at event had come to
her at her father's house in Portman Square, on the day after that
on which Phineas had been arrested, and the Earl had of course known
that his great longing for the recovery of his wife's fortune had
been now realised. To him there was no sorrow in the news. He had
only known Robert Kennedy as one who had been thoroughly disagreeable
to himself, and who had persecuted his daughter throughout
their married life. There had come no happiness,--not even
prosperity,--through the marriage. His daughter had been forced to
leave the man's house,--and had been forced also to leave her money
behind her. Then she had been driven abroad, fearing persecution, and
had only dared to return when the man's madness became so notorious
as to annul his power of annoying her. Now by his death, a portion
of the injury which he had inflicted on the great family of Standish
would be remedied. The money would come back,--together with the
stipulated jointure,--and there could no longer be any question of
return. The news delighted the old Lord,--and he was almost angry
with his daughter because she also would not confess her delight.

"Oh, Papa, he was my husband."

"Yes, yes, no doubt. I was always against it, you will remember."

"Pray do not talk in that way now, Papa. I know that I was not to him
what I should have been."

"You used to say it was all his fault."

"We will not talk of it now, Papa. He is gone, and I remember his
past goodness to me."

She clothed herself in the deepest of mourning, and made herself a
thing of sorrow by the sacrificial uncouthness of her garments. And
she tried to think of him;--to think of him, and not to think of
Phineas Finn. She remembered with real sorrow the words she had
spoken to her sister-in-law, in which she had declared, while still
the wife of another man, that she would willingly marry Phineas at
the foot even of the gallows if she were free. She was free now; but
she did not repeat her assertion. It was impossible not to think of
Phineas in his present strait, but she abstained from speaking of him
as far as she could, and for the present never alluded to her former
purpose of visiting him in his prison.

From day to day, for the first few days of her widowhood, she heard
what was going on. The evidence against him became stronger and
stronger, whereas the other man, Yosef Mealyus, had been already
liberated. There were still many who felt sure that Mealyus had b