ventured to look at him again there was no sign of fresh drops falling.
His eyelids kept shut.

The arrival of her diurnal basket of provisions offered a refreshing
intervention of the commonplace. Bright air had sharpened his appetite:
he said he had been sure it would, and anticipated cheating the doctor of
a part of the sentence which condemned him to lie on his back up to the
middle of June, a log. Jane was hungry too, and they feasted together
gaily, talking of Kathleen on her journey, her strange impressions and
her way of proclaiming them, and of Patrick and where he might be now;
ultimately of Captain Con and Mrs. Adister.

'He has broken faith with her,' Philip said sternly. 'She will have the
right to tell him so. He never can be anything but a comic politician.
Still he was bound to consult his wife previous to stepping before the
public. He knows that he married a fortune.'

'A good fortune,' said Jane.

Philip acquiesced. 'She is an excellent woman, a model of uprightness;
she has done him all the good in the world, and here is he deceiving her,
lying--there is no other word: and one lie leads to another. When he
married a fortune he was a successful adventurer. The compact was
understood. His duty as a man of honour is to be true to his bond and
serve the lady. Falseness to his position won't wash him clean of the
title.'

Jane pleaded for Captain Con. 'He is chivalrously attentive to her.'

'You have read his letter,' Philip replied.

He crushed her charitable apologies with references to the letter.

'We are not certain that Mrs. Adister will object,' said she.

'Do you see her reading a speech of her husband's?' he remarked.
Presently with something like a moan:

'And I am her guest!'

'Oh! pray, do not think Mrs. Adister will ever allow you to feel the
lightest shadow . . .' said Jane.

'No; that makes it worse.'

Had this been the burden of his thoughts when those two solitary tears
forced their passage?

Hardly: not even in his physical weakness would he consent to weep for
such a cause.

'I forgot to mention that Mrs. Adister has a letter from her husband
telling her he has been called over to Ireland on urgent business,' she
said.

Philip answered: 'He is punctilious.'

'I wish indeed he had been more candid,' Jane assented to the sarcasm.

'In Ireland he is agreeably surprised by the flattering proposal of a
vacant seat, and not having an instant to debate on it, assumes t