Can You Forgive Her? · Chapter
LXVII: The Last Kiss explained
Alice returns to London and stays with the Pallisers before their trip to Paris.
What happens
Alice returns to London and stays with the Pallisers before their trip to Paris. Mr. Palliser is attentive to his wife, but Lady Glencora chafes at the domesticity and misses the excitement of politics. Burgo Fitzgerald, after a failed attempt to win Glencora, visits the house and asks her to run away with him; she refuses.
Themes in this chapter
Duty vs. Desire
Lady Glencora struggles between her duty as a wife and her lingering desire for Burgo Fitzgerald; Mr. Palliser sacrifices his political ambitions for domestic duty.
Love and Marriage
The chapter contrasts the Pallisers' strained marriage with Burgo's passionate but doomed love for Glencora.
Characters to notice
- Alice Vavasor
Returns from Westmoreland to stay with the Pallisers; observes the changed dynamic between Plantagenet and Glencora.
- Lady Glencora Palliser
Packing for Paris, restless and mocking of her husband's domesticity; receives Burgo Fitzgerald and refuses his plea to elope.
- Plantagenet Palliser
Attentive to his wife but visibly diminished from his political ambitions; chivalrously allows Burgo to enter the house.
- Burgo Fitzgerald
Visits Lady Glencora and asks her to run away with him; after her refusal, he blames himself for letting his aunt take the banknotes.
Key passages
“I wish you were his wife, with all my heart. But, of course, I know why he got married. And I ought to feel for him as he has been so grievously disappointed.”
Lady Glencora tells Alice that she wishes Alice were married to Plantagenet, acknowledging that he married for political reasons and has been disappointed.
Glencora's candid assessment of her husband's motives and her own role in his disappointment.
“Cora, I have come to you, to ask you to go with me.”
Burgo Fitzgerald asks Lady Glencora to elope with him.
Burgo's final, desperate plea to Glencora.
“I will not go with you.”
Lady Glencora refuses Burgo's proposal to run away together.
Glencora's decisive rejection of Burgo's offer.