of her, and did so with no warmer expressions of
regard on either side than have here been given. Then he crept back
to his lodgings, and she sat weeping alone in her father's house.
When he had come to her during her husband's lifetime at Dresden, or
even when she had visited him at his prison, it had been better than
this.

CHAPTER LXIX

The Duke's First Cousin

Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the
troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly
represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the
time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to
the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance
or a cynical disposition. But other things went on also. Moons
waxed and waned; children were born; marriages were contracted; and
the hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an
end because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had
interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last
saw under the affliction of Mr. Spooner's love,--but who before that
had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own
lover. She had desired him to free her,--and he had gone. Indeed,
as to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as
he considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern's
house. The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss
Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances
he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern
had said something about "his roof." Now, when a host questions the
propriety of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged
to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart
by a most impolite allusion to Boulogne, had been forced to go as
a rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing,--not
because he was contented with the lot assigned to him, for every
morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve,
he swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide
Palliser,--but simply because to do nothing was customary with him.
"What is a man to do?" he not unnaturally asked his friend Captain
Boodle at the club. "Let her out on the grass for a couple of
months," said Captain Boodle, "and she'll come up as clean as a
whistle. When they get these humours there's nothing like giving them
a run." Captain Boodle