rom that duty. The House, as a
House of Parliament, could only recognise the verdict of the jury
as to the man's guilt. The Queen, of course, might pardon whom she
pleased, but no pardon from the Queen would remove the guilt implied
by the sentence. Many went much further than this, and were prepared
to prove that were he once condemned he could not afterwards sit in
the House, even if re-elected.

Now there was unquestionably an intense desire,--since the arrival of
these telegrams,--that Phineas Finn should retain his seat. It may be
a question whether he would not have been the most popular man in the
House could he have sat there on the day after the telegrams arrived.
The Attorney-General had declared,--and many others had declared
with him,--that this information about the latch-key did not in
the least affect the evidence as given against Mr. Finn. Could it
have been possible to convict the other man, merely because he had
surreptitiously caused a door-key of the house in which he lived
to be made for him? And how would this new information have been
received had Lord Fawn sworn unreservedly that the man he had seen
running out of the mews had been Phineas Finn? It was acknowledged
that the latchkey could not be accepted as sufficient evidence
against Mealyus. But nevertheless the information conveyed by the
telegrams altogether changed the opinion of the public as to the
guilt or innocence of Phineas Finn. His life now might have been
insured, as against the gallows, at a very low rate. It was felt
that no jury could convict him, and he was much more pitied in
being subjected to a prolonged incarceration than even those twelve
unfortunate men who had felt sure that the Wednesday would have been
the last day of their unmerited martyrdom.

Phineas in his prison was materially circumstanced precisely as
he had been before the trial. He was supplied with a profusion of
luxuries, could they have comforted him; and was allowed to receive
visitors. But he would see no one but his sisters,--except that he
had one interview with Mr. Low. Even Mr. Low found it difficult to
make him comprehend the exact condition of the affair, and could not
induce him to be comforted when he did understand it. What had he to
do,--how could his innocence or his guilt be concerned,--with the
manufacture of a paltry key by such a one as Mealyus? How would it
have been with him and with his name for ever if this fact had not
been discovere