. You have felt yourself slighted because his name has been mentioned with praise;--and your jealousy has been wounded because you have thought that I have regarded him as in some way superior to yourself. You have never really thought that he was my lover,--that he spoke words to me which others might not hear, that he claimed from me aught that a wife may not give, that he received aught which a friend should not receive. The accusation has been a coward's accusation. I shall be at my father's to-night, and to-morrow I will get you to let my servant bring to me such things as are my own,--my clothes, namely, and desk, and a few books. She will know what I want. I trust you may be happier without a wife, than ever you have been with me. I have felt almost daily since we were married that you were a man who would have been happier without a wife than with one. Yours affectionately, LAURA KENNEDY. "It is at any rate true," she said, when Phineas had read the letter. "True! Doubtless it is true," said Phineas, "except that I do not suppose he was ever really angry with me, or jealous, or anything of the sort,--because I got on well. It seems absurd even to think it." "There is nothing too absurd for some men. I remember your telling me that he was weak, and poor, and unworthy. I remember your saying so when I first thought that he might become my husband. I wish I had believed you when you told me so. I should not have made such a shipwreck of myself as I have done. That is all I had to say to you. After what has passed between us I did not choose that you should hear how I was separated from my husband from any lips but my own. I will go now and find papa. Do not come with me. I prefer being alone." Then he was left standing by himself, looking down upon the river as it glided by. How would it have been with both of them if Lady Laura had accepted him three years ago, when she consented to join her lot with that of Mr. Kennedy, and had rejected him? As he stood he heard the sound of music from the house, and remembered that he had come there with the one sole object of seeing Violet Effingham. He had known that he would meet Lady Laura, and it had been in his mind to break through that law of silence which she had imposed upon him, and once more to ask her to assist him,--to implore her for the sake of their old friendship to tell him whether there might yet be for him any chance of success. But in the interview which had just taken place it had been impossible for him to speak a word of himself or of Violet. To her, in her great desolation, he could address himself on no other subject than that of her own misery. But not the less when she was talking to him of her own sorrow, of her regret that she had not listened to him when in years past he had spoken slightingly of Mr. Kennedy, was he thinking of Violet Effingham. Mr. Kennedy had certainly mistaken the signs of things when he had accused his wife by saying that Phineas was her lover. Phineas had soon got over that early feeling; and as far as he himself was concerned had never regretted Lady Laura's marriage. He remained down by the water for a few minutes, giving Lady Laura time to escape, and then he wandered across the grounds towards the house. It was now about nine o'clock, and though there were still many walking about the grounds, the crowd of people were in the rooms. The musicians were ranged out on a verandah, so that their music might have been available for dancing within or without; but the dancers had found the boards pleasanter than the lawn, and the Duke's garden party was becoming a mere ball, with privilege for the dancers to stroll about the lawn between the dances. And in this respect the fun was better than at a ball,--that let the engagements made for partners be what they might, they could always be broken with ease. No lady felt herself bound to dance with a cavalier who was displeasing to her; and some gentlemen were left sadly in the lurch. Phineas felt himself to be very much in the lurch, even after he had discovered Violet Effingham standing up to dance with Lord Fawn. He bided his time patiently, and at last he found his opportunity. "Would she dance with him?" She declared that she intended to dance no more, and that she had promised to be ready to return home with Lord Brentford before ten o'clock. "I have pledged myself not to be after ten," she said, laughing. Then she put her hand upon his arm, and they stepped out upon the terrace together. "Have you heard anything?" she asked him, almost in a whisper. "Yes," he said. "I have heard what you mean. I have heard it all." "Is it not dreadful?" "I fear it is the best thing she can do. She has never been happy with him." "But to be accused after that fashion,--by her husband!" said Violet. "One can hardly believe it in these days. And of all women she is the last to deserve such accusation." "The very last," said Phineas, feeling that the subject was one upon which it was not easy for him to speak. "I cannot conceive to whom he can have alluded," said Violet. Then Phineas began to understand that Violet had not heard the whole story; but the difficulty of speaking was still very great. "It has been the result of ungovernable temper," he said. "But a man does not usually strive to dishonour himself because he is in a rage. And this man is incapable of rage. He must be cursed with one of those dark gloomy minds in which love always leads to jealousy. She will never return to him." "One cannot say. In many respects it would be better that she should," said Phineas. "She will never return to him," repeated Violet,--"never. Would you advise her to do so?" "How can I say? If one were called upon for advice, one would think so much before one spoke." "I would not,--not for a minute. What! to be accused of that! How are a man and woman to live together after there have been such words between them? Poor Laura! What a terrible end to all her high hopes! Do you not grieve for her?" They were now at some distance from the house, and Phineas could not but feel that chance had been very good to him in giving him his opportunity. She was leaning on his arm, and they were alone, and she was speaking to him with all the familiarity of old friendship. "I wonder whether I may change the subject," said he, "and ask you a word about yourself?" "What word?" she said sharply. "I have heard--" "What have you heard?" "Simply this,--that you are not now as you were six months ago. Your marriage was then fixed for June." "It has been unfixed since then," she said. "Yes;--it has been unfixed. I know it. Miss Effingham, you will not be angry with me if I say that when I heard it was so, something of a hope,--no, I must not call it a hope,--something that longed to form itself into hope returned to my breast, and from that hour to this has been the only subject on which I have cared to think." "Lord Chiltern is your friend, Mr. Finn?" "He is so, and I do not think that I have ever been untrue to my friendship for him." "He says that no man has ever had a truer friend. He will swear to that in all companies. And I, when it was allowed to me to swear with him, swore it too. As his friend, let me tell you one thing,--one thing which I would never tell to any other man,--one thing which I know I may tell you in confidence. You are a gentleman, and will not break my confidence?" "I think I will not." "I know you will not, because you are a gentleman. I told Lord Chiltern in the autumn of last year that I loved him. And I did love him. I shall never have the same confession to make to another man. That he and I are not now,--on those loving terms,--which once existed, can make no difference in that. A woman cannot transfer her heart. There have been things which have made me feel,--that I was perhaps mistaken,--in saying that I would be,--his wife. But I said so, and cannot now give myself to another. Here is Lord Brentford, and we will join him." There was Lord Brentford with Lady Laura on his arm, very gloomy,--resolving on what way he might be avenged on the man who had insulted his daughter. He took but little notice of Phineas as he resumed his charge of Miss Effingham; but the two ladies wished him good night. "Good night, Lady Laura," said Phineas, standing with his hat in his hand,--"good night, Miss Effingham." Then he was alone,--quite alone. Would it not be well for him to go down to the bottom of the garden, and fling himself into the quiet river, so that there might be an end of him? Or would it not be better still that he should create for himself some quiet river of life, away from London, away from politics, away from lords, and titled ladies, and fashionable squares, and the parties given by dukes, and the disappointments incident to a small man in attempting to make for himself a career among big men? There had frequently been in the mind of this young man an idea that there was something almost false in his own position,--that his life was a pretence, and that he would ultimately be subject to that ruin which always comes, sooner or later, on things which are false; and now as he wandered alone about Lady Glencora's gardens, this feeling was very strong within his bosom, and robbed him altogether of the honour and glory of having been one of the Duke of Omnium's guests. CHAPTER LXV The Cabinet Minister at Killaloe Phineas did not throw himself into the river from the Duke's garden; and was ready, in spite of Violet Effingham, to start for Ireland with Mr. Monk at the end of the first week in August. The close of that season in London certainly was not a happy period of his life. Violet had spoken to him after such a fashion that he could not bring himself not to believe her. She had given him no hint whether it was likely or unlikely that she and Lord Chiltern would be reconciled; but she had convinced him that he could not be allowed to take Lord Chiltern's place. "A woman cannot transfer her heart," she had said. Phineas was well aware that many women do transfer their hearts; but he had gone to this woman too soon after the wrench which her love had received; he had been too sudden with his proposal for a transfer; and the punishment for such ill judgment must be that success would now be impossible to him. And yet how could he have waited, feeling that Miss Effingham, if she were at all like other girls whom he had known, might have promised herself to some other lover before she would return within his reach in the succeeding spring? But she was not like some other girls. Ah;--he knew that now, and repented him of his haste. But he was ready for Mr. Monk on the 7th of August, and they started together. Something less than twenty hours took them from London to Killaloe, and during four or five of those twenty hours Mr. Monk was unfitted for any conversation by the uncomfortable feelings incidental to the passage from Holyhead to Kingstown. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of conversation between them during the journey. Mr. Monk had almost made up his mind to leave the Cabinet. "It is sad to me to have to confess it," he said, "but the truth is that my old rival, Turnbull, is right. A man who begins his political life as I began mine, is not the man of whom a Minister should be formed. I am inclined to think that Ministers of Government require almost as much education in their trade as shoemakers or tallow-chandlers. I doubt whether you can make a good public servant of a man simply because he has got the ear of the House of Commons." "Then you mean to say," said Phineas, "that we are altogether wrong from beginning to end, in our way of arranging these things?" "I do not say that at all. Look at the men who have been leading statesmen since our present mode of government was formed,--from the days in which it was forming itself, say from Walpole down, and you will find that all who have been of real use had early training as public servants." "Are we never to get out of the old groove?" "Not if the groove is good," said Mr. Monk, "Those who have been efficient as ministers sucked in their efficacy with their mother's milk. Lord Brock did so, and Lord de Terrier, and Mr. Mildmay. They seated themselves in office chairs the moment they left college. Mr. Gresham was in office before he was eight-and-twenty. The Duke of St. Bungay was at work as a Private Secretary when he was three-and-twenty. You, luckily for yourself, have done the same." "And regret it every hour of my life." "You have no cause for regret, but it is not so with me. If there be any man unfitted by his previous career for office, it is he who has become, or who has endeavoured to become, a popular politician,--an exponent, if I may say so, of public opinion. As far as I can see, office is offered to such men with one view only,--that of clipping their wings." "And of obtaining their help." "It is the same thing. Help from Turnbull would mean the withdrawal of all power of opposition from him. He could not give other help for any long term, as the very fact of his accepting power and patronage would take from him his popular leadership. The masses outside require to have their minister as the Queen has hers; but the same man cannot be minister to both. If the people's minister chooses to change his master, and to take the Queen's shilling, something of temporary relief may be gained by government in the fact that the other place will for a time be vacant. But there are candidates enough for such places, and the vacancy is not a vacancy long. Of course the Crown has this pull, that it pays wages, and the people do not." "I do not think that that influenced you," said Phineas. "It did not influence me. To you I will make bold to state so much positively, though it would be foolish, perhaps, to do so to others. I did not go for the shilling, though I am so poor a man that the shilling is more to me than it would be to almost any man in the House. I took the shilling, much doubting, but guided in part by this, that I was ashamed of being afraid to take it. They told me,--Mr. Mildmay and the Duke,--that I could earn it to the benefit of the country. I have not earned it, and the country has not been benefited,--unless it be for the good of the country that my voice in the House should be silenced. If I believe that, I ought to hold my tongue without taking a salary for holding it. I have made a mistake, my friend. Such mistakes made at my time of life cannot be wholly rectified; but, being convinced of my error, I must do the best in my power to put myself right again." There was a bitterness in all this to Phineas himself of which he could not but make plaint to his companion. "The truth is," he said, "that a man in office must be a slave, and that slavery is distasteful." "There I think you are wrong. If you mean that you cannot do joint work with other men altogether after your own fashion the same may be said of all work. If you had stuck to the Bar you must have pleaded your causes in conformity with instructions from the attorneys." "I should have been guided by my own lights in advising those attorneys." "I cannot see that you suffer anything that ought to go against the grain with you. You are beginning young, and it is your first adopted career. With me it is otherwise. If by my telling you this I shall have led you astray, I shall regret my openness with you. Could I begin again, I would willingly begin as you began." It was a great day in Killaloe, that on which Mr. Monk arrived with Phineas at the doctor's house. In London, perhaps, a bishop inspires more awe than a Cabinet Minister. In Killaloe, where a bishop might be seen walking about every day, the mitred dignitary of the Church, though much loved, was thought of, I fear, but lightly; whereas a Cabinet Minister coming to stay in the house of a townsman was a thing to be wondered at, to be talked about, to be afraid of, to be a fruitful source of conversation for a year to come. There were many in Killaloe, especially among the elder ladies, who had shaken their heads and expressed the saddest doubts when young Phineas Finn had first become a Parliament man. And though by degrees they had been half brought round, having been driven to acknowledge that he had been wonderfully successful as a Parliament man, still they had continued to shake their heads among themselves, and to fear something in the future,--until he appeared at his old home leading a Cabinet Minister by the hand. There was such assurance in this that even old Mrs. Callaghan, at the brewery, gave way, and began to say all manner of good things, and to praise the doctor's luck in that he had a son gifted with parts so excellent. There was a great desire to see the Cabinet Minister in the flesh, to be with him when he ate and drank, to watch the gait and countenance of the man, and to drink water from this fountain of state lore which had been so wonderfully brought among them by their young townsman. Mrs. Finn was aware that it behoved her to be chary of her invitations, but the lady from the brewery had said such good things of Mrs. Finn's black swan, that she carried her point, and was invited to meet the Cabinet Minister at dinner on the day after his arrival. Mrs. Flood Jones and her daughter were invited also to be of the party. When Phineas had been last at Killaloe, Mrs. Flood Jones, as the reader may remember, had remained with her daughter at Floodborough,--feeling it to be her duty to keep her daughter away from the danger of an unrequited attachment. But it seemed that her purpose was changed now, or that she no longer feared the danger,--for both Mary and her mother were now again living in Killaloe, and Mary was at the doctor's house as much as ever. A day or two before the coming of the god and the demigod to the little town, Barbara Finn and her friend had thus come to understand each other as they walked along the Shannon side. "I am sure, my dear, that he is engaged to nobody," said Barbara Finn. "And I am sure, my dear," said Mary, "that I do not care whether he is or is not." "What do you mean, Mary?" "I mean what I say. Why should I care? Five years ago I had a foolish dream, and now I am awake again. Think how old I have got to be!" "Yes;--you are twenty-three. What has that to do with it?" "It has this to do with it;--that I am old enough to know better. Mamma and I quite understand each other. She used to be angry with him, but she has got over all that foolishness now. It always made me so vexed;--the idea of being angry with a man because,--because--! You know one can't talk about it, it is so foolish. But that is all over now." "Do you mean to say you don't care for him, Mary? Do you remember what you used to swear to me less than two years ago?" "I remember it all very well, and I remember what a goose I was. As for caring for him, of course I do,--because he is your brother, and because I have known him all my life. But if he were going to be married to-morrow, you would see that it would make no difference to me." Barbara Finn walked on for a couple of minutes in silence before she replied. "Mary," she said at last, "I don't believe a word of it." "Very well;--then all that I shall ask of you is, that we may not talk about him any more. Mamma believes it, and that is enough for me." Nevertheless, they did talk about Phineas during the whole of that day, and very often talked about him afterwards, as long as Mary remained at Killaloe. There was a large dinner party at the doctor's on the day after Mr. Monk's arrival. The bishop was not there, though he was on terms sufficiently friendly with the doctor's family to have been invited on so grand an occasion; but he was not there, because Mrs. Finn was determined that she would be taken out to dinner by a Cabinet Minister in the face of all her friends. She was aware that had the bishop been there, she must have taken the bishop's arm. And though there would have been glory in that, the other glory was more to her taste. It was the first time in her life that she had ever seen a Cabinet Minister, and I think that she was a little disappointed at finding him so like other middle-aged gentlemen. She had hoped that Mr. Monk would have assumed something of the dignity of his position; but he assumed nothing. Now the bishop, though he was a very mild man, did assume something by the very facts of his apron and knee-breeches. "I am sure, sir, it is very good of you to come and put up with our humble way of living," said Mrs. Finn to her guest, as they sat down at table. And yet she had resolved that she would not make any speech of the kind,--that she would condescend to no apology,--that she would bear herself as though a Cabinet Minister dined with her at least once a year. But when the moment came, she broke down, and made this apology with almost abject meekness, and then hated herself because she had done so. "My dear madam," said Mr. Monk, "I live myself so much like a hermit that your house is a palace of luxury to me." Then he felt that he had made a foolish speech, and he also hated himself. He found it very difficult to talk to his hostess upon any subject, until by chance he mentioned his young friend Phineas. Then her tongue was unloosed. "Your son, madam," he said, "is going with me to Limerick and back to Dublin. It is a shame, I know, taking him so soon away from home, but I should not know how to get on without him." "Oh, Mr. Monk, it is such a blessing for him, and such an honour for us, that you should be so good to him." Then the mother spoke out all her past fears and all her present hopes, and acknowledged the great glory which it was to her to have a son sitting in Parliament, holding an office with a stately name and a great salary, and blessed with the friendship of such a man as Mr. Monk. After that Mr. Monk got on better with her. "I don't know any young man," said he, "in whose career I have taken so strong an interest." "He was always good," said Mrs. Finn, with a tear forcing itself into the corner of each eye. "I am his mother, and of course I ought not to say so,--not in this way; but it is true, Mr. Monk." And then the poor lady was obliged to raise her handkerchief and wipe away the drops. Phineas on this occasion had taken out to dinner the mother of his devoted Mary, Mrs. Flood Jones. "What a pleasure it must be to the doctor and Mrs. Finn to see you come back in this way," said Mrs. Flood Jones. "With all my bones unbroken?" said he, laughing. "Yes; with all your bones unbroken. You know, Phineas, when we first heard that you were to sit in Parliament, we were afraid that you might break a rib or two,--since you choose to talk about the breaking of bones." "Yes, I know. Everybody thought I should come to grief; but nobody felt so sure of it as I did myself." "But you have not come to grief." "I am not out of the wood yet, you know, Mrs. Flood Jones. There is plenty of possibility for grief in my way still." "As far as I can understand it, you are out of the wood. All that your friends here want to see now is, that you should marry some nice English girl, with a little money, if possible. Rumours have reached us, you know." "Rumours always lie," said Phineas. "Sometimes they do, of course; and I am not going to ask any indiscreet questions. But that is what we all hope. Mary was saying, only the other day, that if you were once married, we should all feel quite safe about you. And you know we all take the most lively interest in your welfare. It is not every day that a man from County Clare gets on as you have done, and therefore we are bound to think of you." Thus Mrs. Flood Jones signified to Phineas Finn that she had forgiven him the thoughtlessness of his early youth,--even though there had been something of treachery in that thoughtlessness to her own daughter; and showed him, also, that whatever Mary's feelings might have been once, they were not now of a nature to trouble her. "Of course you will marry?" said Mrs. Flood Jones. "I should think very likely not," said Phineas, who perhaps looked farther into the mind of the lady than the lady intended. "Oh, do," said the lady. "Every man should marry as soon as he can, and especially a man in your position." When the ladies met together in the drawing-room after dinner, it was impossible but that they should discuss Mr. Monk. There was Mrs. Callaghan from the brewery there, and old Lady Blood, of Bloodstone,--who on ordinary occasions would hardly admit that she was on dining-out terms with any one in Killaloe except the bishop, but who had found it impossible to decline to meet a Cabinet Minister,--and there was Mrs. Stackpoole from Sixmiletown, a far-away cousin of the Finns, who hated Lady Blood with a true provincial hatred. "I don't see anything particularly uncommon in him, after all," said Lady Blood. "I think he is very nice indeed," said Mrs. Flood Jones. "So very quiet, my dear, and just like other people," said Mrs. Callaghan, meaning to pronounce a strong eulogium on the Cabinet Minister. "Very like other people indeed," said Lady Blood. "And what would you expect, Lady Blood?" said Mrs. Stackpoole. "Men and women in London walk upon two legs, just as they do in Ennis." Now Lady Blood herself had been born and bred in Ennis, whereas Mrs. Stackpoole had come from Limerick, which is a much more considerable town, and therefore there was a satire in this allusion to the habits of the men of Ennis which Lady Blood understood thoroughly. "My dear Mrs. Stackpoole, I know how the people walk in London quite as well as you do." Lady Blood had once passed three months in London while Sir Patrick had been alive, whereas Mrs. Stackpoole had never done more than visit the metropolis for a day or two. "Oh, no doubt," said Mrs. Stackpoole; "but I never can understand what it is that people expect. I suppose Mr. Monk ought to have come with his stars on the breast of his coat, to have pleased Lady Blood." "My dear Mrs. Stackpoole, Cabinet Ministers don't have stars," said Lady Blood. "I never said they did," said Mrs. Stackpoole. "He is so nice and gentle to talk to," said Mrs. Finn. "You may say what you will, but men who are high up do very often give themselves airs. Now I must say that this friend of my son's does not do anything of that kind." "Not the least," said Mrs. Callaghan. "Quite the contrary," said Mrs. Stackpoole. "I dare say he is a wonderful man," said Lady Blood. "All I say is, that I didn't hear anything wonderful come out of his mouth; and as for people in Ennis walking on two legs, I have seen donkeys in Limerick doing just the same thing." Now it was well known that Mrs. Stackpoole had two sons living in Limerick, as to neither of whom was it expected that he would set the Shannon on fire. After this little speech there was no further mention of Mr. Monk, as it became necessary that all the good-nature of Mrs. Finn and all the tact of Mrs. Flood