use 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