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 daresay. 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 K?nigstein; and there as they wandered along the fortress constructed on that wonderful rock there occurred between them a conversation which he never forgot, and which it would not have been easy to forget. His own prospects had of course been frequently discussed. He had told her everything, down to the exact amount of money which he had to support him till he should again be enabled to earn an income, and had received assurances from her that everything would be just as it should be after a lapse of a few months. The Liberals would, as a matter of course, come in, and equally as a matter of course, Phineas would be in office. She spoke of this with such certainty that she almost convinced him. Having tempted him away from the safety of permanent income, the party could not do less than provide for him. If he could only secure a seat he would be safe; and it seemed that Tankerville would be a certain seat. This certainty he would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend. When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise. It was a matter of course that he should return to public life — 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 also 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 ............