Jones and all the energy of Mrs. Callaghan should be used, to prevent the raging of an internecine battle between Mrs. Stackpoole and Lady Blood. CHAPTER LXVI Victrix Mr. Monk's holiday programme allowed him a week at Killaloe, and from thence he was to go to Limerick, and from Limerick to Dublin, in order that, at both places, he might be entertained at a public dinner and make a speech about tenant-right. Foreseeing that Phineas might commit himself if he attended these meetings, Mr. Monk had counselled him to remain at Killaloe. But Phineas had refused to subject himself to such cautious abstinence. Mr. Monk had come to Ireland as his friend, and he would see him through his travels. "I shall not, probably, be asked to speak," said Phineas, "and if I am asked, I need not say more than a few words. And what if I did speak out?" "You might find it disadvantageous to you in London." "I must take my chance of that. I am not going to tie myself down for ever and ever for the sake of being Under-Secretary to the Colonies." Mr. Monk said very much to him on the subject,--was constantly saying very much to him about it; but in spite of all that Mr. Monk said, Phineas did make the journey to Limerick and Dublin. He had not, since his arrival at Killaloe, been a moment alone with Mary Flood Jones till the evening before he started with Mr. Monk. She had kept out of his way successfully, though she had constantly been with him in company, and was beginning to plume herself on the strength and valour of her conduct. But her self-praise had in it nothing of joy, and her glory was very sad. Of course she would care for him no more,--more especially as it was so very evident that he cared not at all for her. But the very fact of her keeping out of his way, made her acknowledge to herself that her position was very miserable. She had declared to her mother that she might certainly go to Killaloe with safety,--that it would be better for her to put herself in the way of meeting him as an old friend,--that the idea of the necessity of shutting herself up because of his approach, was the one thing that gave her real pain. Therefore her mother had brought her to Killaloe and she had met him; but her fancied security had deserted her, and she found herself to be miserable, hoping for something she did not know what, still dreaming of possibilities, feeling during every moment of his presence with her that some special conduct was necessary on her part. She could not make further confession to her mother and ask to be carried back to Floodborough; but she knew that she was very wretched at Killaloe. As for Phineas, he had felt that his old friend was very cold to him. He was in that humour with reference to Violet Effingham which seemed especially to require consolation. He knew now that all hope was over there. Violet Effingham could never be his wife. Even were she not to marry Lord Chiltern for the next five years, she would not, during those five years, marry any other man. Such was our hero's conviction; and, suffering under this conviction, he was in want of the comfort of feminine sympathy. Had Mary known all this, and had it suited her to play such a part, I think she might have had Phineas at her feet before he had been a week at home. But she had kept aloof from him and had heard nothing of his sorrows. As a natural consequence of this, Phineas was more in love with her than ever. On the evening before he started with Mr. Monk for Limerick, he managed to be alone with her for a few minutes. Barbara may probably have assisted in bringing about this arrangement, and had, perhaps, been guilty of some treachery,--sisters in such circumstances will sometimes be very treacherous to their friends. I feel sure, however, that Mary herself was quite innocent of any guile in the matter. "Mary," Phineas said to her suddenly, "it seems to me that you have avoided me purposely ever since I have been at home." She smiled and blushed, and stammered and said nothing. "Has there been any reason for it, Mary?" "No reason at all that I know of," she said. "We used to be such great friends." "That was before you were a great man, Phineas. It must necessarily be different now. You know so many people now, and people of such a different sort, that of course I fall a little into the background." "When you talk in that way, Mary, I know that you are laughing at me." "Indeed, indeed I am not." "I believe there is no one in the whole world," he said, after a pause, "whose friendship is more to me than yours is. I think of it so often, Mary. Say that when we come back it shall be between us as it used to be." Then he put out his hand for hers, and she could not help giving it to him. "Of course there will be people," he said, "who talk nonsense, and one cannot help it; but I will not put up with it from you." "I did not mean to talk nonsense, Phineas!" Then there came some one across them, and the conversation was ended; but the sound of his voice remained on her ears, and she could not help but remember that he had declared that her friendship was dearer to him than the friendship of any one else. Phineas went with Mr. Monk first to Limerick and then to Dublin, and found himself at both places to be regarded as a hero only second to the great hero. At both places the one subject of debate was tenant-right;--could anything be done to make it profitable for men with capital to put their capital into Irish land? The fertility of the soil was questioned by no one,--nor the sufficiency of external circumstances, such as railroads and the like;--nor the abundance of labour;--nor even security for the wealth to be produced. The only difficulty was in this, that the men who were to produce the wealth had no guarantee that it would be theirs when it was created. In England and elsewhere such guarantees were in existence. Might it not be possible to introduce them into Ireland? That was the question which Mr. Monk had in hand; and in various speeches which he made both before and after the dinners given to him, he pledged himself to keep it well in hand when Parliament should meet. Of course Phineas spoke also. It was impossible that he should be silent when his friend and leader was pouring out his eloquence. Of course he spoke, and of course he pledged himself. Something like the old pleasures of the debating society returned to him, as standing upon a platform before a listening multitude, he gave full vent to his words. In the House of Commons, of late he had been so cabined, cribbed, and confined by office as to have enjoyed nothing of this. Indeed, from the commencement of his career, he had fallen so thoroughly into the decorum of Government ways, as to have missed altogether the delights of that wild irresponsible oratory of which Mr. Monk had spoken to him so often. He had envied men below the gangway, who, though supporting the Government on main questions, could get up on their legs whenever the House was full enough to make it worth their while, and say almost whatever they pleased. There was that Mr. Robson, who literally did say just what came uppermost; and the thing that came uppermost was often ill-natured, often unbecoming the gravity of the House, was always startling; but men listened to him and liked him to speak. But Mr. Robson had--married a woman with money. Oh, why,--why, had not Violet Effingham been kinder to him? He might even yet, perhaps, marry a woman with money. But he could not bring himself to do so unless he loved her. The upshot of the Dublin meeting was that he also positively pledged himself to support during the next session of Parliament a bill advocating tenant-right. "I am sorry you went so far as that," Mr. Monk said to him almost as soon as the meeting was over. They were standing on the pier at Kingstown, and Mr. Monk was preparing to return to England. "And why not I as far as you?" "Because I had thought about it, and I do not think that you have. I am prepared to resign my office to-morrow; and directly that I can see Mr. Gresham and explain to him what I have done, I shall offer to do so." "He won't accept your resignation." "He must accept it, unless he is prepared to instruct the Irish Secretary to bring in such a bill as I can support." "I shall be exactly in the same boat." "But you ought not to be in the same boat;--nor need you. My advice to you is to say nothing about it till you get back to London, and then speak to Lord Cantrip. Tell him that you will not say anything on the subject in the House, but that in the event of there being a division you hope to be allowed to vote as on an open question. It may be that I shall get Gresham's assent, and if so we shall be all right. If I do not, and if they choose to make it a point with you, you must resign also." "Of course I shall," said Phineas. "But I do not think they will. You have been too useful, and they will wish to avoid the weakness which comes to a ministry from changing its team. Good-bye, my dear fellow; and remember this,--my last word of advice to you is to stick by the ship. I am quite sure it is a career which will suit you. I did not begin it soon enough." Phineas was rather melancholy as he returned alone to Killaloe. It was all very well to bid him stick to the ship, and he knew as well as any one could tell him how material the ship was to him; but there are circumstances in which a man cannot stick to his ship,--cannot stick, at least, to this special Government ship. He knew that whither Mr. Monk went, in this session, he must follow. He had considerable hope that when Mr. Monk explained his purpose to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister would feel himself obliged to give way. In that case Phineas would not only be able to keep his office, but would have such an opportunity of making a speech in Parliament as circumstances had never yet given to him. When he was again at home he said nothing to his father or to the Killaloeians as to the danger of his position. Of what use would it be to make his mother and sisters miserable, or to incur the useless counsels of the doctor? They seemed to think his speech at Dublin very fine, and were never tired of talking of what Mr. Monk and Phineas were going to do; but the idea had not come home to them that if Mr. Monk or Phineas chose to do anything on their own account, they must give up the places which they held under the Crown. It was September when Phineas found himself back at Killaloe, and he was due to be at his office in London in November. The excitement of Mr. Monk's company was now over, and he had nothing to do but to receive pouches full of official papers from the Colonial Office, and study all the statistics which came within his reach in reference to the proposed new law for tenant-right. In the meantime Mary was still living with her mother at Killaloe, and still kept herself somewhat aloof from the man she loved. How could it be possible for him not to give way in such circumstances as those? One day he found himself talking to her about himself, and speaking to her of his own position with more frankness than he ever used with his own family. He had begun by reminding her of that conversation which they had had before he went away with Mr. Monk, and by reminding her also that she had promised to return to her old friendly ways with him. "Nay, Phineas; there was no promise," she said. "And are we not to be friends?" "I only say that I made no particular promise. Of course we are friends. We have always been friends." "What would you say if you heard that I had resigned my office and given up my seat?" he asked. Of course she expressed her surprise, almost her horror, at such an idea, and then he told her everything. It took long in the telling, because it was necessary that he should explain to her the working of the system which made it impossible for him, as a member of the Government, to entertain an opinion of his own. "And do you mean that you would lose your salary?" she asked. "Certainly I should." "Would not that be very dreadful?" He laughed as he acknowledged that it would be dreadful. "It is very dreadful, Mary, to have nothing to eat and drink. But what is a man to do? Would you recommend me to say that black is white?" "I am sure you will never do that." "You see, Mary, it is very nice to be called by a big name and to have a salary, and it is very comfortable to be envied by one's friends and enemies;--but there are drawbacks. There is this especial drawback." Then he paused for a moment before he went on. "What especial drawback, Phineas?" "A man cannot do what he pleases with himself. How can a man marry, so circumstanced as I am?" She hesitated for a moment, and then she answered him,--"A man may be very happy without marrying, I suppose." He also paused for many moments before he spoke again, and she then made a faint attempt to escape from him. But before she succeeded he had asked her a question which arrested her. "I wonder whether you would listen to me if I were to tell you a history?" Of course she listened, and the history he told her was the tale of his love for Violet Effingham. "And she has money of her own?" Mary asked. "Yes;--she is rich. She has a large fortune." "Then, Mr. Finn, you must seek some one else who is equally blessed." "Mary, that is untrue,--that is ill-natured. You do not mean that. Say that you do not mean it. You have not believed that I loved Miss Effingham because she was rich." "But you have told me that you could love no one who is not rich." "I have said nothing of the kind. Love is involuntary. It does not often run in a yoke with prudence. I have told you my history as far as it is concerned with Violet Effingham. I did love her very dearly." "Did love her, Mr. Finn?" "Yes;--did love her. Is there any inconstancy in ceasing to love when one is not loved? Is there inconstancy in changing one's love, and in loving again?" "I do not know," said Mary, to whom the occasion was becoming so embarrassing that she no longer was able to reply with words that had a meaning in them. "If there be, dear, I am inconstant." He paused, but of course she had not a syllable to say. "I have changed my love. But I could not speak of a new passion till I had told the story of that which has passed away. You have heard it all now, Mary. Can you try to love me, after that?" It had come at last,--the thing for which she had been ever wishing. It had come in spite of her imprudence, and in spite of her prudence. When she had heard him to the end she was not a whit angry with him,--she was not in the least aggrieved,--because he had been lost to her in his love for this Miss Effingham, while she had been so nearly lost by her love for him. For women such episodes in the lives of their lovers have an excitement which is almost pleasurable, whereas each man is anxious to hear his lady swear that until he appeared upon the scene her heart had been fancy free. Mary, upon the whole, had liked the story,--had thought that it had been finely told, and was well pleased with the final catastrophe. But, nevertheless, she was not prepared with her reply. "Have you no answer to give me, Mary?" he said, looking up into her eyes. I am afraid that he did not doubt what would be her answer,--as it would be good that all lovers should do. "You must vouchsafe me some word, Mary." When she essayed to speak she found that she was dumb. She could not get her voice to give her the assistance of a single word. She did not cry, but there was a motion as of sobbing in her throat which impeded all utterance. She was as happy as earth,--as heaven could make her; but she did not know how to tell him that she was happy. And yet she longed to tell it, that he might know how thankful she was to him for his goodness. He still sat looking at her, and now by degrees he had got her hand in his. "Mary," he said, "will you be my wife,--my own wife?" When half an hour had passed, they were still together, and now she had found the use of her tongue. "Do whatever you like best," she said. "I do not care which you do. If you came to me to-morrow and told me you had no income, it would make no difference. Though to love you and to have your love is all the world to me,--though it makes all the difference between misery and happiness,--I would sooner give up that than be a clog on you." Then he took her in his arms and kissed her. "Oh, Phineas!" she said, "I do love you so entirely!" "My own one!" "Yes; your own one. But if you had known it always! Never mind. Now you are my own,--are you not?" "Indeed yes, dearest." "Oh, what a thing it is to be victorious at last." "What on earth are you two doing here these two hours together?" said Barbara, bursting into the room. "What are we doing?" said Phineas. "Yes;--what are you doing?" "Nothing in particular," said Mary. "Nothing at all in particular," said Phineas. "Only this,--that we have engaged ourselves to marry each other. It is quite a trifle,--is it not, Mary?" "Oh, Barbara!" said the joyful girl, springing forward into her friend's arms; "I do believe I am the happiest creature on the face of this earth!" CHAPTER LXVII Job's Comforters Before Phineas had returned to London his engagement with Mary Flood Jones was known to all his family, was known to Mrs. Flood Jones, and was indeed known generally to all Killaloe. That other secret of his, which had reference to the probability of his being obliged to throw up his office, was known only to Mary herself. He thought that he had done all that honour required of him in telling her of his position before he had proposed;--so that she might on that ground refuse him if she were so minded. And yet he had known very well that such prudence on her part was not to be expected. If she loved him, of course she would say so when she was asked. And he had known that she loved him. "There may be delay, Mary," he said to her as he was going; "nay, there must be delay, if I am obliged to resign." "I do not care a straw for delay if you will be true to me," she said. "Do you doubt my truth, dearest?" "Not in the least. I will swear by it as the one thing that is truest in the world." "You may, dearest. And if this should come to pass I must go to work and put my shoulder to the wheel, and earn an income for you by my old profession before I can make you my wife. With such a motive before me I know that I shall earn an income." And thus they parted. Mary, though of course she would have preferred that her future husband should remain in his high office, that he should be a member of Parliament and an Under-Secretary of State, admitted no doubt into her mind to disturb her happiness; and Phineas, though he had many misgivings as to the prudence of what he had done, was not the less strong in his resolution of constancy and endurance. He would throw up his position, resign his seat, and go to work at the Bar instantly, if he found that his independence as a man required him to do so. And, above all, let come what might, he would be true to Mary Flood Jones. December was half over before he saw Lord Cantrip. "Yes,--yes;" said Lord Cantrip, when the Under-Secretary began to tell his story; "I saw what you were about. I wish I had been at your elbow." "If you knew the country as I know it, you would be as eager about it as I am." "Then I can only say that I am very glad that I do not know the country as you know it. You see, Finn, it's my idea that if a man wants to make himself useful he should stick to some special kind of work. With you it's a thousand pities that you should not do so." "You think, then, I ought to resign?" "I don't say anything about that. As you wish it, of course I'll speak to Gresham. Monk, I believe, has resigned already." "He has written to me, and told me so," said Phineas. "I always felt afraid of him for your sake, Finn. Mr. Monk is a clever man, and as honest a man as any in the House, but I always thought that he was a dangerous friend for you. However, we will see. I will speak to Gresham after Christmas. There is no hurry about it." When Parliament met the first great subject of interest was the desertion of Mr. Monk from the Ministry. He at once took his place below the gangway, sitting as it happened exactly in front of Mr. Turnbull, and there he made his explanation. Some one opposite asked a question whether a certain right honourable gentleman had not left the Cabinet. Then Mr. Gresham replied that to his infinite regret his right honourable friend, who lately presided at the Board of Trade, had resigned; and he went on to explain that this resignation had, according to his ideas, been quite unnecessary. His right honourable friend entertained certain ideas about Irish tenant-right, as to which he himself and his right honourable friend the Secretary for Ireland could not exactly pledge themselves to be in unison with him; but he had thought that the motion might have rested at any rate over this session. Then Mr. Monk explained, making his first great speech on Irish tenant-right. He found himself obliged to advocate some immediate measure for giving security to the Irish farmer; and as he could not do so as a member of the Cabinet, he was forced to resign the honour of that position. He said something also as to the great doubt which had ever weighed on his own mind as to the inexpediency of a man at his time of life submitting himself for the first time to the trammels of office. This called up Mr. Turnbull, who took the opportunity of saying that he now agreed cordially with his old friend for the first time since that old friend had listened to the blandishments of the ministerial seducer, and that he welcomed his old friend back to those independent benches with great satisfaction. In this way the debate was very exciting. Nothing was said which made it then necessary for Phineas to get upon his legs or to declare himself; but he perceived that the time would rapidly come in which he must do so. Mr. Gresham, though he strove to speak with gentle words, was evidently very angry with the late President of the Board of Trade; and, moreover, it was quite clear that a bill would be introduced by Mr. Monk himself, which Mr. Gresham was determined to oppose. If all this came to pass and there should be a close division, Phineas felt that his fate would be sealed. When he again spoke to Lord Cantrip on the subject, the Secretary of State shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "I can only advise you," said Lord Cantrip, "to forget all that took place in Ireland. If you will do so, nobody else will remember it." "As if it were possible to forget such things," he said in the letter which he wrote to Mary that night. "Of course I shall go now. If it were not for your sake, I should not in the least regret it." He had been with Madame Goesler frequently in the winter, and had discussed with her so often the question of his official position that she had declared that she was coming at last to understand the mysteries of an English Cabinet. "I think you are quite right, my friend," she said,--"quite right. What--you are to be in Parliament and say that this black thing is white, or that this white thing is black, because you like to take your salary! That cannot be honest!" Then, when he came to talk to her of money,--that he must give up Parliament itself, if he gave up his place,--she offered to lend him money. "Why should you not treat me as a friend?" she said. When he pointed out to her that there would never come a time in which he could pay such money back, she stamped her foot and told him that he had better leave her. "You have high principle," she said, "but not principle sufficiently high to understand that this thing could be done between you and me without disgrace to either of us." Then Phineas assured her with tears in his eyes that such an arrangement was impossible without disgrace to him. But he whispered to this new friend no word of the engagement with his dear Irish Mary. His Irish life, he would tell himself, was a thing quite apart and separate from his life in England. He said not a word about Mary Flood Jones to any of those with whom he lived in London. Why should he, feeling as he did that it would so soon be necessary that he should disappear from among them? About Miss Effingham he had said much to Madame Goesler. She had asked him whether he had abandoned all hope. "That affair, then, is over?" she had said. "Yes;--it is all over now." "And she will marry the red-headed, violent lord?" "Heaven knows. I think she will. But she is exactly the girl to remain unmarried if she takes it into her head that the man she likes is in any way unfitted for her." "Does she love this lord?" "Oh yes;--there is no doubt of that." And Phineas, as he made this acknowledgment, seemed to do so without much inward agony of soul. When he had been last in London he could not speak of Violet and Lord Chiltern together without showing that his misery was almost too much for him. At this time he received some counsel from two friends. One was Laurence Fitzgibbon, and the other was Barrington Erle. Laurence had always been true to him after a fashion, and had never resented his intrusion at the Colonial Office. "Phineas, me boy," he said, "if all this is thrue, you're about up a tree." "It is true that I shall support Monk's motion." "Then, me boy, you're up a tree as far as office goes. A place like that niver suited me, because, you see, that poker of a young lord expected so much of a man; but you don't mind that kind of thing, and I thought you were as snug as snug." "Troubles will come, you see, Laurence." "Bedad, yes. It's all throubles, I think, sometimes. But you've a way out of all your throubles." "What way?" "Pop the question to Madame Max. The money's all thrue, you know." "I don't doubt the money in the least," said Phineas. "And it's my belief she'll take you without a second word. Anyways, thry it, Phinny, my boy. That's my advice." Phineas so far agreed with his friend Laurence that he thought it possible that Madame Goesler might accept him were he to propose marriage to her. He knew, of course, that that mode of escape from his difficulties was out of the question for him, but he could not explain this to Laurence Fitzgibbon. "I am sorry to hear that you have taken up a bad cause," said Barrington Erle to him. "It is a pity;--is it not?" "And the worst of it is that you'll sacrifice yourself and do no good to the cause. I never knew a man break away in this fashion, and not feel afterwards that he had done it all for nothing." "But what is a man to do, Barrington? He can't smother his convictions." "Convictions! There is nothing on earth that I'm so much afraid of in a young member of Parliament as convictions. There are ever so many rocks against which men get broken. One man can't keep his temper. Another can't hold his tongue. A third can't say a word unless he has