"A woman doesn't like to be told so."
"I never told her so. I never said anything of the kind. I never spoke a hard word to her in my life. If her head did but ache, I hung over her with the tenderest solicitude. I refused her nothing. When I found that she was impatient I chose the shortest sermon for our Sunday evening's worship, to the great discomfort of my mother." Phineas wondered whether this assertion as to the discomfort of old Mrs. Kennedy could possibly be true. Could it be that any human being really preferred a long sermon to a short one,—except the being who preached it or read it aloud? "There was nothing that I did not do for her. I suppose you really do know why she went away, Mr. Finn?"
"I know nothing more than I have said."
"I did think once that she was—"
"There was nothing more than I have said," asserted Phineas sternly, fearing that the poor insane man was about to make some suggestion that would be terribly painful. "She felt that she did not make you happy."
"I did not want her to make me happy. I do not expect to be made happy. I wanted her to do her duty. You were in love with her once, Mr. Finn?"
"Yes, I was. I was in love with Lady Laura Standish."
"Ah! Yes. There was no harm in that, of course; only when any thing of that kind happens, people had better keep out of each other's way afterwards. Not that I was ever jealous, you know."
"I should hope not."
"But I don't see why you should go all the way to Dresden to pay her a visit. What good can that do? I think you had much better stay where you are, Mr. Finn; I do indeed. It isn't a decent thing for a young unmarried man to go half across Europe to see a lady who is separated from her husband, and who was once in love with him;—I mean he was once in love with her. It's a very wicked thing, Mr. Finn, and I have to beg that you will not do it."