The arrival of her diurnal basket of provisions offered a refreshing intervention of the commonplace.  Bright air had sharpened his appetite:  he said he had been sure it would, and anticipated cheating the doctor of a part of the sentence which condemned him to lie on his back up to the middle of June, a log.  Jane was hungry too, and they feasted together gaily, talking of Kathleen on her journey, her strange impressions and her way of proclaiming them, and of Patrick and where he might be now; ultimately of Captain Con and Mrs. Adister.

‘He has broken faith with her,’ Philip said sternly.  ’She will have the right to tell him so.  He never can be anything but a comic politician.  Still he was bound to consult his wife previous to stepping before the public.  He knows that he married a fortune.’

‘A good fortune,’ said Jane.

Philip acquiesced.  ’She is an excellent woman, a model of uprightness; she has done him all the good in the world, and here is he deceiving her, lying—­there is no other word:  and one lie leads to another.  When he married a fortune he was a successful adventurer.  The compact was understood.  His duty as a man of honour is to be true to his bond and serve the lady.  Falseness to his position won’t wash him clean of the title.’

Jane pleaded for Captain Con.  ‘He is chivalrously attentive to her.’

‘You have read his letter,’ Philip replied.

He crushed her charitable apologies with references to the letter.

‘We are not certain that Mrs. Adister will object,’ said she.

‘Do you see her reading a speech of her husband’s?’ he remarked.  Presently with something like a moan: 

‘And I am her guest!’

’Oh! pray, do not think Mrs. Adister will ever allow you to feel the lightest shadow . . .’ said Jane.

‘No; that makes it worse.’

Had this been the burden of his thoughts when those two solitary tears forced their passage?

Hardly:  not even in his physical weakness would he consent to weep for such a cause.

’I forgot to mention that Mrs. Adister has a letter from her husband telling her he has been called over to Ireland on urgent business,’ she said.

Philip answered:  ‘He is punctilious.’

‘I wish indeed he had been more candid,’ Jane assented to the sarcasm.

’In Ireland he is agreeably surprised by the flattering proposal of a vacant seat, and not having an instant to debate on it, assumes the consent of the heavenliest wife in Christendom.’

Philip delivered the speech with a partial imitation of Captain Con addressing his wife on his return as the elected among the pure Irish party.  The effort wearied him.

She supposed he was regretting his cousin’s public prominence in the ranks of the malcontents.  ‘He will listen to you,’ she said, while she smiled at his unwonted display of mimicry.