been priming himself half a session. A fourth is always thinking of himself, and wanting more than he can get. A fifth is idle, and won't be there when he's wanted. A sixth is always in the way. A seventh lies so that you never can trust him. I've had to do with them all, but a fellow with convictions is the worst of all." "I don't see how a fellow is to help himself," said Phineas. "When a fellow begins to meddle with politics they will come." "Why can't you grow into them gradually as your betters and elders have done before you? It ought to be enough for any man, when he begins, to know that he's a Liberal. He understands which side of the House he's to vote, and who is to lead him. What's the meaning of having a leader to a party, if it's not that? Do you think that you and Mr. Monk can go and make a government between you?" "Whatever I think, I'm sure he doesn't." "I'm not so sure of that. But look here, Phineas, I don't care two straws about Monk's going. I always thought that Mildmay and the Duke were wrong when they asked him to join. I knew he'd go over the traces,--unless, indeed, he took his money and did nothing for it, which is the way with some of those Radicals. I look upon him as gone." "He has gone." "The devil go along with him, as you say in Ireland. But don't you be such a fool as to ruin yourself for a crotchet of Monk's. It isn't too late yet for you to hold back. To tell you the truth, Gresham has said a word to me about it already. He is most anxious that you should stay, but of course you can't stay and vote against us." "Of course I cannot." "I look upon you, you know, as in some sort my own child. I've tried to bring other fellows forward who seemed to have something in them, but I have never succeeded as I have with you. You've hit the thing off, and have got the ball at your foot. Upon my honour, in the whole course of my experience I have never known such good fortune as yours." "And I shall always remember how it began, Barrington," said Phineas, who was greatly moved by the energy and solicitude of his friend. "But, for God's sake, don't go and destroy it all by such mad perversity as this. They mean to do something next session. Morrison is going to take it up." Sir Walter Morrison was at this time Secretary for Ireland. "But of course we can't let a fellow like Monk take the matter into his own hands just when he pleases. I call it d----d treachery." "Monk is no traitor, Barrington." "Men will have their own opinions about that. It's generally understood that when a man is asked to take a seat in the Cabinet he is expected to conform with his colleagues, unless something very special turns up. But I am speaking of you now, and not of Monk. You are not a man of fortune. You cannot afford to make ducks and drakes. You are excellently placed, and you have plenty of time to hark back, if you'll only listen to reason. All that Irish stump balderdash will never be thrown in your teeth by us, if you will just go on as though it had never been uttered." Phineas could only thank his friend for his advice, which was at least disinterested, and was good of its kind, and tell him that he would think of it. He did think of it very much. He almost thought that, were it to do again, he would allow Mr. Monk to go upon his tour alone, and keep himself from the utterance of anything that so good a judge as Erle could call stump balderdash. As he sat in his arm-chair in his room at the Colonial Office, with despatch-boxes around him, and official papers spread before him,--feeling himself to be one of those who in truth managed and governed the affairs of this great nation, feeling also that if he relinquished his post now he could never regain it,--he did wish that he had been a little less in love with independence, a little quieter in his boastings that no official considerations should ever silence his tongue. But all this was too late now. He knew that his skin was not thick enough to bear the arrows of those archers who would bend their bows against him if he should now dare to vote against Mr. Monk's motion. His own party might be willing to forgive and forget; but there would be others who would read those reports, and would appear in the House with the odious tell-tale newspapers in their hands. Then he received a letter from his father. Some good-natured person had enlightened the doctor as to the danger in which his son was placing himself. Dr. Finn, who in his own profession was a very excellent and well-instructed man, had been so ignorant of Parliamentary tactics, as to have been proud at his son's success at the Irish meetings. He had thought that Phineas was carrying on his trade as a public speaker with proper energy and continued success. He had cared nothing himself for tenant-right, and had acknowledged to Mr. Monk that he could not understand in what it was that the farmers were wronged. But he knew that Mr. Monk was a Cabinet Minister, and he thought that Phineas was earning his salary. Then there came some one who undeceived him, and the paternal bosom of the doctor was dismayed. "I don't mean to interfere," he said in his letter, "but I can hardly believe that you really intend to resign your place. Yet I am told that you must do so if you go on with this matter. My dear boy, pray think about it. I cannot imagine you are disposed to lose all that you have won for nothing." Mary also wrote to him. Mrs. Finn had been talking to her, and Mary had taught herself to believe that after the many sweet conversations she had had with a man so high in office as Phineas, she really did understand something about the British Government. Mrs. Finn had interrogated Mary, and Mary had been obliged to own that it was quite possible that Phineas would be called upon to resign. "But why, my dear? Heaven and earth! Resign two thousand a year!" "That he may maintain his independence," said Mary proudly. "Fiddlestick!" said Mrs. Finn. "How is he to maintain you, or himself either, if he goes on in that way? I shouldn't wonder if he didn't get himself all wrong, even now." Then Mrs. Finn began to cry; and Mary could only write to her lover, pointing out to him how very anxious all his friends were that he should do nothing in a hurry. But what if the thing were done already! Phineas in his great discomfort went to seek further counsel from Madame Goesler. Of all his counsellors, Madame Goesler was the only one who applauded him for what he was about to do. "But, after all, what is it you give up? Mr. Gresham may be out to-morrow, and then where will be your place?" "There does not seem to be much chance of that at present." "Who can tell? Of course I do not understand,--but it was only the other day when Mr. Mildmay was there, and only the day before that when Lord de Terrier was there, and again only the day before that when Lord Brock was there." Phineas endeavoured to make her understand that of the four Prime Ministers whom she had named, three were men of the same party as himself, under whom it would have suited him to serve. "I would not serve under any man if I were an English gentleman in Parliament," said Madame Goesler. "What is a poor fellow to do?" said Phineas, laughing. "A poor fellow need not be a poor fellow unless he likes," said Madame Goesler. Immediately after this Phineas left her, and as he went along the street he began to question himself whether the prospects of his own darling Mary were at all endangered by his visits to Park Lane; and to reflect what sort of a blackguard he would be,--a blackguard of how deep a dye,--were he to desert Mary and marry Madame Max Goesler. Then he also asked himself as to the nature and quality of his own political honesty if he were to abandon Mary in order that he might maintain his parliamentary independence. After all, if it should ever come to pass that his biography should be written, his biographer would say very much more about the manner in which he kept his seat in Parliament than of the manner in which he kept his engagement with Miss Mary Flood Jones. Half a dozen people who knew him and her might think ill of him for his conduct to Mary, but the world would not condemn him! And when he thundered forth his liberal eloquence from below the gangway as an independent member, having the fortune of his charming wife to back him, giving excellent dinners at the same time in Park Lane, would not the world praise him very loudly? When he got to his office he found a note from Lord Brentford inviting him to dine in Portman Square. CHAPTER LXVIII The Joint Attack The note from Lord Brentford surprised our hero not a little. He had had no communication with the Earl since the day on which he had been so savagely scolded about the duel, when the Earl had plainly told him that his conduct had been as bad as it could be. Phineas had not on that account become at all ashamed of his conduct in reference to the duel, but he had conceived that any reconciliation between him and the Earl had been out of the question. Now there had come a civilly-worded invitation, asking him to dine with the offended nobleman. The note had been written by Lady Laura, but it had purported to come from Lord Brentford himself. He sent back word to say that he should be happy to have the honour of dining with Lord Brentford. Parliament at this time had been sitting nearly a month, and it was already March. Phineas had heard nothing of Lady Laura, and did not even know that she was in London till he saw her handwriting. He did not know that she had not gone back to her husband, and that she had remained with her father all the winter at Saulsby. He had also heard that Lord Chiltern had been at Saulsby. All the world had been talking of the separation of Mr. Kennedy from his wife, one half of the world declaring that his wife, if not absolutely false to him, had neglected all her duties; and the other half asserting that Mr. Kennedy's treatment of his wife had been so bad that no woman could possibly have lived with him. There had even been a rumour that Lady Laura had gone off with a lover from the Duke of Omnium's garden party, and some indiscreet tongue had hinted that a certain unmarried Under-Secretary of State was missing at the same time. But Lord Chiltern upon this had shown his teeth with so strong a propensity to do some real biting, that no one had ventured to repeat that rumour. Its untruth was soon established by the fact that Lady Laura Kennedy was living with her father at Saulsby. Of Mr. Kennedy, Phineas had as yet seen nothing since he had been up in town. That gentleman, though a member of the Cabinet, had not been in London at the opening of the session, nor had he attended the Cabinet meetings during the recess. It had been stated in the newspapers that he was ill, and stated in private that he could not bear to show himself since his wife had left him. At last, however, he came to London, and Phineas saw him in the House. Then, when the first meeting of the Cabinet was summoned after his return, it became known that he also had resigned his office. There was nothing said about his resignation in the House. He had resigned on the score of ill-health, and that very worthy peer, Lord Mount Thistle, formerly Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, came back to the Duchy of Lancaster in his place. A Prime Minister sometimes finds great relief in the possession of a serviceable stick who can be made to go in and out as occasion may require; only it generally happens that the stick will expect some reward when he is made to go out. Lord Mount Thistle immediately saw his way to a viscount's coronet, when he was once more summoned to the august councils of the Ministers. A few days after this had been arranged, in the interval between Lord Brentford's invitation and Lord Brentford's dinner, Phineas encountered Mr. Kennedy so closely in one of the passages of the House that it was impossible that they should not speak to each other, unless they were to avoid each other as people do who have palpably quarrelled. Phineas saw that Mr. Kennedy was hesitating, and therefore took the bull by the horns. He greeted his former friend in a friendly fashion, shaking him by the hand, and then prepared to pass on. But Mr. Kennedy, though he had hesitated at first, now detained his brother member. "Finn," he said, "if you are not engaged I should like to speak to you for a moment." Phineas was not engaged, and allowed himself to be led out arm-in-arm by the late Chancellor of the Duchy into Westminster Hall. "Of course you know what a terrible thing has happened to me," said Mr. Kennedy. "Yes;--I have heard of it," said Phineas. "Everybody has heard of it. That is one of the terrible cruelties of such a blow." "All those things are very bad of course. I was very much grieved,--because you have both been intimate friends of mine." "Yes,--yes; we were. Do you ever see her now?" "Not since last July,--at the Duke's party, you know." "Ah, yes; the morning of that day was the last on which I spoke to her. It was then she left me." "I am going to dine with Lord Brentford to-morrow, and I dare say she will be there." "Yes;--she is in town. I saw her yesterday in her father's carriage. I think that she had no cause to leave me." "Of course I cannot say anything about that." "I think she had no cause to leave me." Phineas as he heard this could not but remember all that Lady Laura had told himself, and thought that no woman had ever had a better reason for leaving her husband. "There were things I did not like, and I said so." "I suppose that is generally the way," replied Phineas. "But surely a wife should listen to a word of caution from her husband." "I fancy they never like it," said Phineas. "But are we all of us to have all that we like? I have not found it so. Or would it be good for us if we had?" Then he paused; but as Phineas had no further remark to make, he continued speaking after they had walked about a third of the length of the hall. "It is not of my own comfort I am thinking now so much as of her name and her future conduct. Of course it will in every sense be best for her that she should come back to her husband's roof." "Well; yes;--perhaps it would," said Phineas. "Has she not accepted that lot for better or for worse?" said Mr. Kennedy, solemnly. "But incompatibility of temper, you know, is always,--always supposed--. You understand me?" "It is my intention that she should come back to me. I do not wish to make any legal demand;--at any rate, not as yet. Will you consent to be the bearer of a message from me both to herself and to the Earl?" Now it seemed to Phineas that of all the messengers whom Mr. Kennedy could have chosen he was the most unsuited to be a Mercury in this cause,--not perceiving that he had been so selected with some craft, in order that Lady Laura might understand that the accusation against her was, at any rate, withdrawn, which had named Phineas as her lover. He paused again before he answered. "Of course," he said, "I should be most willing to be of service, if it were possible. But I do not see how I can speak to the Earl about it. Though I am going to dine with him I don't know why he has asked me;--for he and I are on very bad terms. He heard that stupid story about the duel, and has not spoken to me since." "I heard that, too," said Mr. Kennedy, frowning blackly as he remembered his wife's duplicity. "Everybody heard of it. But it has made such a difference between him and me, that I don't think I can meddle. Send for Lord Chiltern, and speak to him." "Speak to Chiltern! Never! He would probably strike me on the head with his club." "Call on the Earl yourself." "I did, and he would not see me." "Write to him." "I did, and he sent back my letter unopened." "Write to her." "I did;--and she answered me, saying only thus; 'Indeed, indeed, it cannot be so.' But it must be so. The laws of God require it, and the laws of man permit it. I want some one to point out that to them more softly than I could do if I were simply to write to that effect. To the Earl, of course, I cannot write again." The conference ended by a promise from Phineas that he would, if possible, say a word to Lady Laura. When he was shown into Lord Brentford's drawing-room he found not only Lady Laura there, but her brother. Lord Brentford was not in the room. Barrington Erle was there, and so also were Lord and Lady Cantrip. "Is not your father going to be here?" he said to Lady Laura, after their first greeting. "We live in that hope," said she, "and do not at all know why he should be late. What has become of him, Oswald?" "He came in with me half an hour ago, and I suppose he does not dress as quickly as I do," said Lord Chiltern; upon which Phineas immediately understood that the father and the son were reconciled, and he rushed to the conclusion that Violet and her lover would also soon be reconciled, if such were not already the case. He felt some remnant of a soreness that it should be so, as a man feels where his headache has been when the real ache itself has left him. Then the host came in and made his apologies. "Chiltern kept me standing about," he said, "till the east wind had chilled me through and through. The only charm I recognise in youth is that it is impervious to the east wind." Phineas felt quite sure now that Violet and her lover were reconciled, and he had a distinct feeling of the place where the ache had been. Dear Violet! But, after all, Violet lacked that sweet, clinging, feminine softness which made Mary Flood Jones so pre-eminently the most charming of her sex. The Earl, when he had repeated his general apology, especially to Lady Cantrip, who was the only lady present except his daughter, came up to our hero and shook him kindly by the hand. He took him up to one of the windows and then addressed him in a voice of mock solemnity. "Stick to the colonies, young man," he said, "and never meddle with foreign affairs;--especially not at Blankenberg." "Never again, my Lord;--never again." "And leave all questions of fire-arms to be arranged between the Horse Guards and the War Office. I have heard a good deal about it since I saw you, and I retract a part of what I said. But a duel is a foolish thing,--a very foolish thing. Come;--here is dinner." And the Earl walked off with Lady Cantrip, and Lord Cantrip walked off with Lady Laura. Barrington Erle followed, and Phineas had an opportunity of saying a word to his friend, Lord Chiltern, as they went down together. "It's all right between you and your father?" "Yes;--after a fashion. There is no knowing how long it will last. He wants me to do three things, and I won't do any one of them." "What are the three?" "To go into Parliament, to be an owner of sheep and oxen, and to hunt in his own county. I should never attend the first, I should ruin myself with the second, and I should never get a run in the third." But there was not a word said about his marriage. There were only seven who sat down to dinner, and the six were all people with whom Phineas was or had been on most intimate terms. Lord Cantrip was his official chief, and, since that connection had existed between them, Lady Cantrip had been very gracious to him. She quite understood the comfort which it was to her husband to have under him, as his representative in the House of Commons, a man whom he could thoroughly trust and like, and therefore she had used her woman's arts to bind Phineas to her lord in more than mere official bondage. She had tried her skill also upon Laurence Fitzgibbon,--but altogether in vain. He had eaten her dinners and accepted her courtesies, and had given for them no return whatever. But Phineas had possessed a more grateful mind, and had done all that had been required of him;--had done all that had been required of him till there had come that terrible absurdity in Ireland. "I knew very well what sort of things would happen when they brought such a man as Mr. Monk into the Cabinet," Lady Cantrip had said to her husband. But though the party was very small, and though the guests were all his intimate friends, Phineas suspected nothing special till an attack was made upon him as soon as the servants had left the room. This was done in the presence of the two ladies, and, no doubt, had been preconcerted. There was Lord Cantrip there, who had already said much to him, and Barrington Erle who had said more even than Lord Cantrip. Lord Brentford, himself a member of the Cabinet, opened the attack by asking whether it was actually true that Mr. Monk meant to go on with his motion. Barrington Erle asserted that Mr. Monk positively would do so. "And Gresham will oppose it?" asked the Earl. "Of course he will," said Barrington. "Of course he will," said Lord Cantrip. "I know what I should think of him if he did not," said Lady Cantrip. "He is the last man in the world to be forced into a thing," said Lady Laura. Then Phineas knew pretty well what was coming on him. Lord Brentford began again by asking how many supporters Mr. Monk would have in the House. "That depends upon the amount of courage which the Conservatives may have," said Barrington Erle. "If they dare to vote for a thoroughly democratic measure, simply for the sake of turning us out, it is quite on the cards that they may succeed." "But of our own people?" asked Lord Cantrip. "You had better inquire that of Phineas Finn," said Barrington. And then the attack was made. Our hero had a bad half hour of it, though many words were said which must have gratified him much. They all wanted to keep him,--so Lord Cantrip declared, "except one or two whom I could name, and who are particularly anxious to wear his shoes," said Barrington, thinking that certain reminiscences of Phineas with regard to Mr. Bonteen and others might operate as strongly as any other consideration to make him love his place. Lord Brentford declared that he could not understand it,--that he should find himself lost in amazement if such a man as his young friend allowed himself to be led into the outer wilderness by such an ignis-fatuus of light as this. Lord Cantrip laid down the unwritten traditional law of Government officials very plainly. A man in office,--in an office which really imposed upon him as much work as he could possibly do with credit to himself or his cause,--was dispensed from the necessity of a conscience with reference to other matters. It was for Sir Walter Morrison to have a conscience about Irish tenant-right, as no doubt he had,--just as Phineas Finn had a conscience about Canada, and Jamaica, and the Cape. Barrington Erle was very strong about parties in general, and painted the comforts of official position in glowing colours. But I think that the two ladies were more efficacious than even their male relatives in the arguments which they used. "We have been so happy to have you among us," said Lady Cantrip, looking at him with beseeching, almost loving eyes. "Mr. Finn knows," said Lady Laura, "that since he first came into Parliament I have always believed in his success, and I have been very proud to see it." "We shall weep over him, as over a fallen angel, if he leaves us," said Lady Cantrip. "I won't say that I will weep," said Lady Laura, "but I do not know anything of the kind that would so truly make me unhappy." What was he to say in answer to applications so flattering and so pressing? He would have said nothing, had that been possible, but he felt himself obliged to reply. He replied very weakly,--of course, not justifying himself, but declaring that as he had gone so far he must go further. He must vote for the measure now. Both his chief and Barrington Erle proved, or attempted to prove, that he was wrong in this. Of course he would not speak on the measure, and his vote for his party would probably be allowed to pass without notice. One or two newspapers might perhaps attack him; but what public man cared for such attacks as those? His whole party would hang by him, and in that he would find ample consolation. Phineas could only say that he would think of it;--and this he said in so irresolute a tone of voice that all the men then present believed that he was gained. The two ladies, however, were of a different opinion. "In spite of anything that anybody may say, he will do what he thinks right when the time comes," said Laura to her father afterwards. But then Lady Laura had been in love with him,--was perhaps almost in love with him still. "I'm afraid he is a mule," said Lady Cantrip to her husband. "He's a good mule up a hill with a load on his back," said his lordship. "But with a mule there always comes a time when you can't manage him," said Lady Cantrip. But Lady Cantrip had never been in love with Phineas. Phineas found a moment, before he left Lord Brentford's house, to say a word to Lady Laura as to the commission that had been given to him. "It can never be," said Lady Laura, shuddering;--"never, never, never!" "You are not angry with me for speaking?" "Oh, no--not if he told you." "He made me promise that I would." "Tell him it cannot be. Tell him that if he has any instruction to send me as to what he considers to be my duty, I will endeavour to comply, if that duty can be done apart. I will recognize him so far, because of my vow. But not even for the sake of my vow, will I endeavour to live with him. His presence would kill me!" When Phineas repeated this, or as much of this as he judged to be necessary, to Mr. Kennedy a day or two afterwards, that gentleman replied that in such case he would have no alternative but to seek redress at law. "I have done nothing to my wife," said he, "of which I need be ashamed. It will be sad, no doubt, to have all our affairs bandied about in court, and made the subject of comment in newspapers, but a man must go through that, or worse than that, in the vindication of his rights, and for the performance of his duty to his Maker." That very day Mr. Kennedy went to his lawyer, and desired that steps might be taken for the restitution to him of his conjugal rights. CHAPTER LXIX The Temptress Mr. Monk's bill was read the first time before Easter, and Phineas Finn still held his office. He had spoken to the Prime Minister once on the subject, and had been surprised at that gentleman's courtesy;--for Mr. Gresham had the reputation of being unconciliatory in his manners, and very prone to resent anything like desertion from that allegiance which was due to himself as the leader of his party. "You had better stay where you are and take no step that may be irretrievable, till you have quite made up your mind," said Mr. Gresham. "I fear I have made up my mind," said Phineas. "Nothing can be done till after Easter," replied the great man, "and there is no knowing how things may go then. I strongly recommend you to stay with us. If you can do this it will be only necessary that you shall put your resignation in Lord Cantrip's hands before you