Robert!" Lord Chiltern shook his head. "You do not mean that Mr. Finn
has been--killed!". Again he shook his head; and then she sat down as
though the asking of the two questions had exhausted her.

"Speak, Oswald," said his wife. "Why do you not tell us? Is it one
whom we knew?"

"I think that Laura used to know him. Mr. Bonteen was murdered last
night in the streets."

"Mr. Bonteen! The man who was Mr. Finn's enemy," said Lady Chiltern.

"Mr. Bonteen!" said Lady Laura, as though the murder of twenty Mr.
Bonteens were nothing to her.

"Yes;--the man whom you talk of as Finn's enemy. It would be better
if there were no such talk."

"And who killed him?" said Lady Laura, again getting up and coming
close to her brother.

"Who was it, Oswald?" asked his wife; and she also was now too deeply
interested to keep her seat.

"They have arrested two men," said Lord Chiltern;--"that Jew who
married Lady Eustace, and--" But there he paused. He had determined
beforehand that he would tell his sister the double arrest that the
doubt this implied might lessen the weight of the blow; but now he
found it almost impossible to mention the name.

"Who is the other, Oswald?" said his wife.

"Not Phineas," screamed Lady Laura.

"Yes, indeed; they have arrested him, and I have just come from
the court." He had no time to go on, for his sister was crouching
prostrate on the floor before him. She had not fainted. Women do
not faint under such shocks. But in her agony she had crouched down
rather than fallen, as though it were vain to attempt to stand
upright with so crushing a weight of sorrow on her back. She uttered
one loud shriek, and then covering her face with her hands burst out
into a wail of sobs. Lady Chiltern and her brother both tried to
raise her, but she would not be lifted. "Why will you not hear me
through, Laura?" said he.

"You do not think he did it?" said his wife.

"I'm sure he did not," replied Lord Chiltern.

The poor woman, half-lying, half-seated, on the floor, still hiding
her face with her hands, still bursting with half suppressed sobs,
heard and understood both the question and the answer. But the fact
was not altered to her,--nor the condition of the man she loved.
She had not yet begun to think whether it were possible that he
should have been guilty of such a crime. She had heard none of the
circumstances, and knew nothing of the manner of the man's death. It
might be that Phineas had killed