produce no heat,—­only an access of firmness.  How would it have been with her had she thrown all ideas of fortune to the winds, and linked her lot to that of the young Phoebus who was lying at her feet?  If she had ever loved any one she had loved him.  And she had not thrown away her love for money.  So she swore to herself over and over again, trying to console herself in her cold unhappiness.  She had married a rich man in order that she might be able to do something in the world;—­and now that she was this rich man’s wife she found that she could do nothing.  The rich man thought it to be quite enough for her to sit at home and look after his welfare.  In the meantime young Phoebus,—­her Phoebus as he had been once,—­was thinking altogether of some one else.

“Phineas,” she said, slowly, “I have in you such perfect confidence that I will tell you the truth;—­as one man may tell it to another.  I wish you would go from here.”

“What, at once?”

“Not to-day, or to-morrow.  Stay here now till the election; but do not return.  He will ask you to come, and press you hard, and will be hurt;—­for, strange to say, with all his coldness, he really likes you.  He has a pleasure in seeing you here.  But he must not have that pleasure at the expense of trouble to me.”

“And why is it a trouble to you?” he asked.  Men are such fools;—­so awkward, so unready, with their wits ever behind the occasion by a dozen seconds or so!  As soon as the words were uttered, he knew that they should not have been spoken.

“Because I am a fool,” she said.  “Why else?  Is not that enough for you?”

“Laura—­,” he said.

“No,—­no; I will have none of that.  I am a fool, but not such a fool as to suppose that any cure is to be found there.”

“Only say what I can do for you, though it be with my entire life, and I will do it.”

“You can do nothing,—­except to keep away from me.”

“Are you earnest in telling me that?” Now at last he had turned himself round and was looking at her, and as he looked he saw the hat of a man appearing up the path, and immediately afterwards the face.  It was the hat and face of the laird of Loughlinter.  “Here is Mr. Kennedy,” said Phineas, in a tone of voice not devoid of dismay and trouble.

“So I perceive,” said Lady Laura.  But there was no dismay or trouble in the tone of her voice.

In the countenance of Mr. Kennedy, as he approached closer, there was not much to be read,—­only, perhaps, some slight addition of gloom, or rather, perhaps, of that frigid propriety of moral demeanour for which he had always been conspicuous, which had grown upon him at his marriage, and which had been greatly increased by the double action of being made a Cabinet Minister and being garrotted.  “I am glad that your headache is better,” he said to his wife, who had risen from her seat to meet him.  Phineas also had risen, and was now looking somewhat sheepish where he stood.