speak or vote against us. See Monk and talk it over with him." Mr. Gresham possibly imagined that Mr. Monk might be moved to abandon his bill, when he saw what injury he was about to do. At this time Phineas received the following letter from his darling Mary:-- Floodborough, Thursday. DEAREST PHINEAS, We have just got home from Killaloe, and mean to remain here all through the summer. After leaving your sisters this house seems so desolate; but I shall have the more time to think of you. I have been reading Tennyson, as you told me, and I fancy that I could in truth be a Mariana here, if it were not that I am so quite certain that you will come;--and that makes all the difference in the world in a moated grange. Last night I sat at the window and tried to realise what I should feel if you were to tell me that you did not want me; and I got myself into such an ecstatic state of mock melancholy that I cried for half an hour. But when one has such a real living joy at the back of one's romantic melancholy, tears are very pleasant;-- they water and do not burn. I must tell you about them all at Killaloe. They certainly are very unhappy at the idea of your resigning. Your father says very little, but I made him own that to act as you are acting for the sake of principle is very grand. I would not leave him till he had said so, and he did say it. Dear Mrs. Finn does not understand it as well, but she will do so. She complains mostly for my sake, and when I tell her that I will wait twenty years if it is necessary, she tells me I do not know what waiting means. But I will,--and will be happy, and will never really think myself a Mariana. Dear, dear, dear Phineas, indeed I won't. The girls are half sad and half proud. But I am wholly proud, and know that you are doing just what you ought to do. I shall think more of you as a man who might have been a Prime Minister than if you were really sitting in the Cabinet like Lord Cantrip. As for mamma, I cannot make her quite understand it. She merely says that no young man who is going to be married ought to resign anything. Dear mamma;--sometimes she does say such odd things. You told me to tell you everything, and so I have. I talk to some of the people here, and tell them what they might do if they had tenant-right. One old fellow, Mike Dufferty,--I don't know whether you remember him,--asked if he would have to pay the rent all the same. When I said certainly he would, then he shook his head. But as you said once, when we want to do good to people one has no right to expect that they should understand it. It is like baptizing little infants. I got both your notes;--seven words in one, Mr. Under-Secretary, and nine in the other! But the one little word at the end was worth a whole sheet full of common words. How nice it is to write letters without paying postage, and to send them about the world with a grand name in the corner. When Barney brings me one he always looks as if he didn't know whether it was a love letter or an order to go to Botany Bay. If he saw the inside of them, how short they are, I don't think he'd think much of you as a lover nor yet as an Under-Secretary. But I think ever so much of you as both;--I do, indeed; and I am not scolding you a bit. As long as I can have two or three dear, sweet, loving words, I shall be as happy as a queen. Ah, if you knew it all! But you never can know it all. A man has so many other things to learn that he cannot understand it. Good-bye, dear, dear, dearest man. Whatever you do I shall be quite sure you have done the best. Ever your own, with all the love of her heart, MARY F. JONES. This was very nice. Such a man as was Phineas Finn always takes a delight which he cannot express even to himself in the receipt of such a letter as this. There is nothing so flattering as the warm expression of the confidence of a woman's love, and Phineas thought that no woman ever expressed this more completely than did his Mary. Dear, dearest Mary. As for giving her up, as for treachery to one so trusting, so sweet, so well beloved, that was out of the question. But nevertheless the truth came home to him more clearly day by day, that he of all men was the last who ought to have given himself up to such a passion. For her sake he ought to have abstained. So he told himself now. For her sake he ought to have kept aloof from her;--and for his own sake he ought to have kept aloof from Mr. Monk. That very day, with Mary's letter in his pocket, he went to the livery stables and explained that he would not keep his horse any longer. There was no difficulty about the horse. Mr. Howard Macleod of the Treasury would take him from that very hour. Phineas, as he walked away, uttered a curse upon Mr. Howard Macleod. Mr. Howard Macleod was just beginning the glory of his life in London, and he, Phineas Finn, was bringing his to an end. With Mary's letter in his pocket he went up to Portman Square. He had again got into the habit of seeing Lady Laura frequently, and was often with her brother, who now again lived at his father's house. A letter had reached Lord Brentford, through his lawyer, in which a demand was made by Mr. Kennedy for the return of his wife. She was quite determined that she would never go back to him; and there had come to her a doubt whether it would not be expedient that she should live abroad so as to be out of the way of persecution from her husband. Lord Brentford was in great wrath, and Lord Chiltern had once or twice hinted that perhaps he had better "see" Mr. Kennedy. The amenities of such an interview, as this would be, had up to the present day been postponed; and, in a certain way, Phineas had been used as a messenger between Mr. Kennedy and his wife's family. "I think it will end," she said, "in my going to Dresden, and settling myself there. Papa will come to me when Parliament is not sitting." "It will be very dull." "Dull! What does dulness amount to when one has come to such a pass as this? When one is in the ruck of fortune, to be dull is very bad; but when misfortune comes, simple dulness is nothing. It sounds almost like relief." "It is so hard that you should be driven away." She did not answer him for a while, and he was beginning to think of his own case also. Was it not hard that he too should be driven away? "It is odd enough that we should both be going at the same time." "But you will not go?" "I think I shall. I have resolved upon this,--that if I give up my place, I will give up my seat too. I went into Parliament with the hope of office, and how can I remain there when I shall have gained it and then have lost it?" "But you will stay in London, Mr. Finn?" "I think not. After all that has come and gone I should not be happy here, and I should make my way easier and on cheaper terms in Dublin. My present idea is that I shall endeavour to make a practice over in my own country. It will be hard work beginning at the bottom;--will it not?" "And so unnecessary." "Ah, Lady Laura,--if it only could be avoided! But it is of no use going through all that again." "How much we would both of us avoid if we could only have another chance!" said Lady Laura. "If I could only be as I was before I persuaded myself to marry a man whom I never loved, what a paradise the earth would be to me! With me all regrets are too late." "And with me as much so." "No, Mr. Finn. Even should you resign your office, there is no reason why you should give up your seat." "Simply that I have no income to maintain me in London." She was silent for a few moments, during which she changed her seat so as to come nearer to him, placing herself on a corner of a sofa close to the chair on which he was seated. "I wonder whether I may speak to you plainly," she said. "Indeed you may." "On any subject?" "Yes;--on any subject." "I trust you have been able to rid your bosom of all remembrances of Violet Effingham." "Certainly not of all remembrances, Lady Laura." "Of all hope, then?" "I have no such hope." "And of all lingering desires?" "Well, yes;--and of all lingering desires. I know now that it cannot be. Your brother is welcome to her." "Ah;--of that I know nothing. He, with his perversity, has estranged her. But I am sure of this,--that if she do not marry him, she will marry no one. But it is not on account of him that I speak. He must fight his own battles now." "I shall not interfere with him, Lady Laura." "Then why should you not establish yourself by a marriage that will make place a matter of indifference to you? I know that it is within your power to do so." Phineas put his hand up to his breastcoat pocket, and felt that Mary's letter,--her precious letter,--was there safe. It certainly was not in his power to do this thing which Lady Laura recommended to him, but he hardly thought that the present was a moment suitable for explaining to her the nature of the impediment which stood in the way of such an arrangement. He had so lately spoken to Lady Laura with an assurance of undying constancy of his love for Miss Effingham, that he could not as yet acknowledge the force of another passion. He shook his head by way of reply. "I tell you that it is so," she said with energy. "I am afraid not." "Go to Madame Goesler, and ask her. Hear what she will say." "Madame Goesler would laugh at me, no doubt." "Psha! You do not think so. You know that she would not laugh. And are you the man to be afraid of a woman's laughter? I think not." Again he did not answer her at once, and when he did speak the tone of his voice was altered. "What was it you said of yourself, just now?" "What did I say of myself?" "You regretted that you had consented to marry a man,--whom you did not love." "Why should you not love her? And it is so different with a man! A woman is wretched if she does not love her husband, but I fancy that a man gets on very well without any such feeling. She cannot domineer over you. She cannot expect you to pluck yourself out of your own soil, and begin a new growth altogether in accordance with the laws of her own. It was that which Mr. Kennedy did." "I do not for a moment think that she would take me, if I were to offer myself." "Try her," said Lady Laura energetically. "Such trials cost you but little;--we both of us know that!" Still he said nothing of the letter in his pocket. "It is everything that you should go on now that you have once begun. I do not believe in you working at the Bar. You cannot do it. A man who has commenced life as you have done with the excitement of politics, who has known what it is to take a prominent part in the control of public affairs, cannot give it up and be happy at other work. Make her your wife, and you may resign or remain in office just as you choose. Office will be much easier to you than it is now, because it will not be a necessity. Let me at any rate have the pleasure of thinking that one of us can remain here,--that we need not both fall together." Still he did not tell her of the letter in his pocket. He felt that she moved him,--that she made him acknowledge to himself how great would be the pity of such a failure as would be his. He was quite as much alive as she could be to the fact that work at the Bar, either in London or in Dublin, would have no charms for him now. The prospect of such a life was very dreary to him. Even with the comfort of Mary's love such a life would be very dreary to him. And then he knew,--he thought that he knew,--that were he to offer himself to Madame Goesler he would not in truth be rejected. She had told him that if poverty was a trouble to him he need be no longer poor. Of course he had understood this. Her money was at his service if he should choose to stoop and pick it up. And it was not only money that such a marriage would give him. He had acknowledged to himself more than once that Madame Goesler was very lovely, that she was clever, attractive in every way, and as far as he could see, blessed with a sweet temper. She had a position, too, in the world that would help him rather than mar him. What might he not do with an independent seat in the House of Commons, and as joint owner of the little house in Park Lane? Of all careers which the world could offer to a man the pleasantest would then be within his reach. "You appear to me as a tempter," he said at last to Lady Laura. "It is unkind of you to say that, and ungrateful. I would do anything on earth in my power to help you." "Nevertheless you are a tempter." "I know how it ought to have been," she said, in a low voice. "I know very well how it ought to have been. I should have kept myself free till that time when we met on the braes of Loughlinter, and then all would have been well with us." "I do not know how that might have been," said Phineas, hoarsely. "You do not know! But I know. Of course you have stabbed me with a thousand daggers when you have told me from time to time of your love for Violet. You have been very cruel,--needlessly cruel. Men are so cruel! But for all that I have known that I could have kept you,--had it not been too late when you spoke to me. Will you not own as much as that?" "Of course you would have been everything to me. I should never have thought of Violet then." "That is the only kind word you have said to me from that day to this. I try to comfort myself in thinking that it would have been so. But all that is past and gone, and done. I have had my romance and you have had yours. As you are a man, it is natural that you should have been disturbed by a double image;--it is not so with me." "And yet you can advise me to offer marriage to a woman,--a woman whom I am to seek merely because she is rich?" "Yes;--I do so advise you. You have had your romance and must now put up with reality. Why should I so advise you but for the interest that I have in you? Your prosperity will do me no good. I shall not even be here to see it. I shall hear of it only as so many a woman banished out of England hears a distant misunderstood report of what is going on in the country she has left. But I still have regard enough,--I will be bold, and, knowing that you will not take it amiss, will say love enough for you,--to feel a desire that you should not be shipwrecked. Since we first took you in hand between us, Barrington and I, I have never swerved in my anxiety on your behalf. When I resolved that it would be better for us both that we should be only friends, I did not swerve. When you would talk to me so cruelly of your love for Violet, I did not swerve. When I warned you from Loughlinter because I thought there was danger, I did not swerve. When I bade you not to come to me in London because of my husband, I did not swerve. When my father was hard upon you, I did not swerve then. I would not leave him till he was softened. When you tried to rob Oswald of his love, and I thought you would succeed,--for I did think so,--I did not swerve. I have ever been true to you. And now that I must hide myself and go away, and be seen no more, I am true still." "Laura,--dearest Laura!" he exclaimed. "Ah, no!" she said, speaking with no touch of anger, but all in sorrow;--"it must not be like that. There is no room for that. Nor do you mean it. I do not think so ill of you. But there may not be even words of affection between us--only such as I may speak to make you know that I am your friend." "You are my friend," he said, stretching out his hand to her as he turned away his face. "You are my friend, indeed." "Then do as I would have you do." He put his hand into his pocket, and had the letter between his fingers with the purport of showing it to her. But at the moment the thought occurred to him that were he to do so, then, indeed, he would be bound for ever. He knew that he was bound for ever,--bound for ever to his own Mary; but he desired to have the privilege of thinking over such bondage once more before he proclaimed it even to his dearest friend. He had told her that she tempted him, and she stood before him now as a temptress. But lest it might be possible that she should not tempt in vain,--that letter in his pocket must never be shown to her. In that case Lady Laura must never hear from his lips the name of Mary Flood Jones. He left her without any assured purpose;--without, that is, the assurance to her of any fixed purpose. There yet wanted a week to the day on which Mr. Monk's bill was to be read,--or not to be read,--the second time; and he had still that interval before he need decide. He went to his club, and before he dined he strove to write a line to Mary;--but when he had the paper before him he found that it was impossible to do so. Though he did not even suspect himself of an intention to be false, the idea that was in his mind made the effort too much for him. He put the paper away from him and went down and eat his dinner. It was a Saturday, and there was no House in the evening. He had remained in Portman Square with Lady Laura till near seven o'clock, and was engaged to go out in the evening to a gathering at Mrs. Gresham's house. Everybody in London would be there, and Phineas was resolved that as long as he remained in London he would be seen at places where everybody was seen. He would certainly be at Mrs. Gresham's gathering; but there was an hour or two before he need go home to dress, and as he had nothing to do, he went down to the smoking-room of his club. The seats were crowded, but there was one vacant; and before he had looked about him to scrutinise his neighbourhood, he found that he had placed himself with Bonteen on his right hand and Ratler on his left. There were no two men in all London whom he more thoroughly disliked; but it was too late for him to avoid them now. They instantly attacked him, first on one side and then on the other. "So I am told you are going to leave us," said Bonteen. "Who can have been ill-natured enough to whisper such a thing?" replied Phineas. "The whispers are very loud, I can tell you," said Ratler. "I think I know already pretty nearly how every man in the House will vote, and I have not got your name down on the right side." "Change it for heaven's sake," said Phineas. "I will, if you'll tell me seriously that I may," said Ratler. "My opinion is," said Bonteen, "that a man should be known either as a friend or foe. I respect a declared foe." "Know me as a declared foe then," said Phineas, "and respect me." "That's all very well," said Ratler, "but it means nothing. I've always had a sort of fear about you, Finn, that you would go over the traces some day. Of course it's a very grand thing to be independent." "The finest thing in the world," said Bonteen; "only so d----d useless." "But a man shouldn't be independent and stick to the ship at the same time. You forget the trouble you cause, and how you upset all calculations." "I hadn't thought of the calculations," said Phineas. "The fact is, Finn," said Bonteen, "you are made of clay too fine for office. I've always found it has been so with men from your country. You are the grandest horses in the world to look at out on a prairie, but you don't like the slavery of harness." "And the sound of a whip over our shoulders sets us kicking;--does it not, Ratler?" "I shall show the list to Gresham to-morrow," said Ratler, "and of course he can do as he pleases; but I don't understand this kind of thing." "Don't you be in a hurry," said Bonteen. "I'll bet you a sovereign Finn votes with us yet. There's nothing like being a little coy to set off a girl's charms. I'll bet you a sovereign, Ratler, that Finn goes out into the lobby with you and me against Monk's bill." Phineas, not being able to stand any more of this most unpleasant raillery, got up and went away. The club was distasteful to him, and he walked off and sauntered for a while about the park. He went down by the Duke of York's column as though he were going to his office, which of course was closed at this hour, but turned round when he got beyond the new public buildings,--buildings which he was never destined to use in their completed state,--and entered the gates of the enclosure, and wandered on over the bridge across the water. As he went his mind was full of thought. Could it be good for him to give up everything for a fair face? He swore to himself that of all women whom he had ever seen Mary was the sweetest and the dearest and the best. If it could be well to lose the world for a woman, it would be well to lose it for her. Violet, with all her skill, and all her strength, and all her grace, could never have written such a letter as that which he still held in his pocket. The best charm of a woman is that she should be soft, and trusting, and generous; and who ever had been more soft, more trusting, and more generous than his Mary? Of course he would be true to her, though he did lose the world. But to yield such a triumph to the Ratlers and Bonteens whom he left behind him,--to let them have their will over him,--to know that they would rejoice scurrilously behind his back over his downfall! The feeling was terrible to him. The last words which Bonteen had spoken made it impossible to him now not to support his old friend Mr. Monk. It was not only what Bonteen had said, but that the words of Mr. Bonteen so plainly indicated what would be the words of all the other Bonteens. He knew that he was weak in this. He knew that had he been strong, he would have allowed himself to be guided,--if not by the firm decision of his own spirit,--by the counsels of such men as Mr. Gresham and Lord Cantrip, and not by the sarcasms of the Bonteens and Ratlers of official life. But men who sojourn amidst savagery fear the mosquito more than they do the lion. He could not bear to think that he should yield his blood to such a one as Bonteen. And he must yield his blood, unless he could vote for Mr. Monk's motion, and hold his ground afterwards among them all in the House of Commons. He would at any rate see the session out, and try a fall with Mr. Bonteen when they should be sitting on different benches,--if ever fortune should give him an opportunity. And in the meantime, what should he do about Madame Goesler? What a fate was his to have the handsomest woman in London with thousands and thousands a year at his disposal! For,--so he now swore to himself,--Madame Goesler was the handsomest woman in London, as Mary Flood Jones was the sweetest girl in the world. He had not arrived at any decision so fixed as to make him comfortable when he went home and dressed for Mrs. Gresham's party. And yet he knew,--he thought that he knew that he would be true to Mary Flood Jones. CHAPTER LXX The Prime Minister's House The rooms and passages and staircases at Mrs. Gresham's house were very crowded when Phineas arrived there. Men of all shades of politics were there, and the wives and daughters of such men; and there was a streak of royalty in one of the saloons, and a whole rainbow of foreign ministers with their stars, and two blue ribbons were to be seen together on the first landing-place, with a stout lady between them carrying diamonds enough to load a pannier. Everybody was there. Phineas found that even Lord Chiltern was come, as he stumbled across his friend on the first foot-ground that he gained in his ascent towards the rooms. "Halloa,--you here?" said Phineas. "Yes, by George!" said the other, "but I am going to escape as soon as possible. I've been trying to make my way up for the last hour, but could never get round that huge promontory there. Laura was more persevering." "Is Kennedy here?" Phineas whispered. "I do not know," said Chiltern, "but she was determined to run the chance." A little higher up,--for Phineas was blessed with more patience than Lord Chiltern possessed,--he came upon Mr. Monk. "So you are still admitted privately," said Phineas. "Oh dear yes,--and we have just been having a most friendly conversation about you. What a man he is! He knows everything. He is so accurate; so just in the abstract,--and in the abstract so generous!" "He has been very generous to me in detail as well as in abstract," said Phineas. "Ah, yes; I am not thinking of individuals exactly. His want of generosity is to large masses,--to a party, to classes, to a people; whereas his generosity is for mankind at large. He assumes the god, affects to nod, and seems to shake the spheres. But I have nothing against him. He has asked me here to-night, and has talked to me most familiarly about Ireland." "What do you think of your chance of a second reading?" asked Phineas. "What do you think of it?