the man, bringing himself within the
reach of the law, and that yet he should have done nothing to merit
her reproaches;--hardly even her reprobation! Hitherto she felt only
the sorrow, the annihilation of the blow;--but not the shame with
which it would overwhelm the man for whom she so much coveted the
good opinion of the world.

"You hear what he says, Laura."

"They are determined to destroy him," she sobbed out, through her
tears.

"They are not determined to destroy him at all," said Lord Chiltern.
"It will have to go by evidence. You had better sit up and let me
tell you all. I will tell you nothing till you are seated again. You
disgrace yourself by sprawling there."

"Do not be hard to her, Oswald."

"I am disgraced," said Lady Laura, slowly rising and placing herself
again on the sofa. "If there is anything more to tell, you can tell
it. I do not care what happens to me now, or who knows it. They
cannot make my life worse than it is."

Then he told all the story,--of the quarrel, and the position of the
streets, of the coat, and the bludgeon, and the three blows, each on
the head, by which the man had been killed. And he told them also how
the Jew was said never to have been out of his bed, and how the Jew's
coat was not the coat Lord Fawn had seen, and how no stain of blood
had been found about the raiment of either of the men. "It was the
Jew who did it, Oswald, surely," said Lady Chiltern.

"It was not Phineas Finn who did it," he replied.

"And they will let him go again?"

"They will let him go when they find out the truth, I suppose. But
those fellows blunder so, I would never trust them. He will get some
sharp lawyer to look into it; and then perhaps everything will come
out. I shall go and see him to-morrow. But there is nothing further
to be done."

"And I must see him," said Lady Laura slowly.

Lady Chiltern looked at her husband, and his face became redder than
usual with an angry flush. When his sister had pressed him to take
her message about the money, he had assured her that he suspected her
of no evil. Nor had he ever thought evil of her. Since her marriage
with Mr. Kennedy, he had seen but little of her or of her ways of
life. When she had separated herself from her husband he had approved
of the separation, and had even offered to assist her should she
be in difficulty. While she had been living a sad lonely life at
Dresden, he had simply pitied her, declaring to himself and hi