On the Sunday which afforded some rest in the middle of the great Reform debate Lady Laura asked for Mr. Finn, and no one could answer her question.  And then it was remembered that Laurence Fitzgibbon was also absent.  Barrington Erle knew nothing of Phineas,—­had heard nothing; but was able to say that Fitzgibbon had been with Mr. Ratler, the patronage secretary and liberal whip, early on Thursday, expressing his intention of absenting himself for two days.  Mr. Ratler had been wroth, bidding him remain at his duty, and pointing out to him the great importance of the moment.  Then Barrington Erle quoted Laurence Fitzgibbon’s reply.  “My boy,” said Laurence to poor Ratler, “the path of duty leads but to the grave.  All the same; I’ll be in at the death, Ratler, my boy, as sure as the sun’s in heaven.”  Not ten minutes after the telling of this little story, Fitzgibbon entered the room in Portman Square, and Lady Laura at once asked him after Phineas.  “Bedad, Lady Laura, I have been out of town myself for two days, and I know nothing.”

“Mr. Finn has not been with you, then?”

“With me!  No,—­not with me.  I had a job of business of my own which took me over to Paris.  And has Phinny fled too?  Poor Ratler!  I shouldn’t wonder if it isn’t an asylum he’s in before the session is over.”

Laurence Fitzgibbon certainly possessed the rare accomplishment of telling a lie with a good grace.  Had any man called him a liar he would have considered himself to be not only insulted, but injured also.  He believed himself to be a man of truth.  There were, however, in his estimation certain subjects on which a man might depart as wide as the poles are asunder from truth without subjecting himself to any ignominy for falsehood.  In dealing with a tradesman as to his debts, or with a rival as to a lady, or with any man or woman in defence of a lady’s character, or in any such matter as that of a duel, Laurence believed that a gentleman was bound to lie, and that he would be no gentleman if he hesitated to do so.  Not the slightest prick of conscience disturbed him when he told Lady Laura that he had been in Paris, and that he knew nothing of Phineas Finn.  But, in truth, during the last day or two he had been in Flanders, and not in Paris, and had stood as second with his friend Phineas on the sands at Blankenberg, a little fishing-town some twelve miles distant from Bruges, and had left his friend since that at an hotel at Ostend,—­with a wound just under the shoulder, from which a bullet had been extracted.

The manner of the meeting had been in this wise.  Captain Colepepper and Laurence Fitzgibbon had held their meeting, and at this meeting Laurence had taken certain standing-ground on behalf of his friend, and in obedience to his friend’s positive instruction;—­which was this, that his friend could not abandon his right of addressing the young lady, should he hereafter ever think fit to do so.  Let that be granted,