--you hear more of those things than I do." "Everybody says it will be a close division." "I never expected it," said Mr. Monk. "Nor I, till I heard what Daubeny said at the first reading. They will all vote for the bill en masse,--hating it in their hearts all the time." "Let us hope they are not so bad as that." "It is the way with them always. They do all our work for us,--sailing either on one tack or the other. That is their use in creation, that when we split among ourselves, as we always do, they come in and finish our job for us. It must be unpleasant for them to be always doing that which they always say should never be done at all." "Wherever the gift horse may come from, I shall not look it in the mouth," said Mr. Monk. "There is only one man in the House whom I hope I may not see in the lobby with me, and that is yourself." "The question is decided now," said Phineas. "And how is it decided?" Phineas could not tell his friend that a question of so great magnitude to him had been decided by the last sting which he had received from an insect so contemptible as Mr. Bonteen, but he expressed the feeling as well as he knew how to express it. "Oh, I shall be with you. I know what you are going to say, and I know how good you are. But I could not stand it. Men are beginning already to say things which almost make me get up and kick them. If I can help it, I will give occasion to no man to hint anything to me which can make me be so wretched as I have been to-day. Pray do not say anything more. My idea is that I shall resign to-morrow." "Then I hope that we may fight the battle side by side," said Mr. Monk, giving him his hand. "We will fight the battle side by side," replied Phineas. After that he pushed his way still higher up the stairs, having no special purpose in view, not dreaming of any such success as that of reaching his host or hostess,--merely feeling that it should be a point of honour with him to make a tour through the rooms before he descended the stairs. The thing, he thought, was to be done with courage and patience, and this might, probably, be the last time in his life that he would find himself in the house of a Prime Minister. Just at the turn of the balustrade at the top of the stairs, he found Mr. Gresham in the very spot on which Mr. Monk had been talking with him. "Very glad to see you," said Mr. Gresham. "You, I find, are a persevering man, with a genius for getting upwards." "Like the sparks," said Phineas. "Not quite so quickly," said Mr. Gresham. "But with the same assurance of speedy loss of my little light." It did not suit Mr. Gresham to understand this, so he changed the subject. "Have you seen the news from America?" "Yes, I have seen it, but do not believe it," said Phineas. "Ah, you have such faith in a combination of British colonies, properly backed in Downing Street, as to think them strong against a world in arms. In your place I should hold to the same doctrine,--hold to it stoutly." "And you do now, I hope, Mr. Gresham?" "Well,--yes,--I am not down-hearted. But I confess to a feeling that the world would go on even though we had nothing to say to a single province in North America. But that is for your private ear. You are not to whisper that in Downing Street." Then there came up somebody else, and Phineas went on upon his slow course. He had longed for an opportunity to tell Mr. Gresham that he could go to Downing Street no more, but such opportunity had not reached him. For a long time he found himself stuck close by the side of Miss Fitzgibbon,--Miss Aspasia Fitzgibbon,--who had once relieved him from terrible pecuniary anxiety by paying for him a sum of money which was due by him on her brother's account. "It's a very nice thing to be here, but one does get tired of it," said Miss Fitzgibbon. "Very tired," said Phineas. "Of course it is a part of your duty, Mr. Finn. You are on your promotion and are bound to be here. When I asked Laurence to come, he said there was nothing to be got till the cards were shuffled again." "They'll be shuffled very soon," said Phineas. "Whatever colour comes up, you'll hold trumps, I know," said the lady. "Some hands always hold trumps." He could not explain to Miss Fitzgibbon that it would never again be his fate to hold a single trump in his hand; so he made another fight, and got on a few steps farther. He said a word as he went to half a dozen friends,--as friends went with him. He was detained for five minutes by Lady Baldock, who was very gracious and very disagreeable. She told him that Violet was in the room, but where she did not know. "She is somewhere with Lady Laura, I believe; and really, Mr. Finn, I do not like it." Lady Baldock had heard that Phineas had quarrelled with Lord Brentford, but had not heard of the reconciliation. "Really, I do not like it. I am told that Mr. Kennedy is in the house, and nobody knows what may happen." "Mr. Kennedy is not likely to say anything." "One cannot tell. And when I hear that a woman is separated from her husband, I always think that she must have been imprudent. It may be uncharitable, but I think it is most safe so to consider." "As far as I have heard the circumstances, Lady Laura was quite right," said Phineas. "It may be so. Gentlemen will always take the lady's part,--of course. But I should be very sorry to have a daughter separated from her husband,--very sorry." Phineas, who had nothing now to gain from Lady Baldock's favour, left her abruptly, and went on again. He had a great desire to see Lady Laura and Violet together, though he could hardly tell himself why. He had not seen Miss Effingham since his return from Ireland, and he thought that if he met her alone he could hardly have talked to her with comfort; but he knew that if he met her with Lady Laura, she would greet him as a friend, and speak to him as though there were no cause for embarrassment between them. But he was so far disappointed, that he suddenly encountered Violet alone. She had been leaning on the arm of Lord Baldock, and Phineas saw her cousin leave her. But he would not be such a coward as to avoid her, especially as he knew that she had seen him. "Oh, Mr. Finn!" she said, "do you see that?" "See what?" "Look; There is Mr. Kennedy. We had heard that it was possible, and Laura made me promise that I would not leave her." Phineas turned his head, and saw Mr. Kennedy standing with his back bolt upright against a door-post, with his brow as black as thunder. "She is just opposite to him, where he can see her," said Violet. "Pray take me to her. He will think nothing of you, because I know that you are still friends with both of them. I came away because Lord Baldock wanted to introduce me to Lady Mouser. You know he is going to marry Miss Mouser." Phineas, not caring much about Lord Baldock and Miss Mouser, took Violet's hand upon his arm, and very slowly made his way across the room to the spot indicated. There they found Lady Laura alone, sitting under the upas-tree influence of her husband's gaze. There was a concourse of people between them, and Mr. Kennedy did not seem inclined to make any attempt to lessen the distance. But Lady Laura had found it impossible to move while she was under her husband's eyes. "Mr. Finn," she said, "could you find Oswald? I know he is here." "He has gone," said Phineas. "I was speaking to him downstairs." "You have not seen my father? He said he would come." "I have not seen him, but I will search." "No;--it will do no good. I cannot stay. His carriage is there, I know,--waiting for me." Phineas immediately started off to have the carriage called, and promised to return with as much celerity as he could use. As he went, making his way much quicker through the crowd than he had done when he had no such object for haste, he purposely avoided the door by which Mr. Kennedy had stood. It would have been his nearest way, but his present service, he thought, required that he should keep aloof from the man. But Mr. Kennedy passed through the door and intercepted him in his path. "Is she going?" he asked. "Well. Yes. I dare say she may before long. I shall look for Lord Brentford's carriage by-and-by." "Tell her she need not go because of me. I shall not return. I shall not annoy her here. It would have been much better that a woman in such a plight should not have come to such an assembly." "You would not wish her to shut herself up." "I would wish her to come back to the home that she has left, and, if there be any law in the land, she shall be made to do so. You tell her that I say so." Then Mr. Kennedy fought his way down the stairs, and Phineas Finn followed in his wake. About half an hour afterwards Phineas returned to the two ladies with tidings that the carriage would be at hand as soon as they could be below. "Did he see you?" said Lady Laura. "Yes, he followed me." "And did he speak to you?" "Yes;--he spoke to me." "And what did he say?" And then, in the presence of Violet, Phineas gave the message. He thought it better that it should be given; and were he to decline to deliver it now, it would never be given. "Whether there be law in the land to protect me or whether there be none, I will never live with him," said Lady Laura. "Is a woman like a head of cattle, that she can be fastened in her crib by force? I will never live with him though all the judges of the land should decide that I must do so." Phineas thought much of all this as he went to his solitary lodgings. After all, was not the world much better with him than it was with either of those two wretched married beings? And why? He had not, at any rate as yet, sacrificed for money or social gains any of the instincts of his nature. He had been fickle, foolish, vain, uncertain, and perhaps covetous;--but as yet he had not been false. Then he took out Mary's last letter and read it again. CHAPTER LXXI Comparing Notes It would, perhaps, be difficult to decide,--between Lord Chiltern and Miss Effingham,--which had been most wrong, or which had been nearest to the right, in the circumstances which had led to their separation. The old lord, wishing to induce his son to undertake work of some sort, and feeling that his own efforts in this direction were worse than useless, had closeted himself with his intended daughter-in-law, and had obtained from her a promise that she would use her influence with her lover. "Of course I think it right that he should do something," Violet had said. "And he will if you bid him," replied the Earl. Violet expressed a great doubt as to this willingness of obedience; but, nevertheless, she promised to do her best, and she did her best. Lord Chiltern, when she spoke to him, knit his brows with an apparent ferocity of anger which his countenance frequently expressed without any intention of ferocity on his part. He was annoyed, but was not savagely disposed to Violet. As he looked at her, however, he seemed to be very savagely disposed. "What is it you would have me do?" he said. "I would have you choose some occupation, Oswald." "What occupation? What is it that you mean? Ought I to be a shoemaker?" "Not that by preference, I should say; but that if you please." When her lover had frowned at her, Violet had resolved,--had strongly determined, with inward assertions of her own rights,--that she would not be frightened by him. "You are talking nonsense, Violet. You know that I cannot be a shoemaker." "You may go into Parliament." "I neither can, nor would I if I could. I dislike the life." "You might farm." "I cannot afford it." "You might,--might do anything. You ought to do something. You know that you ought. You know that your father is right in what he says." "That is easily asserted, Violet; but it would, I think, be better that you should take my part than my father's, if it be that you intend to be my wife." "You know that I intend to be your wife; but would you wish that I should respect my husband?" "And will you not do so if you marry me?" he asked. Then Violet looked into his face and saw that the frown was blacker than ever. The great mark down his forehead was deeper and more like an ugly wound than she had ever seen it; and his eyes sparkled with anger; and his face was red as with fiery wrath. If it was so with him when she was no more than engaged to him, how would it be when they should be man and wife? At any rate, she would not fear him,--not now at least. "No, Oswald," she said. "If you resolve upon being an idle man, I shall not respect you. It is better that I should tell you the truth." "A great deal better," he said. "How can I respect one whose whole life will be,--will be--?" "Will be what?" he demanded with a loud shout. "Oswald, you are very rough with me." "What do you say that my life will be?" Then she again resolved that she would not fear him. "It will be discreditable," she said. "It shall not discredit you," he replied. "I will not bring disgrace on one I have loved so well. Violet, after what you have said, we had better part." She was still proud, still determined, and they did part. Though it nearly broke her heart to see him leave her, she bid him go. She hated herself afterwards for her severity to him; but, nevertheless, she would not submit to recall the words which she had spoken. She had thought him to be wrong, and, so thinking, had conceived it to be her duty and her privilege to tell him what she thought. But she had no wish to lose him;--no wish not to be his wife even, though he should be as idle as the wind. She was so constituted that she had never allowed him or any other man to be master of her heart,--till she had with a full purpose given her heart away. The day before she had resolved to give it to one man, she might, I think, have resolved to give it to another. Love had not conquered her, but had been taken into her service. Nevertheless, she could not now rid herself of her servant, when she found that his services would stand her no longer in good stead. She parted from Lord Chiltern with an assent, with an assured brow, and with much dignity in her gait; but as soon as she was alone she was a prey to remorse. She had declared to the man who was to have been her husband that his life was discreditable,--and, of course, no man would bear such language. Had Lord Chiltern borne it, he would not have been worthy of her love. She herself told Lady Laura and Lord Brentford what had occurred,--and had told Lady Baldock also. Lady Baldock had, of course, triumphed,--and Violet sought her revenge by swearing that she would regret for ever the loss of so inestimable a gentleman. "Then why have you given him up, my dear?" demanded Lady Baldock. "Because I found that he was too good for me," said Violet. It may be doubtful whether Lady Baldock was not justified, when she declared that her niece was to her a care so harassing that no aunt known in history had ever been so troubled before. Lord Brentford had fussed and fumed, and had certainly made things worse. He had quarrelled with his son, and then made it up, and then quarrelled again,--swearing that the fault must all be attributed to Chiltern's stubbornness and Chiltern's temper. Latterly, however, by Lady Laura's intervention, Lord Brentford and his son had again been reconciled, and the Earl endeavoured manfully to keep his tongue from disagreeable words, and his face from evil looks, when his son was present. "They will make it up," Lady Laura had said, "if you and I do not attempt to make it up for them. If we do, they will never come together." The Earl was convinced, and did his best. But the task was very difficult to him. How was he to keep his tongue off his son while his son was daily saying things of which any father,--any such father as Lord Brentford,--could not but disapprove? Lord Chiltern professed to disbelieve even in the wisdom of the House of Lords, and on one occasion asserted that it must be a great comfort to any Prime Minister to have three or four old women in the Cabinet. The father, when he heard this, tried to rebuke his son tenderly, strove even to be jocose. It was the one wish of his heart that Violet Effingham should be his daughter-in-law. But even with this wish he found it very hard to keep his tongue off Lord Chiltern. When Lady Laura discussed the matter with Violet, Violet would always declare that there was no hope. "The truth is," she said on the morning of that day on which they both went to Mrs. Gresham's, "that though we like each other,--love each other, if you choose to say so,--we are not fit to be man and wife." "And why not fit?" "We are too much alike. Each is too violent, too headstrong, and too masterful." "You, as the woman, ought to give way," said Lady Laura. "But we do not always do just what we ought." "I know how difficult it is for me to advise, seeing to what a pass I have brought myself." "Do not say that, dear;--or rather do say it, for we have, both of us, brought ourselves to what you call a pass,--to such a pass that we are like to be able to live together and discuss it for the rest of our lives. The difference is, I take it, that you have not to accuse yourself, and that I have." "I cannot say that I have not to accuse myself," said Lady Laura. "I do not know that I have done much wrong to Mr. Kennedy since I married him; but in marrying him I did him a grievous wrong." "And he has avenged himself." "We will not talk of vengeance. I believe he is wretched, and I know that I am;--and that has come of the wrong that I have done." "I will make no man wretched," said Violet. "Do you mean that your mind is made up against Oswald?" "I mean that, and I mean much more. I say that I will make no man wretched. Your brother is not the only man who is so weak as to be willing to run the hazard." "There is Lord Fawn." "Yes, there is Lord Fawn, certainly. Perhaps I should not do him much harm; but then I should do him no good." "And poor Phineas Finn." "Yes;--there is Mr. Finn. I will tell you something, Laura. The only man I ever saw in the world whom I have thought for a moment that it was possible that I should like,--like enough to love as my husband,--except your brother, was Mr. Finn." "And now?" "Oh;--now; of course that is over," said Violet. "It is over?" "Quite over. Is he not going to marry Madame Goesler? I suppose all that is fixed by this time. I hope she will be good to him, and gracious, and let him have his own way, and give him his tea comfortably when he comes up tired from the House; for I confess that my heart is a little tender towards Phineas still. I should not like to think that he had fallen into the hands of a female Philistine." "I do not think he will marry Madame Goesler." "Why not?" "I can hardly tell you;--but I do not think he will. And you loved him once,--eh, Violet?" "Not quite that, my dear. It has been difficult with me to love. The difficulty with most girls, I fancy, is not to love. Mr. Finn, when I came to measure him in my mind, was not small, but he was never quite tall enough. One feels oneself to be a sort of recruiting sergeant, going about with a standard of inches. Mr. Finn was just half an inch too short. He lacks something in individuality. He is a little too much a friend to everybody." "Shall I tell you a secret, Violet?" "If you please, dear; though I fancy it is one I know already." "He is the only man whom I ever loved," said Lady Laura. "But it was too late when you learned to love him," said Violet. "It was too late, when I was so sure of it as to wish that I had never seen Mr. Kennedy. I felt it coming on me, and I argued with myself that such a marriage would be bad for us both. At that moment there was trouble in the family, and I had not a shilling of my own." "You had paid it for Oswald." "At any rate, I had nothing;--and he had nothing. How could I have dared to think even of such a marriage?" "Did he think of it, Laura?" "I suppose he did." "You know he did. Did you not tell me before?" "Well;--yes. He thought of it. I had come to some foolish, half-sentimental resolution as to friendship, believing that he and I could be knit together by some adhesion of fraternal affection that should be void of offence to my husband; and in furtherance of this he was asked to Loughlinter when I went there, just after I had accepted Robert. He came down, and I measured him too, as you have done. I measured him, and I found that he wanted nothing to come up to the height required by my standard. I think I knew him better than you did." "Very possibly;--but why measure him at all, when such measurement was useless?" "Can one help such things? He came to me one day as I was sitting up by the Linter. You remember the place, where it makes its first leap." "I remember it very well." "So do I. Robert had shown it me as the fairest spot in all Scotland." "And there this lover of ours sang his song to you?" "I do not know what he told me then; but I know that I told him that I was engaged; and I felt when I told him so that my engagement was a sorrow to me. And it has been a sorrow from that day to this." "And the hero, Phineas,--he is still dear to you?" "Dear to me?" "Yes. You would have hated me, had he become my husband? And you will hate Madame Goesler when she becomes his wife?" "Not in the least. I am no dog in the manger. I have even gone so far as almost to wish, at certain moments, that you should accept him." "And why?" "Because he has wished it so heartily." "One can hardly forgive a man for such speedy changes," said Violet. "Was I not to forgive him;--I, who had turned myself away from him with a fixed purpose the moment that I found that he had made a mark upon my heart? I could not wipe off the mark, and yet I married. Was he not to try to wipe off his mark?" "It seems that he wiped it off very quickly;--and since that he has wiped off another mark. One doesn't know how many marks he has wiped off. They are like the inn-keeper's score which he makes in chalk. A damp cloth brings them all away, and leaves nothing behind." "What would you have?" "There should be a little notch on the stick,--to remember by," said Violet. "Not that I complain, you know. I cannot complain, as I was not notched myself." "You are silly, Violet." "In not having allowed myself to be notched by this great champion?" "A man like Mr. Finn has his life to deal with,--to make the most of it, and to divide it between work, pleasure, duty, ambition, and the rest of it as best he may. If he have any softness of heart, it will be necessary to him that love should bear a part in all these interests. But a man will be a fool who will allow love to be the master of them all. He will be one whose mind is so ill-balanced as to allow him to be the victim of a single wish. Even in a woman passion such as that is evidence of weakness, and not of strength." "It seems, then, Laura, that you are weak." "And if I am, does that condemn him? He is a man, if I judge him rightly, who will be constant as the sun, when constancy can be of service." "You mean that the future Mrs. Finn will be secure?" "That is what I mean;--and that you or I, had either of us chosen to take his name, might have been quite secure. We have thought it right to refuse to do so." "And how many more, I wonder?" "You are unjust, and unkind, Violet. So unjust and unkind that it is clear to me he has just gratified your vanity, and has never touched your heart. What would you have had him do, when I told him that I was engaged?" "I suppose that Mr. Kennedy would not have gone to Blankenberg with him." "Violet!" "That seems to be the proper thing to do. But even that does not adjust things finally;--does it?" Then some one came upon them, and the conversation was brought to an end. CHAPTER LXXII Madame Goesler's Generosity When Phineas Finn left Mr. Gresham's house he had quite resolved what he would do. On the next morning he would tell Lord Cantrip that his resignation was a necessity, and that he would take that nobleman's advice as to resigning at once, or waiting till the day on which Mr. Monk's Irish Bill would be read for the second time. "My dear Finn, I can only say that I deeply regret it," said Lord Cantrip. "So do I. I regret to leave office, which I like,--and which indeed I want. I regret specially to leave this office, as it has been a thorough pleasure to me; and I regret, above all, to leave you. But I am convinced that Monk is right, and I find it impossible not to support him." "I wish that Mr. Monk was at Bath," said Lord Cantrip. Phineas could only smile, and shrug his shoulders, and say that even though Mr. Monk were at Bath it would not probably make much difference. When he tendered his letter of resignation, Lord Cantrip begged him to withdraw it for a day or two. He would, he said, speak to Mr. Gresham. The debate on the second reading of Mr. Monk's bill would not take place till that day week, and the resignation would be in time if it was tendered before Phineas either spoke or voted against the Government. So Phineas went back to his room, and endeavoured to make himself useful in some work appertaining to his favourite Colonies. That conversation had taken place on a Friday, and on the following Sunday, early in the day, he left his rooms after a late breakfast,--a prolonged breakfast, during which he had been studying tenant-right statistics, preparing his own speech, and endeavouring to look forward into the future which that speech was to do so much to influence,--and turned his face towards Park Lane. There had been a certain understanding between him and Madame Goesler that he was to call in Park Lane on this Sunday morning, and then declare to her what was his final resolve as to the office which he held. "It is simply to bid her adieu," he said to himself, "for I shall hardly see her again." And yet, as he took off his morning easy coat, and dressed himself for the streets, and stood for a moment before his looking-glass, and saw that his gloves were fresh and that his boots were properly polished, I think there was a care about his person which he would have hardly taken had he been quite assured that he simply intended to say good-bye to the lady whom he was about to visit. But if there were any such conscious feeling, he administered to himself an antidote before he left the house. On returning to the sitting-room he went to a little desk from which he took out the letter from Mary which the reader has seen, and carefully perused every word of it. "She is the best of them all," he said to himself, as he refolded the letter and put it back into his desk. I am not sure that it is well that a man should have any large number from whom to select a best; as, in such circumstances, he is so very apt to change his judgment from hour to hour. The qualities which are the most attractive before dinner sometimes become the least so in the evening. The morning was warm, and he took a cab. It would not do that he should speak even his last farewell to such a one as Madame Goesler with all the heat and dust of a long walk upon him. Having been so careful about his boots and gloves he might as well use his care to the end. Madame Goesler was a very pretty woman, who spared herself no trouble in making herself as pretty as Nature would allow, on behalf of those whom she favoured with her smiles; and to such a lady some special attention was due by one who had received so many of her smiles as had Phineas. And he felt, too, that there was something special in this very visit. It was to be made by appointment, and there had come to be an understanding between them that Phineas should tell her on this occasion what was his resolution with reference to his future life. I think that he had been very wise in fortifying himself with a further glance at our dear Mary's letter, before he trusted himself within Madame Goesler's door. Yes;--Madame Goesler was at home. The door was opened by Madame Goesler's own maid, who, smiling, explained that the other servants were all at church. Phineas had become sufficiently intimate at the cottage in Park Lane to be on friendly terms with Madame Goesler's own maid, and now made some little half-familiar remark as to the propriety of his visit during church time. "Madame will not refuse to see you, I am thinking," said the girl, who was a German. "And she is alone?" asked Phineas. "Alone? Yes;--of course she is alone. Who should be with her now?" Then she took him up into the drawing-room; but, when there, he found that Madame Goesler was absent. "She shall be down directly," said the girl. "I shall tell her who is here, and she will come." It was a very pretty room. It may almost be said that there could be no prettier room in all London. It looked out across certain small private gardens,--which were as bright and gay as money could make them when brought into competition with London smoke,--right on to the park. Outside and inside the window, flowers and green things were so arranged that the room itself almost looked as though it were a bower in a garden. And everything in that bower was rich and rare; and there was nothing there which annoyed by its rarity or was distasteful by its richness. The seats, though they were costly as money could buy, were meant for sitting, and were comfortable as seats. There were books for reading, and the means of reading them. Two or three gems of English art were hung upon the walls, and could be seen