I'm not back, go in all the same, and tell
them to bring you tea.

"Only think of Lady Laura,--with one mad and the other in Newgate!
G.P."

This letter gave Madame Goesler such a blow that for a few minutes
it altogether knocked her down. After reading it once she hardly
knew what it contained beyond a statement that Phineas Finn was in
Newgate. She sat for a while with it in her hands, almost swooning;
and then with an effort she recovered herself, and read the letter
again. Mr. Bonteen murdered, and Phineas Finn,--who had dined with
her only yesterday evening, with whom she had been talking of all the
sins of the murdered man, who was her special friend, of whom she
thought more than of any other human being, of whom she could not
bring herself to cease to think,--accused of the murder! Believe
it! The Duchess had declared with that sort of enthusiasm which was
common to her, that she never would believe it. No, indeed! What
judge of character would any one be who could believe that Phineas
Finn could be guilty of a midnight murder? "I vote we stick to him."
"Stick to him!" Madame Goesler said, repeating the words to herself.
"What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?" How
can a woman cling to a man who, having said that he did not want her,
yet comes again within her influence, but does not unsay what he had
said before? Nevertheless, if it should be that the man was in real
distress,--in absolutely dire sorrow,--she would cling to him with a
constancy which, as she thought, her friend the Duchess would hardly
understand. Though they should hang him, she would bathe his body
with her tears, and live as a woman should live who had loved a
murderer to the last.

But she swore to herself that she would not believe it. Nay, she did
not believe it. Believe it, indeed! It was simply impossible. That he
might have killed the wretch in some struggle brought on by the man's
own fault was possible. Had the man attacked Phineas Finn it was only
too probable that there might have been such result. But murder,
secret midnight murder, could not have been committed by the man
she had chosen as her friend. And yet, through it all, there was a
resolve that even though he should have committed murder she would
be true to him. If it should come to the very worst, then would she
declare the intensity of the affection with which she regarded the
murderer. As to Mr. Bonteen, what the Duchess said was true enough;