“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. Goodbye 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. Today 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.”
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
