y. Of course the Jew did it. But then all the
evidence goes to show that he didn't do it. He was in bed at the
time; and the door of the house was locked up so that he couldn't get
out; and the man who did the murder hadn't got on his coat, but had
got on Phineas Finn's coat."

"Was there--blood?" asked Madame Goesler, shaking from head to foot.

"Not that I know. I don't suppose they've looked yet. But Lord Fawn
saw the man, and swears to the coat."

"Lord Fawn! How I have always hated that man! I wouldn't believe a
word he would say."

"Barrington doesn't think so much of the coat. But Phineas had a club
in his pocket, and the man was killed by a club. There hasn't been
any other club found, but Phineas Finn took his home with him."

"A murderer would not have done that."

"Barrington says that the head policeman says that it is just what a
very clever murderer would do."

"Do you believe it, Duchess?"

"Certainly not;--not though Lord Fawn swore that he had seen it. I
never will believe what I don't like to believe, and nothing shall
ever make me."

"He couldn't have done it."

"Well;--for the matter of that, I suppose he could."

"No, Duchess, he could not have done it."

"He is strong enough,--and brave enough."

"But not enough of a coward. There is nothing cowardly about him.
If Phineas Finn could have struck an enemy with a club, in a dark
passage, behind his back, I will never care to speak to any man
again. Nothing shall make me believe it. If I did, I could never
again believe in any one. If they told you that your husband had
murdered a man, what would you say?"

"But he isn't your husband, Madame Max."

"No;--certainly not. I cannot fly at them, when they say so, as you
would do. But I can be just as sure. If twenty Lord Fawns swore that
they had seen it, I would not believe them. Oh, God, what will they
do with him!"

The Duchess behaved very well to her friend, saying not a single word
to twit her with the love which she betrayed. She seemed to take
it as a matter of course that Madame Goesler's interest in Phineas
Finn should be as it was. The Duke, she said, could not come home
to dinner, and Madame Goesler should stay with her. Both Houses
were in such a ferment about the murder, that nobody liked to be
away. Everybody had been struck with amazement, not simply,--not
chiefly,--by the fact of the murder, but by the double destruction of
the two men whose ill-will to each other had