backwards and forwards in the mirrors. And there were precious toys lying here and there about the room,--toys very precious, but placed there not because of their price, but because of their beauty. Phineas already knew enough of the art of living to be aware that the woman who had made that room what it was, had charms to add a beauty to everything she touched. What would such a life as his want, if graced by such a companion,--such a life as his might be, if the means which were hers were at his command? It would want one thing, he thought,--the self-respect which he would lose if he were false to the girl who was trusting him with such sweet trust at home in Ireland. In a very few minutes Madame Goesler was with him, and, though he did not think about it, he perceived that she was bright in her apparel, that her hair was as soft as care could make it, and that every charm belonging to her had been brought into use for his gratification. He almost told himself that he was there in order that he might ask to have all those charms bestowed upon himself. He did not know who had lately come to Park Lane and been a suppliant for the possession of those rich endowments; but I wonder whether they would have been more precious in his eyes had he known that they had so moved the heart of the great Duke as to have induced him to lay his coronet at the lady's feet. I think that had he known that the lady had refused the coronet, that knowledge would have enhanced the value of the prize. "I am so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, as she gave him her hand. "I was an owl not to be ready for you when you told me that you would come." "No;--but a bird of paradise to come to me so sweetly, and at an hour when all the other birds refuse to show the feather of a single wing." "And you,--you feel like a naughty boy, do you not, in thus coming out on a Sunday morning?" "Do you feel like a naughty girl?" "Yes;--just a little so. I do not know that I should care for everybody to hear that I received visitors,--or worse still, a visitor,--at this hour on this day. But then it is so pleasant to feel oneself to be naughty! There is a Bohemian flavour of picnic about it which, though it does not come up to the rich gusto of real wickedness, makes one fancy that one is on the border of that delightful region in which there is none of the constraint of custom,--where men and women say what they like, and do what they like." "It is pleasant enough to be on the borders," said Phineas. "That is just it. Of course decency, morality, and propriety, all made to suit the eye of the public, are the things which are really delightful. We all know that, and live accordingly,--as well as we can. I do at least." "And do not I, Madame Goesler?" "I know nothing about that, Mr. Finn, and want to ask no questions. But if you do, I am sure you agree with me that you often envy the improper people,--the Bohemians,--the people who don't trouble themselves about keeping any laws except those for breaking which they would be put into nasty, unpleasant prisons. I envy them. Oh, how I envy them!" "But you are free as air." "The most cabined, cribbed, and confined creature in the world! I have been fighting my way up for the last four years, and have not allowed myself the liberty of one flirtation;--not often even the recreation of a natural laugh. And now I shouldn't wonder if I don't find myself falling back a year or two, just because I have allowed you to come and see me on a Sunday morning. When I told Lotta that you were coming, she shook her head at me in dismay. But now that you are here, tell me what you have done." "Nothing as yet, Madame Goesler." "I thought it was to have been settled on Friday?" "It was settled,--before Friday. Indeed, as I look back at it all now, I can hardly tell when it was not settled. It is impossible, and has been impossible, that I should do otherwise. I still hold my place, Madame Goesler, but I have declared that I shall give it up before the debate comes on." "It is quite fixed?" "Quite fixed, my friend." "And what next?" Madame Goesler, as she thus interrogated him, was leaning across towards him from the sofa on which she was placed, with both her elbows resting on a small table before her. We all know that look of true interest which the countenance of a real friend will bear when the welfare of his friend is in question. There are doubtless some who can assume it without feeling,--as there are actors who can personate all the passions. But in ordinary life we think that we can trust such a face, and that we know the true look when we see it. Phineas, as he gazed into Madame Goesler's eyes, was sure that the lady opposite him was not acting. She at least was anxious for his welfare, and was making his cares her own. "What next?" said she, repeating her words in a tone that was somewhat hurried. "I do not know that there will be any next. As far as public life is concerned, there will be no next for me, Madame Goesler." "That is out of the question," she said. "You are made for public life." "Then I shall be untrue to my making, I fear. But to speak plainly--" "Yes; speak plainly. I want to understand the reality." "The reality is this. I shall keep my seat to the end of the session, as I think I may be of use. After that I shall give it up." "Resign that too?" she said in a tone of chagrin. "The chances are, I think, that there will be another dissolution. If they hold their own against Mr. Monk's motion, then they will pass an Irish Reform Bill. After that I think they must dissolve." "And you will not come forward again?" "I cannot afford it." "Psha! Some five hundred pounds or so!" "And, besides that, I am well aware that my only chance at my old profession is to give up all idea of Parliament. The two things are not compatible for a beginner at the law. I know it now, and have bought my knowledge by a bitter experience." "And where will you live?" "In Dublin, probably." "And you will do,--will do what?" "Anything honest in a barrister's way that may be brought to me. I hope that I may never descend below that." "You will stand up for all the blackguards, and try to make out that the thieves did not steal?" "It may be that that sort of work may come in my way." "And you will wear a wig and try to look wise?" "The wig is not universal in Ireland, Madame Goesler." "And you will wrangle, as though your very soul were in it, for somebody's twenty pounds?" "Exactly." "You have already made a name in the greatest senate in the world, and have governed other countries larger than your own--" "No;--I have not done that. I have governed no country. "I tell you, my friend, that you cannot do it. It is out of the question. Men may move forward from little work to big work; but they cannot move back and do little work, when they have had tasks which were really great. I tell you, Mr. Finn, that the House of Parliament is the place for you to work in. It is the only place;--that and the abodes of Ministers. Am not I your friend who tell you this?" "I know that you are my friend." "And will you not credit me when I tell you this? What do you fear, that you should run away? You have no wife;--no children. What is the coming misfortune that you dread?" She paused a moment as though for an answer, and he felt that now had come the time in which it would be well that he should tell her of his engagement with his own Mary. She had received him very playfully; but now within the last few minutes there had come upon her a seriousness of gesture, and almost a solemnity of tone, which made him conscious that he should in no way trifle with her. She was so earnest in her friendship that he owed it to her to tell her everything. But before he could think of the words in which his tale should be told, she had gone on with her quick questions. "Is it solely about money that you fear?" she said. "It is simply that I have no income on which to live." "Have I not offered you money?" "But, Madame Goesler, you who offer it would yourself despise me if I took it." "No;--I do deny it." As she said this,--not loudly but with much emphasis,--she came and stood before him where he was sitting. And as he looked at her he could perceive that there was a strength about her of which he had not been aware. She was stronger, larger, more robust physically than he had hitherto conceived. "I do deny it," she said. "Money is neither god nor devil, that it should make one noble and another vile. It is an accident, and, if honestly possessed, may pass from you to me, or from me to you, without a stain. You may take my dinner from me if I give it you, my flowers, my friendship, my,--my,--my everything, but my money! Explain to me the cause of the phenomenon. If I give to you a thousand pounds, now this moment, and you take it, you are base;--but if I leave it you in my will,--and die,--you take it, and are not base. Explain to me the cause of that." "You have not said it quite all," said Phineas hoarsely. "What have I left unsaid? If I have left anything unsaid, do you say the rest." "It is because you are a woman, and young, and beautiful, that no man may take wealth from your hands." "Oh, it is that!" "It is that partly," "If I were a man you might take it, though I were young and beautiful as the morning?" "No;--presents of money are always bad. They stain and load the spirit, and break the heart." "And specially when given by a woman's hand?" "It seems so to me. But I cannot argue of it. Do not let us talk of it any more." "Nor can I argue. I cannot argue, but I can be generous,--very generous. I can deny myself for my friend,--can even lower myself in my own esteem for my friend. I can do more than a man can do for a friend. You will not take money from my hand?" "No, Madame Goesler;--I cannot do that." "Take the hand then first. When it and all that it holds are your own, you can help yourself as you list." So saying, she stood before him with her right hand stretched out towards him. What man will say that he would not have been tempted? Or what woman will declare that such temptation should have had no force? The very air of the room in which she dwelt was sweet in his nostrils, and there hovered around her an halo of grace and beauty which greeted all his senses. She invited him to join his lot to hers, in order that she might give to him all that was needed to make his life rich and glorious. How would the Ratlers and the Bonteens envy him when they heard of the prize which had become his! The Cantrips and the Greshams would feel that he was a friend doubly valuable, if he could be won back; and Mr. Monk would greet him as a fitting ally,--an ally strong with the strength which he had before wanted. With whom would he not be equal? Whom need he fear? Who would not praise him? The story of his poor Mary would be known only in a small village, out beyond the Channel. The temptation certainly was very strong. But he had not a moment in which to doubt. She was standing there with her face turned from him, but with her hand still stretched towards him. Of course he took it. What man so placed could do other than take a woman's hand? "My friend," he said. "I will be called friend by you no more," she said. "You must call me Marie, your own Marie, or you must never call me by any name again. Which shall it be, sir?" He paused a moment, holding her hand, and she let it lie there for an instant while she listened. But still she did not look at him. "Speak to me! Tell me! Which shall it be?" Still he paused. "Speak to me. Tell me!" she said again. "It cannot be as you have hinted to me," he said at last. His words did not come louder than a low whisper; but they were plainly heard, and instantly the hand was withdrawn. "Cannot be!" she exclaimed. "Then I have betrayed myself." "No;--Madame Goesler." "Sir; I say yes! If you will allow me I will leave you. You will, I know, excuse me if I am abrupt to you." Then she strode out of the room, and was no more seen of the eyes of Phineas Finn. He never afterwards knew how he escaped out of that room and found his way into Park Lane. In after days he had some memory that he remained there, he knew not how long, standing on the very spot on which she had left him; and that at last there grew upon him almost a fear of moving, a dread lest he should be heard, an inordinate desire to escape without the sound of a footfall, without the clicking of a lock. Everything in that house had been offered to him. He had refused it all, and then felt that of all human beings under the sun none had so little right to be standing there as he. His very presence in that drawing-room was an insult to the woman whom he had driven from it. But at length he was in the street, and had found his way across Piccadilly into the Green Park. Then, as soon as he could find a spot apart from the Sunday world, he threw himself upon the turf; and tried to fix his thoughts upon the thing that he had done. His first feeling, I think, was one of pure and unmixed disappointment;--of disappointment so bitter, that even the vision of his own Mary did not tend to comfort him. How great might have been his success, and how terrible was his failure! Had he taken the woman's hand and her money, had he clenched his grasp on the great prize offered to him, his misery would have been ten times worse the first moment that he would have been away from her. Then, indeed,--it being so that he was a man with a heart within his breast,--there would have been no comfort for him, in his outlooks on any side. But even now, when he had done right,--knowing well that he had done right,--he found that comfort did not come readily within his reach. CHAPTER LXXIII Amantium Iræ Miss Effingham's life at this time was not the happiest in the world. Her lines, as she once said to her friend Lady Laura, were not laid for her in pleasant places. Her residence was still with her aunt, and she had come to find that it was almost impossible any longer to endure Lady Baldock, and quite impossible to escape from Lady Baldock. In former days she had had a dream that she might escape, and live alone if she chose to be alone; that she might be independent in her life, as a man is independent, if she chose to live after that fashion; that she might take her own fortune in her own hand, as the law certainly allowed her to do, and act with it as she might please. But latterly she had learned to understand that all this was not possible for her. Though one law allowed it, another law disallowed it, and the latter law was at least as powerful as the former. And then her present misery was enhanced by the fact that she was now banished from the second home which she had formerly possessed. Hitherto she had always been able to escape from Lady Baldock to the house of her friend, but now such escape was out of the question. Lady Laura and Lord Chiltern lived in the same house, and Violet could not live with them. Lady Baldock understood all this, and tortured her niece accordingly. It was not premeditated torture. The aunt did not mean to make her niece's life a burden to her, and, so intending, systematically work upon a principle to that effect. Lady Baldock, no doubt, desired to do her duty conscientiously. But the result was torture to poor Violet, and a strong conviction on the mind of each of the two ladies that the other was the most unreasonable being in the world. The aunt, in these days, had taken it into her head to talk of poor Lord Chiltern. This arose partly from a belief that the quarrel was final, and that, therefore, there would be no danger in aggravating Violet by this expression of pity,--partly from a feeling that it would be better that her niece should marry Lord Chiltern than that she should not marry at all,--and partly, perhaps, from the general principle that, as she thought it right to scold her niece on all occasions, this might be best done by taking an opposite view of all questions to that taken by the niece to be scolded. Violet was supposed to regard Lord Chiltern as having sinned against her, and therefore Lady Baldock talked of "poor Lord Chiltern." As to the other lovers, she had begun to perceive that their conditions were hopeless. Her daughter Augusta had explained to her that there was no chance remaining either for Phineas, or for Lord Fawn, or for Mr. Appledom. "I believe she will be an old maid, on purpose to bring me to my grave," said Lady Baldock. When, therefore, Lady Baldock was told one day that Lord Chiltern was in the house, and was asking to see Miss Effingham, she did not at once faint away, and declare that they would all be murdered,--as she would have done some months since. She was perplexed by a double duty. If it were possible that Violet should relent and be reconciled, then it would be her duty to save Violet from the claws of the wild beast. But if there was no such chance, then it would be her duty to poor Lord Chiltern to see that he was not treated with contumely and ill-humour. "Does she know that he is here?" Lady Baldock asked her daughter. "Not yet, mamma." "Oh dear, oh dear! I suppose she ought to see him. She has given him so much encouragement!" "I suppose she will do as she pleases, mamma." "Augusta, how can you talk in that way? Am I to have no control in my own house?" It was, however, soon apparent to her that in this matter she was to have no control. "Lord Chiltern is down-stairs," said Violet, coming into the room abruptly. "So Augusta tells me. Sit down, my dear." "I cannot sit down, aunt,--not just now. I have sent down to say that I would be with him in a minute. He is the most impatient soul alive, and I must not keep him waiting." "And you mean to see him?" "Certainly I shall see him," said Violet, as she left the room. "I wonder that any woman should ever take upon herself the charge of a niece!" said Lady Baldock to her daughter in a despondent tone, as she held up her hands in dismay. In the meantime, Violet had gone down-stairs with a quick step, and had then boldly entered the room in which her lover was waiting to receive her. "I have to thank you for coming to me, Violet," said Lord Chiltern. There was still in his face something of savagery,--an expression partly of anger and partly of resolution to tame the thing with which he was angry. Violet did not regard the anger half so keenly as she did that resolution of taming. An angry lord, she thought, she could endure, but she could not bear the idea of being tamed by any one. "Why should I not come?" she said. "Of course I came when I was told that you were here. I do not think that there need be a quarrel between us, because we have changed our minds." "Such changes make quarrels," said he. "It shall not do so with me, unless you choose that it shall," said Violet. "Why should we be enemies,--we who have known each other since we were children? My dearest friends are your father and your sister. Why should we be enemies?" "I have come to ask you whether you think that I have ill-used you?" "Ill-used me! Certainly not. Has any one told you that I have accused you?" "No one has told me so." "Then why do you ask me?" "Because I would not have you think so,--if I could help it. I did not intend to be rough with you. When you told me that my life was disreputable--" "Oh, Oswald, do not let us go back to that. What good will it do?" "But you said so." "I think not." "I believe that that was your word,--the harshest word that you could use in all the language." "I did not mean to be harsh. If I used it, I will beg your pardon. Only let there be an end of it. As we think so differently about life in general, it was better that we should not be married. But that is settled, and why should we go back to words that were spoken in haste, and which are simply disagreeable?" "I have come to know whether it is settled." "Certainly. You settled it yourself, Oswald. I told you what I thought myself bound to tell you. Perhaps I used language which I should not have used. Then you told me that I could not be your wife;--and I thought you were right, quite right." "I was wrong, quite wrong," he said impetuously. "So wrong, that I can never forgive myself, if you do not relent. I was such a fool, that I cannot forgive myself my folly. I had known before that I could not live without you; and when you were mine, I threw you away for an angry word." "It was not an angry word," she said. "Say it again, and let me have another chance to answer it." "I think I said that idleness was not,--respectable, or something like that, taken out of a copy-book probably. But you are a man who do not like rebukes, even out of copy-books. A man so thin-skinned as you are must choose for himself a wife with a softer tongue than mine." "I will choose none other!" he said. But still he was savage in his tone and in his gestures. "I made my choice long since, as you know well enough. I do not change easily. I cannot change in this. Violet, say that you will be my wife once more, and I will swear to work for you like a coal-heaver." "My wish is that my husband,--should I ever have one,--should work, not exactly as a coal-heaver." "Come, Violet," he said,--and now the look of savagery departed from him, and there came a smile over his face, which, however, had in it more of sadness than of hope or joy,--"treat me fairly,--or rather, treat me generously if you can. I do not know whether you ever loved me much." "Very much,--years ago, when you were a boy." "But not since? If it be so, I had better go. Love on one side only is a poor affair at best." "A very poor affair." "It is better to bear anything than to try and make out life with that. Some of you women never want to love any one." "That was what I was saying of myself to Laura but the other day. With some women it is so easy. With others it is so difficult, that perhaps it never comes to them." "And with you?" "Oh, with me--. But it is better in these matters to confine oneself to generalities. If you please, I will not describe myself personally. Were I to do so, doubtless I should do it falsely." "You love no one else, Violet?" "That is my affair, my lord." "By heavens, and it is mine too. Tell me that you do, and I will go away and leave you at once. I will not ask his name, and I will trouble you no more. If it is not so, and if it is possible that you should forgive me--" "Forgive you! When have I been angry with you?" "Answer me my question, Violet." "I will not answer you your question,--not that one." "What question will you answer?" "Any that may concern yourself and myself. None that may concern other people." "You told me once that you loved me." "This moment I told you that I did so,--years ago." "But now?" "That is another matter." "Violet, do you love me now?" "That is a point-blank question at any rate," she said. "And you will answer it?" "I must answer it,--I suppose." "Well, then?" "Oh, Oswald, what a fool you are! Love you! of course I love you. If you can understand anything, you ought to know that I have never loved any one else;--that after what has passed between us, I never shall love any one else. I do love you. There. Whether you throw me away from you, as you did the other day,--with great scorn, mind you,--or come to me with sweet, beautiful promises, as you do now, I shall love you all the same. I cannot be your wife, if you will not have me; can I? When you run away in your tantrums because I quote something out of the copy-book, I can't run after you. It would not be pretty. But as for loving you, if you doubt that, I tell you, you are a--fool." As she spoke the last words she pouted out her lips at him, and when he looked into her face he saw that her eyes were full of tears. He was standing now with his arm round her waist, so that it was not easy for him to look into her face. "I am a fool," he said. "Yes;--you are; but I don't love you the less on that account." "I will never doubt it again." "No;--do not; and, for me, I will not say another word, whether you choose to heave coals or not. You shall do as you please. I meant to be very wise;--I did indeed." "You are the grandest girl that ever was made." "I do not want to be grand at all, and I never will be wise any more. Only do not frown at me and look savage." Then she put up her hand to smooth his brow. "I am half afraid of you still, you know. There. That will do. Now let me go, that I may tell my aunt. During the last two months she has been full of pity for poor Lord Chiltern." "It has been poor Lord Chiltern with a vengeance!" said he. "But now that we have made it up, she will be horrified again at all your wickednesses. You have been a turtle dove lately;--now you will be an ogre again. But, Oswald, you must not be an ogre to me." As soon as she could get quit of her lover, she did tell her tale to Lady Baldock. "You have accepted him again!" said her aunt, holding up her hands. "Yes,--I have accepted him again," replied Violet. "Then the responsibility must be on your own shoulders," said her aunt; "I wash my hands of it." That evening, when she discussed the matter with her daughter, Lady Baldock spoke of Violet and Lord Chiltern, as though their intended marriage were the one thing in the world which she most deplored. CHAPTER LXXIV The Beginning of the End The day of the debate had come, and Phineas Finn was still sitting in his room at the Colonial Office. But his resignation had been sent in and accepted, and he was simply awaiting the coming of his successor. About noon his successor came, and he had the gratification of resigning his arm-chair to Mr. Bonteen. It is generally understood that gentlemen leaving offices give up either seals or a portfolio. Phineas had been put in possession of no seal and no portfolio; but there was in the room which he had occupied a special arm-chair, and this with much regret he surrendered to the use and comfort of Mr. Bonteen. There was a glance of triumph in his enemy's eyes, and an exultation in the tone of his enemy's voice, which were very bitter to him. "So you are really going?" said Mr. Bonteen. "Well; I dare say it is all very proper. I don't quite understand the thing myself, but I have no doubt you are right." "It isn't easy to understand; is it?" said Phineas, trying to laugh. But Mr. Bonteen did not feel the intended satire, and poor Phineas found it useless to attempt to punish the man he hated. He left him as quickly as he could, and went to say a few words of farewell to his late chief. "Good-bye, Finn," said Lord Cantrip. "It is a great trouble to me that we should have to part in this way." "And to me also, my lord. I wish it could have been avoided." "You should not have gone to Ireland with so dangerous a man as Mr. Monk. But it is too late to think of that now." "The milk is spilt; is it not?" "But these terrible rendings asunder never last very long," said Lord Cantrip, "unless a man changes his opinions altogether. How