parent
defection in his faith. "I have made up my mind to one thing,"
Phineas said to him at the end of the ten days.

"And what is the one thing?"

"I will give up my seat."

"I do not see a shadow of a reason for it."

"Nevertheless I will do it. Indeed, I have already written to Mr.
Ratler for the Hundreds. There may be and probably are men down
at Tankerville who still think that I am guilty. There is an
offensiveness in murder which degrades a man even by the accusation.
I suppose it wouldn't do for you to move for the new writ."

"Ratler will do it, as a matter of course. No doubt there will be
expressions of great regret, and my belief is that they will return
you again."

"If so, they'll have to do it without my presence."

Mr. Ratler did move for a new writ for the borough of Tankerville,
and within a fortnight of his restoration to liberty Phineas Finn was
no longer a Member of Parliament. It cannot be alleged that there
was any reason for what he did, and yet the doing of it for the time
rather increased than diminished his popularity. Both Mr. Gresham and
Mr. Daubeny expressed their regret in the House, and Mr. Monk said a
few words respecting his friend, which were very touching. He ended
by expressing a hope that they soon might see him there again, and an
opinion that he was a man peculiarly fitted by the tone of his mind,
and the nature of his intellect, for the duties of Parliament.

Then at last, when all this had been settled, he went to Lord
Brentford's house in Portman Square. He had promised that that should
be the first house he would visit, and he was as good as his word.
One evening he crept out, and walked slowly along Oxford Street, and
knocked timidly at the door. As he did so he longed to be told that
Lady Laura was not at home. But Lady Laura was at home,--as a matter
of course. In those days she never went into society, and had not
passed an evening away from her father's house since Mr. Kennedy's
death. He was shown up into the drawing-room in which she sat, and
there he found her--alone. "Oh, Phineas, I am so glad you have come."

"I have done as I said, you see."

"I could not go to you when they told me that you were ill. You will
have understood all that?"

"Yes; I understand."

"People are so hard, and cold, and stiff, and cruel, that one can
never do what one feels, oneself, to be right. So you have given up
your seat."

"Yes,--I am no longer a Member of Parliament