"And therefore I am glad they have given him up. There can be no doubt now about it."
"Everybody knows who did it now," said Lady Eustace.
"Infamous ruffian! My poor dear lost one always knew what he was. Oh that such a creature should have been allowed to come among us."
"Of course he'll be hung, Mrs. Bonteen."
"Hung! I should think so! What other end would be fit for him? Oh, yes; they must hang him. But it makes one think that the world is too hard a place to live in, when such a one as he can cause so great a ruin."
"It has been very terrible."
"Think what the country has lost! They tell me that the Duke of Omnium is to take my husband's place; but the Duke cannot do what he did. Every one knows that for real work there was no one like him. Nothing was more certain than that he would have been Prime Minister,—oh, very soon. They ought to pinch him to death with red-hot tweezers."
But Lady Eustace was anxious at the present moment to talk about her own troubles. "Of course, Mr. Emilius did not commit the murder."
"Phineas Finn committed it," said the half-maddened woman, rising from her chair. "And Phineas Finn shall hang by his neck till he is dead."
"But Emilius has certainly got another wife in Prague."