many quarrels and how many reconciliations we have lived to see! I remember when Gresham went out of office, because he could not sit in the same room with Mr. Mildmay, and yet they became the fastest of political friends. There was a time when Plinlimmon and the Duke could not stable their horses together at all; and don't you remember when Palliser was obliged to give up his hopes of office because he had some bee in his bonnet?" I think, however, that the bee in Mr. Palliser's bonnet to which Lord Cantrip was alluding made its buzzing audible on some subject that was not exactly political. "We shall have you back again before long, I don't doubt. Men who can really do their work are too rare to be left long in the comfort of the benches below the gangway." This was very kindly said, and Phineas was flattered and comforted. He could not, however, make Lord Cantrip understand the whole truth. For him the dream of a life of politics was over for ever. He had tried it, and had succeeded beyond his utmost hopes; but, in spite of his success, the ground had crumbled to pieces beneath his feet, and he knew that he could never recover the niche in the world's gallery which he was now leaving. That same afternoon he met Mr. Gresham in one of the passages leading to the House, and the Prime Minister put his arm through that of our hero as they walked together into the lobby. "I am sorry that we are losing you," said Mr. Gresham. "You may be sure that I am sorry to be so lost," said Phineas. "These things will occur in political life," said the leader; "but I think that they seldom leave rancour behind them when the purpose is declared, and when the subject of disagreement is marked and understood. The defalcation which creates angry feeling is that which has to be endured without previous warning,--when a man votes against his party,--or a set of men, from private pique or from some cause which is never clear." Phineas, when he heard this, knew well how terribly this very man had been harassed, and driven nearly wild, by defalcation, exactly of that nature which he was attempting to describe. "No doubt you and Mr. Monk think you are right," continued Mr. Gresham. "We have given strong evidence that we think so," said Phineas. "We give up our places, and we are, both of us, very poor men." "I think you are wrong, you know, not so much in your views on the question itself--which, to tell the truth, I hardly understand as yet." "We will endeavour to explain them." "And will do so very clearly, no doubt. But I think that Mr. Monk was wrong in desiring, as a member of a Government, to force a measure which, whether good or bad, the Government as a body does not desire to initiate,--at any rate, just now." "And therefore he resigned," said Phineas. "Of course. But it seems to me that he failed to comprehend the only way in which a great party can act together, if it is to do any service in this country. Don't for a moment think that I am blaming him or you." "I am nobody in this matter," said Phineas. "I can assure you, Mr. Finn, that we have not regarded you in that light, and I hope that the time may come when we may be sitting together again on the same bench." Neither on the Treasury bench nor on any other in that House was he to sit again after this fashion! That was the trouble which was crushing his spirit at this moment, and not the loss of his office! He knew that he could not venture to think of remaining in London as a member of Parliament with no other income than that which his father could allow him, even if he could again secure a seat in Parliament. When he had first been returned for Loughshane he had assured his friends that his duty as a member of the House of Commons would not be a bar to his practice in the Courts. He had now been five years a member, and had never once made an attempt at doing any part of a barrister's work. He had gone altogether into a different line of life, and had been most successful;--so successful that men told him, and women more frequently than men, that his career had been a miracle of success. But there had been, as he had well known from the first, this drawback in the new profession which he had chosen, that nothing in it could be permanent. They who succeed in it, may probably succeed again; but then the success is intermittent, and there may be years of hard work in opposition, to which, unfortunately, no pay is assigned. It is almost imperative, as he now found, that they who devote themselves to such a profession should be men of fortune. When he had commenced his work,--at the period of his first return for Loughshane,--he had had no thought of mending his deficiency in this respect by a rich marriage. Nor had it ever occurred to him that he would seek a marriage for that purpose. Such an idea would have been thoroughly distasteful to him. There had been no stain of premeditated mercenary arrangement upon him at any time. But circumstances had so fallen out with him, that as he won his spurs in Parliament, as he became known, and was placed first in one office and then in another, prospects of love and money together were opened to him, and he ventured on, leaving Mr. Low and the law behind him,--because these prospects were so alluring. Then had come Mr. Monk and Mary Flood Jones,--and everything around him had collapsed. Everything around him had collapsed,--with, however, a terrible temptation to him to inflate his sails again, at the cost of his truth and his honour. The temptation would have affected him not at all, had Madame Goesler been ugly, stupid, or personally disagreeable. But she was, he thought, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the most witty, and in many respects the most charming. She had offered to give him everything that she had, so to place him in the world that opposition would be more pleasant to him than office, to supply every want, and had done so in a manner that had gratified all his vanity. But he had refused it all, because he was bound to the girl at Floodborough. My readers will probably say that he was not a true man unless he could do this without a regret. When Phineas thought of it all, there were many regrets. But there was at the same time a resolve on his part, that if any man had ever loved the girl he promised to love, he would love Mary Flood Jones. A thousand times he had told himself that she had not the spirit of Lady Laura, or the bright wit of Violet Effingham, or the beauty of Madame Goesler. But Mary had charms of her own that were more valuable than them all. Was there one among the three who had trusted him as she trusted him,--or loved him with the same satisfied devotion? There were regrets, regrets that were heavy on his heart;--for London, and Parliament, and the clubs, and Downing Street, had become dear to him. He liked to think of himself as he rode in the park, and was greeted by all those whose greeting was the most worth having. There were regrets,--sad regrets. But the girl whom he loved better than the parks and the clubs,--better even than Westminster and Downing Street, should never know that they had existed. These thoughts were running through his mind even while he was listening to Mr. Monk, as he propounded his theory of doing justice to Ireland. This might probably be the last great debate in which Phineas would be able to take a part, and he was determined that he would do his best in it. He did not intend to speak on this day, if, as was generally supposed, the House would be adjourned before a division could be obtained. But he would remain on the alert and see how the thing went. He had come to understand the forms of the place, and was as well-trained a young member of Parliament as any there. He had been quick at learning a lesson that is not easily learned, and knew how things were going, and what were the proper moments for this question or that form of motion. He could anticipate a count-out, understood the tone of men's minds, and could read the gestures of the House. It was very little likely that the debate should be over to-night. He knew that; and as the present time was the evening of Tuesday, he resolved at once that he would speak as early as he could on the following Thursday. What a pity it was, that with one who had learned so much, all his learning should be in vain! At about two o'clock, he himself succeeded in moving the adjournment of the debate. This he did from a seat below the gangway, to which he had removed himself from the Treasury bench. Then the House was up, and he walked home with Mr. Monk. Mr. Monk, since he had been told positively by Phineas that he had resolved upon resigning his office, had said nothing more of his sorrow at his friend's resolve, but had used him as one political friend uses another, telling him all his thoughts and all his hopes as to this new measure of his, and taking counsel with him as to the way in which the fight should be fought. Together they had counted over the list of members, marking these men as supporters, those as opponents, and another set, now more important than either, as being doubtful. From day to day those who had been written down as doubtful were struck off that third list, and put in either the one or the other of those who were either supporters or opponents. And their different modes of argument were settled between these two allied orators, how one should take this line and the other that. To Mr. Monk this was very pleasant. He was quite assured now that opposition was more congenial to his spirit, and more fitting for him than office. There was no doubt to him as to his future sitting in Parliament, let the result of this contest be what it might. The work which he was now doing, was the work for which he had been training himself all his life. While he had been forced to attend Cabinet Councils from week to week, he had been depressed. Now he was exultant. Phineas seeing and understanding all this, said but little to his friend of his own prospects. As long as this pleasant battle was raging, he could fight in it shoulder to shoulder with the man he loved. After that there would be a blank. "I do not see how we are to fail to have a majority after Daubeny's speech to-night," said Mr. Monk, as they walked together down Parliament Street through the bright moonlight. "He expressly said that he only spoke for himself," said Phineas. "But we know what that means. He is bidding for office, and of course those who want office with him will vote as he votes. We have already counted those who would go into office, but they will not carry the whole party." "It will carry enough of them." "There are forty or fifty men on his side of the House, and as many perhaps on ours," said Mr. Monk, "who have no idea of any kind on any bill, and who simply follow the bell, whether into this lobby or that. Argument never touches them. They do not even look to the result of a division on their own interests, as the making of any calculation would be laborious to them. Their party leader is to them a Pope whom they do not dream of doubting. I never can quite make up my mind whether it is good or bad that there should be such men in Parliament." "Men who think much want to speak often," said Phineas. "Exactly so,--and of speaking members, God knows that we have enough. And I suppose that these purblind sheep do have some occult weight that is salutary. They enable a leader to be a leader, and even in that way they are useful. We shall get a division on Thursday." "I understand that Gresham has consented to that." "So Ratler told me. Palliser is to speak, and Barrington Erle. And they say that Robson is going to make an onslaught specially on me. We shall get it over by one o'clock." "And if we beat them?" asked Phineas. "It will depend on the numbers. Everybody who has spoken to me about it, seems to think that they will dissolve if there be a respectable majority against them." "Of course he will dissolve," said Phineas, speaking of Mr. Gresham; "what else can he do?" "He is very anxious to carry his Irish Reform Bill first, if he can do so. Good-night, Phineas. I shall not be down to-morrow as there is nothing to be done. Come to me on Thursday, and we will go to the House together." On the Wednesday Phineas was engaged to dine with Mr. Low. There was a dinner party in Bedford Square, and Phineas met half-a-dozen barristers and their wives,--men to whom he had looked up as successful pundits in the law some five or six years ago, but who since that time had almost learned to look up to him. And now they treated him with that courteousness of manner which success in life always begets. There was a judge there who was very civil to him; and the judge's wife whom he had taken down to dinner was very gracious to him. The judge had got his prize in life, and was therefore personally indifferent to the fate of ministers; but the judge's wife had a brother who wanted a County Court from Lord De Terrier, and it was known that Phineas was giving valuable assistance towards the attainment of this object. "I do think that you and Mr. Monk are so right," said the judge's wife. Phineas, who understood how it came to pass that the judge's wife should so cordially approve his conduct, could not help thinking how grand a thing it would be for him to have a County Court for himself. When the guests were gone he was left alone with Mr. and Mrs. Low, and remained awhile with them, there having been an understanding that they should have a last chat together over the affairs of our hero. "Do you really mean that you will not stand again?" asked Mrs. Low. "I do mean it. I may say that I cannot do so. My father is hardly so well able to help me as he was when I began this game, and I certainly shall not ask him for money to support a canvass." "It's a thousand pities," said Mrs. Low. "I really had begun to think that you would make it answer," said Mr. Low. "In one way I have made it answer. For the last three years I have lived upon what I have earned, and I am not in debt. But now I must begin the world again. I am afraid I shall find the drudgery very hard." "It is hard no doubt," said the barrister, who had gone through it all, and was now reaping the fruits of it. "But I suppose you have not forgotten what you learned?" "Who can say? I dare say I have. But I did not mean the drudgery of learning, so much as the drudgery of looking after work;--of expecting briefs which perhaps will never come. I am thirty years old now, you know." "Are you indeed?" said Mrs. Low,--who knew his age to a day. "How the time passes. I'm sure I hope you'll get on, Mr. Finn. I do indeed." "I am sure he will, if he puts his shoulder to it," said Mr. Low. Neither the lawyer nor his wife repeated any of those sententious admonitions, which had almost become rebukes, and which had been so common in their mouths. The fall with which they had threatened Phineas Finn had come upon him, and they were too generous to remind him of their wisdom and sagacity. Indeed, when he got up to take his leave, Mrs. Low, who probably might not see him again for years, was quite affectionate in her manners to him, and looked as if she were almost minded to kiss him as she pressed his hand. "We will come and see you," she said, "when you are Master of the Rolls in Dublin." "We shall see him before then thundering at us poor Tories in the House," said Mr. Low. "He will be back again sooner or later." And so they parted. CHAPTER LXXV P. P. C. On the Thursday morning before Phineas went to Mr. Monk, a gentleman called upon him at his lodgings. Phineas requested the servant to bring up the gentleman's name, but tempted perhaps by a shilling the girl brought up the gentleman instead. It was Mr. Quintus Slide from the office of the "Banner of the People." "Mr. Finn," said Quintus, with his hand extended, "I have come to offer you the calumet of peace." Phineas certainly desired no such calumet. But to refuse a man's hand is to declare active war after a fashion which men do not like to adopt except on deliberation. He had never cared a straw for the abuse which Mr. Slide had poured upon him, and now he gave his hand to the man of letters. But he did not sit down, nor did he offer a seat to Mr. Slide. "I know that as a man of sense who knows the world, you will accept the calumet of peace," continued Mr. Slide. "I don't know why I should be asked particularly to accept war or peace," said Phineas. "Well, Mr. Finn,--I don't often quote the Bible; but those who are not for us must be against us. You will agree to that. Now that you've freed yourself from the iniquities of that sink of abomination in Downing Street, I look upon you as a man again." "Upon my word you are very kind." "As a man and also a brother. I suppose you know that I've got the _Banner_ into my own 'ands now." Phineas was obliged to explain that he had not hitherto been made acquainted with this great literary and political secret. "Oh dear, yes, altogether so. We've got rid of old Rusty as I used to call him. He wouldn't go the pace, and so we stripped him. He's doing the _West of England Art Journal_ now, and he 'angs out down at Bristol." "I hope he'll succeed, Mr. Slide." "He'll earn his wages. He's a man who will always earn his wages, but nothing more. Well, now, Mr. Finn, I will just offer you one word of apology for our little severities." "Pray do nothing of the kind." "Indeed I shall. Dooty is dooty. There was some things printed which were a little rough, but if one isn't a little rough there ain't no flavour. Of course I wrote 'em. You know my 'and, I dare say." "I only remember that there was some throwing of mud." "Just so. But mud don't break any bones; does it? When you turned against us I had to be down on you, and I was down upon you;--that's just about all of it. Now you're coming among us again, and so I come to you with a calumet of peace." "But I am not coming among you." "Yes you are, Finn, and bringing Monk with you." It was now becoming very disagreeable, and Phineas was beginning to perceive that it would soon be his turn to say something rough. "Now I'll tell you what my proposition is. If you'll do us two leaders a week through the session, you shall have a cheque for £16 on the last day of every month. If that's not honester money than what you got in Downing Street, my name is not Quintus Slide." "Mr. Slide," said Phineas,--and then he paused. "If we are to come to business, drop the Mister. It makes things go so much easier." "We are not to come to business, and I do not want things to go easy. I believe you said some things of me in your newspaper that were very scurrilous." "What of that? If you mind that sort of thing--" "I did not regard it in the least. You are quite welcome to continue it. I don't doubt but you will continue it. But you are not welcome to come here afterwards." "Do you mean to turn me out?" "Just that. You printed a heap of lies--" "Lies, Mr. Finn! Did you say lies, sir?" "I said lies;--lies;--lies!" And Phineas walked over at him as though he were going to pitch him instantly out of the window. "You may go and write as many more as you like. It is your trade, and you must do it or starve. But do not come to me again." Then he opened the door and stood with it in his hand. "Very well, sir. I shall know how to punish this." "Exactly. But if you please you'll go and do your punishment at the office of the _Banner_,--unless you like to try it here. You want to kick me and spit at me, but you will prefer to do it in print." "Yes, sir," said Quintus Slide. "I shall prefer to do it in print,--though I must own that the temptation to adopt the manual violence of a ruffian is great, very great, very great indeed." But he resisted the temptation and walked down the stairs, concocting his article as he went. Mr. Quintus Slide did not so much impede the business of his day but what Phineas was with Mr. Monk by two, and in his place in the House when prayers were read at four. As he sat in his place, conscious of the work that was before him, listening to the presentation of petitions, and to the formal reading of certain notices of motions, which with the asking of sundry questions occupied over half an hour, he looked back and remembered accurately his own feelings on a certain night on which he had intended to get up and address the House. The ordeal before him had then been so terrible, that it had almost obliterated for the moment his senses of hearing and of sight. He had hardly been able to perceive what had been going on around him, and had vainly endeavoured to occupy himself in recalling to his memory the words which he wished to pronounce. When the time for pronouncing them had come, he had found himself unable to stand upon his legs. He smiled as he recalled all this in his memory, waiting impatiently for the moment in which he might rise. His audience was assured to him now, and he did not fear it. His opportunity for utterance was his own, and even the Speaker could not deprive him of it. During these minutes he thought not at all of the words that he was to say. He had prepared his matter but had prepared no words. He knew that words would come readily enough to him, and that he had learned the task of turning his thoughts quickly into language while standing with a crowd of listeners around him,--as a practised writer does when seated in his chair. There was no violent beating at his heart now, no dimness of the eyes, no feeling that the ground was turning round under his feet. If only those weary vain questions would get themselves all asked, so that he might rise and begin the work of the night. Then there came the last thought as the House was hushed for his rising. What was the good of it all, when he would never have an opportunity of speaking there again? But not on that account would he be slack in his endeavour now. He would be listened to once at least, not as a subaltern of the Government but as the owner of a voice prominent in opposition to the Government. He had been taught by Mr. Monk that that was the one place in the House in which a man with a power of speaking could really enjoy pleasure without alloy. He would make the trial,--once, if never again. Things had so gone with him that the rostrum was his own, and a House crammed to overflowing was there to listen to him. He had given up his place in order that he might be able to speak his mind, and had become aware that many intended to listen to him while he spoke. He had observed that the rows of strangers were thick in the galleries, that peers were standing in the passages, and that over the reporter's head, the ribbons of many ladies were to be seen through the bars of their cage. Yes;--for this once he would have an audience. He spoke for about an hour, and while he was speaking he knew nothing about himself, whether he was doing it well or ill. Something of himself he did say soon after he had commenced,--not quite beginning with it, as though his mind had been laden with the matter. He had, he said, found himself compelled to renounce his happy allegiance to the First Lord of the Treasury, and to quit the pleasant company in which, humble as had been his place, he had been allowed to sit and act, by his unfortunate conviction in this great subject. He had been told, he said, that it was a misfortune in itself for one so young as he to have convictions. But his Irish birth and Irish connection had brought this misfortune of his country so closely home to him that he had found the task of extricating himself from it to be impossible. Of what further he said, speaking on that terribly unintelligible subject, a tenant-right proposed for Irish farmers, no English reader will desire to know much. Irish subjects in the House of Commons are interesting or are dull, are debated before a crowded audience composed of all who are leaders in the great world of London, or before empty benches, in accordance with the importance of the moment and the character of the debate. For us now it is enough to know that to our hero was accorded that attention which orators love,--which will almost make an orator if it can be assured. A full House with a promise of big type on the next morning would wake to eloquence the propounder of a Canadian grievance, or the mover of an Indian budget. Phineas did not stir out of the House till the division was over, having agreed with Mr. Monk that they two would remain through it all and hear everything that was to be said. Mr. Gresham had already spoken, and to Mr. Palliser was confided the task of winding up the argument for the Government. Mr. Robson spoke also, greatly enlivening the tedium of the evening, and to Mr. Monk was permitted the privilege of a final reply. At two o'clock the division came, and the Ministry were beaten by a majority of twenty-three. "And now," said Mr. Monk, as he again walked home with Phineas, "the pity is that we are not a bit nearer tenant-right than we were before." "But we are nearer to it." "In one sense, yes. Such a debate and such a majority will make men think. But no;--think is too high a word; as a rule men don't think. But it will make them believe that there is something in it. Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable;--and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made." "It is no loss of time," said Phineas, "to have taken the first great step in making it." "The first great step was taken long ago," said Mr. Monk,--"taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards." Two days after this Mr. Gresham declared his intention of dissolving the House because of the adverse division which had been produced by Mr. Monk's motion, but expressed a wish to be allowed to carry an Irish Reform Bill through Parliament before he did so. He explained how expedient this would be, but declared at the same time that if any strong opposition were made, he would abandon the project. His intention simply was to pass with regard to Ireland a measure which must be passed soon, and which ought to be passed before a new election took place. The bill was ready, and should be read for the first time on the next night, if the House were willing. The House was willing, though there were very many recalcitrant Irish members. The Irish members made loud opposition, and then twitted Mr. Gresham with his promise that he would not go on with his bill, if opposition were made. But, nevertheless, he did go on, and the measure was hurried through the two Houses in a week. Our hero who still sat for Loughshane, but who was never to sit for Loughshane again, gave what assistance he could to the Government, and voted for the measure which deprived Loughshane for ever of its parliamentary honours. "And very dirty conduct I think it was," said Lord Tulla, when he discussed the subject with his agent. "After being put in for the borough twice, almost free of expense, it was very dirty." It never occurred to Lord Tulla that a member of Parliament might feel himself obliged to vote on such a subject in accordance with his judgment. This Irish Reform Bill was scrambled through the two Houses, and then the session was over. The session was over, and they who knew anything of the private concerns of Mr. Phineas Finn were aware that he was about to return to Ireland, and did not intend to reappear on the scene which had known him so well for the last five years. "I cannot tell you how sad it makes me," said Mr. Monk. "And it makes me sad too," said Phineas. "I try to shake off the melancholy, and tell myself from day to day that it is unmanly. But it gets the better of me just at present." "I feel quite certain that you will come back among us again," said Mr. Monk. "Everybody tells me so; and yet I feel quite certain that I shall never come back,--never come back with a seat in Parliament. As my old tutor, Low, has told me scores of times, I began at the wrong end. Here I am, thirty years of age, and I have not a shilling in the world, and I do not know how to earn one." "Only for me you would still be receiving ever so much a year, and all would be pleasant," said Mr. Monk. "But how long would it have lasted? The first moment that Daubeny got the upper hand I should have fallen lower than I have fallen now. If not this year, it would have been the next. My only comfort is in this,--that I have done the thing myself, and have not been turned out." To the very last, however, Mr. Monk continued to express his opinion that Phineas would come back, declaring that he had known no instance of a young man who had made himself useful in Parliament, and then had been allowed to leave it in early life. Among those of whom he was bound to take a special leave, the members of the family of Lord Brentford were, of course, the foremost. He had already heard of the reconciliation of Miss Effingham and Lord Chiltern, and was anxious to offer his congratulation to both of them. And it was essential to him that he should see Lady Laura. To her he wrote a line, saying how much he hoped that he should be able to bid her adieu, and a time was fixed for his coming at which she knew that she would meet him alone. But, as chance ruled it, he came upon the two lovers together, and then remembered that he had hardly ever before been in the same room with both of them at the same time. "Oh, Mr. Finn, what a beautiful speech you made. I read every word of it," said Violet. "And I didn't even look at it, old fellow," said Chiltern, getting up and putting his arm on the other's shoulder in a way that was common with him when he was quite intimate with the friend near him. "Laura went down and heard it," said Violet. "I could not do that, because I was tied to my aunt. You can't conceive how dutiful I am during this last month." "And is it to be in a month, Chiltern?" said Phineas. "She says so. She arranges everything,--in concert with my father. When I threw up the sponge, I simply asked for a long day. 'A long day, my lord,' I said. But my father and Violet between them refused me any mercy." "You do not believe him," said Violet. "Not a word. If I did he would want to see me on the coast of Flanders again, I don't doubt. I have come to congratulate you both." "Thank you, Mr. Finn," said Violet, taking his hand with hearty kindness. "I should not have been quite happy without one nice word from you." "I shall try and make the best of it," said Chiltern. "But, I say, you'll come over and ride Bonebreaker again. He's down there at the Bull, and I've taken a little box close by. I can't stand the governor's county for hunting." "And will your wife go down to Willingford?" "Of course she will, and ride to hounds a great deal closer than I can ever do. Mind you come, and if there's anything in the stable fit to carry you, you shall have it." Then Phineas had to explain that he had come to bid them farewell, and that it was not at all probable that he should ever be able to see Willingford again in the hunting season. "I don't suppose that I shall make either of you quite understand it, but I have got to begin again. The chances are that I shall never see another foxhound all my life." "Not in Ireland!" exclaimed Lord Chiltern. "Not unless I should have to examine one as a witness. I have nothing before me but downright hard work; and a great deal of that must be done before I can hope to earn a shilling." "But you are so clever," said Violet. "Of course it will come quickly." "I do not mean to be impatient about it, nor yet unhappy," said Phineas. "Only hunting won't be much in my line." "And will you leave London altogether?" Violet asked. "Altogether. I shall stick to one club,--Brooks's; but I shall take my name off all the others." "What a deuce of a nuisance!" said Lord Chiltern. "I have no doubt you will be very happy," said Violet; "and you'll be a Lord Chancellor in no time. But you won't go quite yet." "Next Sunday." "You will return. You must be here for our wedding;--indeed you must. I will not be married unless you do." Even this, however, was impossible. He must go on Sunday, and must return no more. Then he made his little farewell speech, which he could not deliver without some awkward stuttering. He would think of her on the day of her marriage, and pray that she might be happy. And he would send her a little trifle before he went, which he hoped she would wear in remembrance of their old friendship. "She shall wear it, whatever it is, or I'll know the reason why," said Chiltern. "Hold your tongue, you rough bear!" said Violet. "Of course I'll wear it. And of course I'll think of the giver. I shall have many presents, but few that I will think of so much." Then Phineas left the room, with his throat so full that he could not speak another word. "He is still broken-hearted about you," said the favoured lover as soon as his rival had left the room. "It is not that," said Violet. "He is broken-hearted about everything. The whole world is vanishing away from him. I wish he could have made up his mind to marry that German woman with all the money." It must be understood, however, that Phineas had never spoken a word to any one as to the offer which the German woman had made to him. It was on the morning of the Sunday on which he was to leave London that he saw Lady Laura. He had asked that it might be so, in order that he might then have nothing more upon his mind. He found her quite alone, and he could see by her eyes that she had been weeping. As he looked at her, remembering that it was not yet six years since he had first been allowed to enter that room, he could not but perceive how very much she was altered in appearance. Then she had been three-and-twenty, and had not looked to be a day older. Now she might have been taken to be nearly forty, so much had her troubles preyed upon her spirit, and eaten into the vitality of her youth. "So you have come to say good-bye," she said, smiling as she rose to meet him. "Yes, Lady Laura;--to say good-bye. Not for ever, I hope, but probably for long." "No, not for ever. At any rate, we will not think so." Then she paused; but he was silent, sitting with his hat dangling in his two hands, and his eyes fixed upon the floor. "Do you know, Mr. Finn," she continued, "that sometimes I am very angry with myself about you." "Then it must be because you have been too kind to me." "It is because I fear that I have done much to injure you. From the first day that I knew you,--do you remember, when we were talking here, in this very room, about the beginning of the Reform Bill;--from that day I wished that you should come among us and be one of us." "I have been with you, to my infinite satisfaction,--while it lasted." "But it has not lasted, and now I fear that it has done you harm." "Who can say whether it has been for good or evil? But of this I am sure you will be certain,--that I am very grateful to you for all the goodness you have shown me." Then again he was silent. She did not know what it was that she wanted, but she did desire some expression from his lips that should be warmer than an expression of gratitude. An expression of love,--of existing love,--she would have felt to be an insult, and would have treated it as such. Indeed, she knew that from him no such insult could come. But she was in that morbid, melancholy state of mind which requires the excitement of more than ordinary sympathy, even though that sympathy be all painful; and I think that she would have been pleased had he referred to the passion for herself which he had once expressed. If he would have spoken of his love, and of her mistake, and have made some half-suggestion as to what might have been their lives had things gone differently,--though she would have rebuked him even for that,--still it would have comforted her. But at this moment, though he remembered much that had passed between them, he was not even thinking of the Braes of Linter. All that had taken place four years ago;--and there had been so many other things since which had moved him even more than that! "You have heard what I have arranged for myself?" she said at last. "Your father has told me that you are going to Dresden." "Yes;--he will accompany me,--coming home of course for Parliament. It is a sad break-up, is it not? But the lawyer says that if I remain here I may be subject to very disagreeable attempts from Mr. Kennedy to force me to go back again. It is odd, is it not, that he should not understand how impossible it is?" "He means to do his duty." "I believe so. But he becomes more stern every day to those who are with him. And then, why should I remain here? What is there to tempt me? As a woman separated from her husband I cannot take an interest in those things which used to charm me. I feel that I am crushed and quelled by my position, even though there is no disgrace in it." "No disgrace, certainly," said Phineas. "But I am nobody,--or worse than nobody." "And I also am going to be a nobody," said Phineas, laughing. "Ah; you are a man and will get over it, and you have many years before you will begin to be growing old. I am growing old already. Yes, I am. I feel it, and know it, and see it. A woman has a fine game to play; but then she is so easily bowled out, and the term allowed to her is so short." "A man's allowance of time may be short too," said Phineas. "But he can try his hand again." Then there was another pause. "I had thought, Mr. Finn, that you would have married," she said in her very lowest voice. "You knew all my hopes and fears about that." "I mean that you would have married Madame Goesler." "What made you think that, Lady Laura?" "Because I saw that she liked you, and because such a marriage would have been so suitable. She has all that you want. You know what they say of her now?" "What do they say?" "That the Duke of Omnium offered to make her his wife, and that she refused him for your sake." "There is nothing that people won't say;--nothing on earth," said Phineas. Then he got up and took his leave of her. He also wanted to part from her with some special expression of affection, but he did not know how to choose his words. He had wished that some allusion should be made, not to the Braes of Linter, but to the close confidence which had so long existed between them; but he found that the language to do this properly was wanting to him. Had the opportunity arisen he would have told her now the whole story of Mary Flood Jones; but the opportunity did not come, and he left her, never having mentioned the name of his Mary or having hinted at his engagement to any one of his friends in London. "It is better so," he said to himself. "My life in Ireland is to be a new life, and why should I mix two things together that will be so different?" He was to dine at his lodgings, and then leave them for good at eight o'clock. He had packed up everything before he went to Portman Square, and he returned home only just in time to sit down to his solitary mutton chop. But as he sat down he saw a small note addressed to himself lying on the table among the crowd of books, letters, and papers, of which he had still to make disposal. It was a very small note in an envelope of a peculiar tint of pink, and he knew the handwriting well. The blood mounted all over his face as he took it up, and he hesitated for a moment before he opened it. It could not be that the offer should be repeated to him. Slowly, hardly venturing at first to look at the enclosure, he opened it, and the words which it contained were as follows:-- I learn that you are going to-day, and I write a word which you will receive just as you are departing. It is to say merely this,--that when I left you the other day I was angry, not with you, but with myself. Let me wish you all good wishes and that prosperity which I know you will deserve, and which I think you will win. Yours very truly, M. M. G. Sunday morning. Should he put off his journey and go to her this very evening and claim her as his friend? The question was asked and answered in a moment. Of course he would not go to her. Were he to do so there would be only one possible word for him to say, and that word should certainly never be spoken. But he wrote to her a reply, shorter even than her own short note. Thanks, dear friend. I do not doubt but that you and I understand each other thoroughly, and that each trusts the other for good wishes and honest intentions. Always yours, P. F. I write these as I am starting. When he had written this, he kept it till the last moment in his hand, thinking that he would not send it. But as he slipped into the cab, he gave the note to his late landlady to post. At the station Bunce came to him to say a word of farewell, and Mrs. Bunce was on his arm. "Well done, Mr. Finn, well done," said Bunce. "I always knew there was a good drop in you." "You always told me I should ruin myself in Parliament, and so I have," said Phineas. "Not at all. It takes a deal to ruin a man if he's got the right sperrit. I've better hopes of you now than ever I had in the old days when you used to be looking out for Government place;--and Mr. Monk has tried that too. I thought he would find the iron too heavy for him." "God bless you, Mr. Finn," said Mrs. Bunce with her handkerchief up to her eyes. "There's not one of 'em I ever had as lodgers I've cared about half as much as I did for you." Then they shook hands with him through the window, and the train was off. CHAPTER LXXVI Conclusion We are told that it is a bitter moment with the Lord Mayor when he leaves the Mansion House and becomes once more Alderman Jones, of No. 75, Bucklersbury. Lord Chancellors going out of office have a great fall though they take pensions with them for their consolation. And the President of the United States when he leaves the glory of the White House and once more becomes a simple citizen must feel the change severely. But our hero, Phineas Finn, as he turned his back upon the scene of his many successes, and prepared himself for permanent residence in his own country, was, I think, in a worse plight than any of the reduced divinities to whom I have alluded. They at any rate had known that their fall would come. He, like Icarus, had flown up towards the sun, hoping that his wings of wax would bear him steadily aloft among the gods. Seeing that his wings were wings of wax, we must acknowledge that they were very good. But the celestial lights had been too strong for them, and now, having lived for five years with lords and countesses, with Ministers and orators, with beautiful women and men of fashion, he must start again in a little lodging in Dublin, and hope that the attorneys of that litigious city might be good to him. On his journey home he made but one resolution. He would make the change, or attempt to make it, with manly strength. During his last month in London he had allowed himself to be sad, depressed, and melancholy. There should be an end of all that now. Nobody at home should see that he was depressed. And Mary, his own Mary, should at any rate have no cause to think that her love and his own engagement had ever been the cause to him of depression. Did he not value her love more than anything in the world? A thousand times he told himself that he did. She was there in the old house at Killaloe to greet him. Her engagement was an affair known to all the county, and she had no idea that it would become her to be coy in her love. She was in his arms before he had spoken to his father and mother, and had made her little speech to him,--very inaudibly indeed,--while he was covering her sweet face with kisses. "Oh, Phineas, I am so proud of you; and I think you are so right, and I am so glad you have done it." Again he covered her face with kisses. Could he ever have had such satisfaction as this had he allowed Madame Goesler's hand to remain in his? On the first night of his arrival he sat for an hour downstairs with his father talking over his plans. He felt,--he could not but feel,--that he was not the hero now that he had been when he was last at Killaloe,--when he had come thither with a Cabinet Minister under his wing. And yet his father did his best to prevent the growth of any such feeling. The old doctor was not quite as well off as he had been when Phineas first started with his high hopes for London. Since that day he had abandoned his profession and was now living on the fruits of his life's labour. For the last two years he had been absolved from the necessity of providing an income for his son, and had probably allowed himself to feel that no such demand upon him would again be made. Now, however, it was necessary that he should do so. Could his son manage to live on two hundred a-year? There would then be four hundred a-year left for the wants of the family at home. Phineas swore that he could fight his battle on a hundred and fifty, and they ended the argument by splitting the difference. He had been paying exactly the same sum of money for the rooms he had just left in London; but then, while he held those rooms, his income had been two thousand a-year. Tenant-right was a very fine thing, but could it be worth such a fall as this? "And about dear Mary?" said the father. "I hope it may not be very long," said Phineas. "I have not spoken to her about it, but your mother says that Mrs. Flood Jones is very averse to a long engagement." "What can I do? She would not wish me to marry her daughter with no other income than an allowance made by you." "Your mother says that she has some idea that you and she might live together;--that if they let Floodborough you might take a small house in Dublin. Remember, Phineas, I am not proposing it myself." Then Phineas bethought himself that he was not even yet so low in the world that he need submit himself to terms dictated to him by Mrs. Flood Jones. "I am glad that you do not propose it, sir." "Why so, Phineas?" "Because I should have been obliged to oppose the plan even if it had come from you. Mothers-in-law are never a comfort in a house." "I never tried it myself," said the doctor. "And I never will try it. I am quite sure that Mary does not expect any such thing, and that she is willing to wait. If I can shorten the term of waiting by hard work, I will do so." The decision to which Phineas had come on this matter was probably made known to Mrs. Flood Jones after some mild fashion by old Mrs. Finn. Nothing more was said to Phineas about a joint household; but he was quite able to perceive from the manner of the lady towards him that his proposed mother-in-law wished him to understand that he was treating her daughter very badly. What did it signify? None of them knew the story of Madame Goesler, and of course none of them would know it. None of them would ever hear how well he had behaved to his little Mary. But Mary did know it all before he left her to go up to Dublin. The two lovers allowed themselves,--or were allowed by their elders, one week of exquisite bliss together; and during this week, Phineas told her, I think, everything. He told her everything as far as he could do so without seeming to boast of his own successes. How is a man not to tell such tales when he has on his arm, close to him, a girl who tells him her little everything of life, and only asks for his confidence in return? And then his secrets are so precious to her and so sacred, that he feels as sure of her fidelity as though she were a very goddess of faith and trust. And the temptation to tell is so great. For all that he has to tell she loves him the better and still the better. A man desires to win a virgin heart, and is happy to know,--or at least to believe,--that he has won it. With a woman every former rival is an added victim to the wheels of the triumphant chariot in which she is sitting. "All these has he known and loved, culling sweets from each of them. But now he has come to me, and I am the sweetest of them all." And so Mary was taught to believe of Laura and of Violet and of Madame Goesler,--that though they had had charms to please, her lover had never been so charmed as he was now while she was hanging to his breast. And I think that she was right in her belief. During those lovely summer evening walks along the shores of Lough Derg, Phineas was as happy as he had ever been at any moment of his life. "I shall never be impatient,--never," she said to him on the last evening. "All I want is that you should write to me." "I shall want more than that, Mary." "Then you must come down and see me. When you do come they will be happy, happy days for me. But of course we cannot be married for the next twenty years." "Say forty, Mary." "I will say anything that you like;--you will know what I mean just as well. And, Phineas, I must tell you one thing,--though it makes me sad to think of it, and will make me sad to speak of it." "I will not have you sad on our last night, Mary." "I must say it. I am beginning to understand how much you have given up for me." "I have given up nothing for you." "If I had not been at Killaloe when Mr. Monk was here, and if we had not,--had not,--oh dear, if I had not loved you so very much, you might have remained in London, and that lady would have been your wife." "Never!" said Phineas stoutly. "Would she not? She must not be your wife now, Phineas. I am not going to pretend that I will give you up." "That is unkind, Mary." "Oh, well; you may say what you please. If that is unkind, I am unkind. It would kill me to lose you." Had he done right? How could there be a doubt about it? How could there be a question about it? Which of them had loved him, or was capable of loving him as Mary loved him? What girl was ever so sweet, so gracious, so angelic, as his own Mary? He swore to her that he was prouder of winning her than of anything he had ever done in all his life, and that of all the treasures that had ever come in his way she was the most precious. She went to bed that night the happiest girl in all Connaught, although when she parted from him she understood that she was not to see him again till Christmas-Eve. But she did see him again before the summer was over, and the manner of their meeting was in this wise. Immediately after the passing of that scrambled Irish Reform Bill, Parliament, as the reader knows, was dissolved. This was in the early days of June, and before the end of July the new members were again assembled at Westminster. This session, late in summer, was very terrible; but it was not very long, and then it was essentially necessary. There was something of the year's business which must yet be done, and the country would require to know who were to be the Ministers of the Government. It is not needed that the reader should be troubled any further with the strategy of one political leader or of another, or that more should be said of Mr. Monk and his tenant-right. The House of Commons had offended Mr. Gresham by voting in a majority against him, and Mr. Gresham had punished the House of Commons by subjecting it to the expense and nuisance of a new election. All this is constitutional, and rational enough to Englishmen, though it may be unintelligible to strangers. The upshot on the present occasion was that the Ministers remained in their places and that Mr. Monk's bill, though it had received the substantial honour of a second reading, passed away for the present into the limbo of abortive legislation. All this would not concern us at all, nor our poor hero much, were it not that the great men with whom he had been for two years so pleasant a colleague, remembered him with something of affectionate regret. Whether it began with Mr. Gresham or with Lord Cantrip, I will not say;--or whether Mr. Monk, though now a political enemy, may have said a word that brought about the good deed. Be that as it may, just before the summer session was brought to a close Phineas received the following letter from Lord Cantrip:-- Downing Street, August 4, 186--. MY DEAR MR. FINN,-- Mr. Gresham has been talking to me, and we both think that possibly a permanent Government appointment may be acceptable to you. We have no doubt, that should this be the case, your services would be very valuable to the country. There is a vacancy for a poor-law inspector at present in Ireland, whose residence I believe should be in Cork. The salary is a thousand a-year. Should the appointment suit you, Mr. Gresham will be most happy to nominate you to the office. Let me have a line at your early convenience. Believe me, Most sincerely yours, CANTRIP. He received the letter one morning in Dublin, and within three hours he was on his route to Killaloe. Of course he would accept the appointment, but he would not even do that without telling Mary of his new prospect. Of course he would accept the appointment. Though he had been as yet barely two months in Dublin, though he had hardly been long enough settled to his work to have hoped to be able to see in which way there might be a vista open leading to success, still he had fancied that he had seen that success was impossible. He did not know how to begin,--and men were afraid of him, thinking that he was unsteady, arrogant, and prone to failure. He had not seen his way to the possibility of a guinea. "A thousand a-year!" said Mary Flood Jones, opening her eyes wide with wonder at the golden future before them. "It is nothing very great for a perpetuity," said Phineas. "Oh, Phineas; surely a thousand a-year will be very nice." "It will be certain," said Phineas, "and then we can be married to-morrow." "But I have been making up my mind to wait ever so long," said Mary. "Then your mind must be unmade," said Phineas. What was the nature of the reply to Lord Cantrip the reader may imagine, and thus we will leave our hero an Inspector of Poor Houses in the County of Cork. 
18640	----	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.