I hope they have made you comfortable, Mr.Finn ?" "Oh, yes," said Phineas.
"Not that Loughlinter can be comfortable now to any one.

How can a man, whose wife has deserted him, entertain his guests?
I am ashamed even to look a friend in the face, Mr.Finn." As he said this he stretched forth his open hand as though to hide his countenance, and Phineas hardly knew whether the absurdity of the movement or the tragedy of the feeling struck him the more forcibly.

"What did I do that she should leave me?
Did I strike her?
Was I faithless?
Had she not the half of all that was mine?
Did I frighten her by hard words, or exact hard tasks?
Did I not commune with her, telling her all my most inward purposes?
In things of this world, and of that better world that is coming, was she not all in all to me?
Did I not make her my very wife?
Mr.Finn, do you know what made her go away ?" He had asked perhaps a dozen questions.

As to the eleven which came first it was evident that no answer was required; and they had been put with that pathetic dignity with which it is so easy to invest the interrogatory form of address.

But to the last question it was intended that Phineas should give an answer, as Phineas presumed at once; and then it was asked with a wink of the eye, a low eager voice, and a sly twist of the face that were frightfully ludicrous.
"I suppose you do know," said Mr.Kennedy, again working his eye, and thrusting his chin forward.
"I imagine that she was not happy." "Happy?
What right had she to expect to be happy?
Are we to believe that we should be happy here?
Are we not told that we are to look for happiness there, and to hope for none below ?" As he said this he stretched his left hand to the ceiling.