now he'll say whatever he thinks most likely to
forward his own views. But upon my word he put it very strongly. He
brought it all within so very short a space of time! Bonteen and Finn
left the club within a minute of each other. Bonteen must have been
at the top of the passage five minutes afterwards, and Phineas at
that moment could not have been above two hundred yards from him.
There can be no doubt of that."

"Oswald, you don't mean to say that it's going against him!"
exclaimed Lady Chiltern.

"It's not going any way at present. The witnesses have not been
examined. But so far, I suppose, the Attorney-General was right. He
has got to prove it all, but so much no doubt he can prove. He can
prove that the man was killed with some blunt weapon, such as Finn
had. And he can prove that exactly at the same time a man was running
to the spot very like to Finn, and that by a route which would not
have been his route, but by using which he could have placed himself
at that moment where the man was seen."

"How very dreadful!" said Miss Palliser.

"And yet I feel that I know it was that other man," said Lady
Chiltern. Lady Laura sat silent through it all, listening with her
eyes intent on her brother's face, with her elbow on the table and
her brow on her hand. She did not speak a word till she found herself
alone with her sister-in-law, and then it was hardly more than a
word. "Violet, they will murder him!" Lady Chiltern endeavoured to
comfort her, telling her that as yet they had heard but one side of
the case; but the wretched woman only shook her head. "I know they
will murder him," she said, "and then when it is too late they will
find out what they have done!"

On the following day the crowd in Court was if possible greater, so
that the benchfellows were very much squeezed indeed. But it was
impossible to exclude from the high seat such men as Mr. Ratler and
Lord Fawn when they were required in the Court as witnesses;--and not
a man who had obtained a seat on the first day was willing to be
excluded on the second. And even then the witnesses were not called
at once. Sir Gregory Grogram began the work of the day by saying
that he had heard that morning for the first time that one of
his witnesses had been,--"tampered with" was the word that he
unfortunately used,--by his learned friend on the other side. He
alluded, of course, to Lord Fawn, and poor Lord Fawn, sitting up
there on the seat of honour, visible to