"Have you heard anything?" he asked at once.
"Heard what?" said his wife.
"Then you have not heard it. A man has been murdered."
"What man?" said Lady Laura, jumping suddenly from her seat. "Not Robert!" Lord Chiltern shook his head. "You do not mean that Mr. Finn has been—killed!" Again he shook his head; and then she sat down as though the asking of the two questions had exhausted her.
"Speak, Oswald," said his wife. "Why do you not tell us? Is it one whom we knew?"
"I think that Laura used to know him. Mr. Bonteen was murdered last night in the streets."
"Mr. Bonteen! The man who was Mr. Finn's enemy," said Lady Chiltern.
"Mr. Bonteen!" said Lady Laura, as though the murder of twenty Mr. Bonteens were nothing to her.
"Yes;—the man whom you talk of as Finn's enemy. It would be better if there were no such talk."
"And who killed him?" said Lady Laura, again getting up and coming close to her brother.