No, indeed! What
judge of character would any one be who could believe that Phineas
Finn could be guilty of a midnight murder? "I vote we stick to him."
"Stick to him!" Madame Goesler said, repeating the words to herself.
"What is the use of sticking to a man who does not want you?" How
can a woman cling to a man who, having said that he did not want her,
yet comes again within her influence, but does not unsay what he had
said before? Nevertheless, if it should be that the man was in real
distress,--in absolutely dire sorrow,--she would cling to him with a
constancy which, as she thought, her friend the Duchess would hardly
understand. Though they should hang him, she would bathe his body
with her tears, and live as a woman should live who had loved a
murderer to the last.
But she swore to herself that she would not believe it. Nay, she did
not believe it. Believe it, indeed! It was simply impossible. That he
might have killed the wretch in some struggle brought on by the man's
own fault was possible. Had the man attacked Phineas Finn it was only
too probable that there might have been such result.
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