“Yes, Phineas, a mistake.  I have blundered as fools blunder, thinking that I was clever enough to pick my footsteps aright without asking counsel from any one.  I have blundered and stumbled and fallen, and now I am so bruised that I am not able to stand upon my feet.”  The word that struck him most in all this was his own Christian name.  She had never called him Phineas before.  He was aware that the circle of his acquaintance had fallen into a way of miscalling him by his Christian name, as one observes to be done now and again in reference to some special young man.  Most of the men whom he called his friends called him Phineas.  Even the Earl had done so more than once on occasions in which the greatness of his position had dropped for a moment out of his mind.  Mrs. Low had called him Phineas when she regarded him as her husband’s most cherished pupil; and Mrs. Bunce had called him Mr. Phineas.  He had always been Phineas to everybody at Killaloe.  But still he was quite sure that Lady Laura had never so called him before.  Nor would she have done so now in her husband’s presence.  He was sure of that also.

“You mean that you are unhappy?” he said, still looking away from her towards the lake.

“Yes, I do mean that.  Though I do not know why I should come and tell you so,—­except that I am still blundering and stumbling, and have fallen into a way of hurting myself at every step.”

“You can tell no one who is more anxious for your happiness,” said Phineas.

“That is a very pretty speech, but what would you do for my happiness?  Indeed, what is it possible that you should do?  I mean it as no rebuke when I say that my happiness or unhappiness is a matter as to which you will soon become perfectly indifferent.”

“Why should you say so, Lady Laura?”

“Because it is natural that it should be so.  You and Mr. Kennedy might have been friends.  Not that you will be, because you are unlike each other in all your ways.  But it might have been so.”

“And are not you and I to be friends?” he asked.

“No.  In a very few months you will not think of telling me what are your desires or what your sorrows;—­and as for me, it will be out of the question that I should tell mine to you.  How can you be my friend?”

“If you were not quite sure of my friendship, Lady Laura, you would not speak to me as you are speaking now.”  Still he did not look at her, but lay with his face supported on his hands, and his eyes turned away upon the lake.  But she, where she was sitting, could see him, and was aided by her sight in making comparisons in her mind between the two men who had been her lovers,—­between him whom she had taken and him whom she had left.  There was something in the hard, dry, unsympathising, unchanging virtues of her husband which almost revolted her.  He had not a fault, but she had tried him at every point and had been able to strike no spark of fire from him.  Even by disobeying she could