ey please. But I think he mistakes the
matter. When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling him
to be straight. He'd be straight if he could. A man can't eat his
dinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well."

"But he may follow advice as to getting his liver in order again."

"And so am I following advice. But Low seems to think the disease
shouldn't be there. The disease is there, and I can't banish it by
simply saying that it is not there. If they had hung me outright it
would be almost as reasonable to come and tell me afterwards to shake
myself and be again alive. I don't think that Low realises what it is
to stand in the dock for a week together, with the eyes of all men
fixed on you, and a conviction at your heart that every one there
believes you to have been guilty of an abominable crime of which you
know yourself to have been innocent. For weeks I lived under the
belief that I was to be made away by the hangman, and to leave behind
me a name that would make every one who has known me shudder."

"God in His mercy has delivered you from that."

"He has;--and I am thankful. But my back is not strong enough to bear
the weight without bending under it. Did you see Ratler going in?
There is a man I dread. He is intimate enough with me to congratulate
me, but not friend enough to abstain, and he will be sure to say
something about his murdered colleague. Very well;--I'll follow you.
Go up rather quick, and I'll come close after you." Whereupon Mr.
Monk entered between the two lamp-posts in the hall, and, hurrying
along the passages, soon found himself at the door of the House.
Phineas, with an effort at composure, and a smile that was almost
ghastly at the door-keeper, who greeted him with some muttered word
of recognition, held on his way close behind his friend, and walked
up the House hardly conscious that the benches on each side were
empty. There were not a dozen members present, and the Speaker had
not as yet taken the chair. Mr. Monk stood by him while he took the
oath, and in two minutes he was on a back seat below the gangway,
with his friend by him, while the members, in slowly increasing
numbers, took their seats. Then there were prayers, and as yet not a
single man had spoken to him. As soon as the doors were again open
gentlemen streamed in, and some few whom Phineas knew well came and
sat near him. One or two shook hands with him, but no one said a word
to him of the trial.