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 he