and openly talked about having nourished in her bosom a viper which had
unexpectedly turned and stung her.

Morn, noon, and night, in Toorak drawing-rooms and Melbourne Clubs, the
case formed the principal subject of conversation. And Mrs. Grundy was
horrified. Here was a young man, well born--"the Fitzgeralds, my dear,
an Irish family, with royal blood in their veins"--well-bred--"most
charming manners, I assure you, and so very good-looking" and engaged
to one of the richest girls in Melbourne--"pretty enough, madam, no
doubt, but he wanted her money, sly dog;" and this young man, who had
been petted by the ladies, voted a good fellow by the men, and was
universally popular, both in drawing-room and club, had committed a
vulgar murder--it was truly shocking. What was the world
coming to, and what were gaols and lunatic asylums built for if men of
young Fitzgerald's calibre were not put in them, and kept from killing
people? And then, of course, everybody asked everybody else who Whyte
was, and why he had never been heard of before. All people who had met
Mr. Whyte were worried to death with questions about him, and underwent
a species of social martyrdom as to who he was, what he was like, why
he was killed, and all the rest of the insane questions which some
people will ask. It was talked about everywhere--in fashionable
drawing-rooms at five o'clock tea, over thin bread and butter and
souchong; at clubs, over brandies and sodas and cigarettes; by working
men over their mid-day pint, and by their wives in the congenial
atmosphere of the back yard over the wash-tub. The papers were full of
paragraphs about the famous murder, and the society papers gave an
interview with the prisoner by their special reporters, which had been
composed by those gentlemen out of the floating rumours which they
heard around, and their own fertile imaginations.