rs out of town because a poor
creature such as I am is ill!" But in truth the Duke of St. Bungay
hardly believed in this illness. The Prime Minister was unhappy
rather than ill.

By this time everybody in the House,--and almost everybody in the
country who read the newspapers,--had heard of Mr. Lopez and his
election expenses,--except the Duchess. No one had yet dared to tell
her. She saw the newspapers daily, but probably did not read them
very attentively. Nevertheless she knew that something was wrong. Mr.
Warburton hovered about the Prime Minister more tenderly than usual;
the Duke of St. Bungay was more concerned; the world around her was
more mysterious, and her husband more wretched. "What is it that's
going on?" she said one day to Phineas Finn.

"Everything,--in the same dull way as usual."

"If you don't tell me, I'll never speak to you again. I know there is
something wrong."

"The Duke, I'm afraid, is not quite well."

"What makes him ill? I know well when he's ill and when he's well.
He's troubled by something."

"I think he is, Duchess. But as he has not spoken to me I am loath to
make guesses. If there be anything, I can only guess at it."

Then she questioned Mrs. Finn, and got an answer which, if not
satisfactory, was at any rate explanatory. "I think he is uneasy
about that Silverbridge affair."

"What Silverbridge affair?"

"You know that he paid the expenses which that man Lopez says that he
incurred."

"Yes;--I know that."

"And you know that that other man Slide has found it out, and
published it all in the 'People's Banner'?"

"No!"

"Yes, indeed. And a whole army of accusations has been brought
against him. I have never liked to tell you, and yet I do not think
that you should be left in the dark."

"Everybody deceives me," said the Duchess angrily.

"Nay;--there has been no deceit."

"Everybody keeps things from me. I think you will kill me among you.
It was my doing. Why do they attack him? I will write to the papers.
I encouraged the man after Plantagenet had determined that he should
not be assisted,--and, because I had done so, he paid the man his
beggarly money. What is there to hurt him in that? Let me bear it. My
back is broad enough."

"The Duke is very sensitive."

"I hate people to be sensitive. It makes them cowards. A man when he
is afraid of being blamed, dares not at last even show himself, and
has to be wrapped up in lamb's wool."

"Of course men are di