ble, Mr. Finn?"

"Oh, yes," said Phineas.

"Not that Loughlinter can be comfortable now to any one. How can a
man, whose wife has deserted him, entertain his guests? I am ashamed
even to look a friend in the face, Mr. Finn." As he said this he
stretched forth his open hand as though to hide his countenance, and
Phineas hardly knew whether the absurdity of the movement or the
tragedy of the feeling struck him the more forcibly. "What did I do
that she should leave me? Did I strike her? Was I faithless? Had she
not the half of all that was mine? Did I frighten her by hard words,
or exact hard tasks? Did I not commune with her, telling her all my
most inward purposes? In things of this world, and of that better
world that is coming, was she not all in all to me? Did I not make
her my very wife? Mr. Finn, do you know what made her go away?" He
had asked perhaps a dozen questions. As to the eleven which came
first it was evident that no answer was required; and they had been
put with that pathetic dignity with which it is so easy to invest
the interrogatory form of address. But to the last question it was
intended that Phineas should give an answer, as Phineas presumed
at once; and then it was asked with a wink of the eye, a low eager
voice, and a sly twist of the face that were frightfully ludicrous.
"I suppose you do know," said Mr. Kennedy, again working his eye,
and thrusting his chin forward.

"I imagine that she was not happy."

"Happy? What right had she to expect to be happy? Are we to believe
that we should be happy here? Are we not told that we are to look
for happiness there, and to hope for none below?" As he said this he
stretched his left hand to the ceiling. "But why shouldn't she have
been happy? What did she want? Did she ever say anything against me,
Mr. Finn?"

"Nothing but this,--that your temper and hers were incompatible."

"I thought at one time that you advised her to go away?"

"Never!"

"She told you about it?"

"Not, if I remember, till she had made up her mind, and her father
had consented to receive her. I had known, of course, that things
were unpleasant."

"How were they unpleasant? Why were they unpleasant? She wouldn't let
you come and dine with me in London. I never knew why that was. When
she did what was wrong, of course I had to tell her. Who else should
tell her but her husband? If you had been her husband, and I only
an acquaintance, then I might have said what I pleased.