The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope — Read

But the Duke, though he was by far too magnanimous to be angry with Phineas Finn because Phineas would not fall into his views respecting the proposed action, was not the less tormented and goaded by what the newspaper said. The assertion that he had hounded Ferdinand Lopez to his death, that by his defence of himself he had brought the man's blood on his head, was made and repeated till those around him did not dare to mention the name of Lopez in his hearing. Even his wife was restrained and became fearful, and in her heart of hearts began almost to wish for that retirement to which he had occasionally alluded as a distant Elysium which he should never be allowed to reach. He was beginning to have the worn look of an old man. His scanty hair was turning grey, and his long thin cheeks longer and thinner.

Of what he did when sitting alone in his chamber, either at home or at the Treasury Chamber, she knew less and less from day to day, and she began to think that much of his sorrow arose from the fact that among them they would allow him to do nothing. There was no special subject now which stirred him to eagerness and brought upon herself explanations which were tedious and unintelligible to her, but evidently delightful to him. There were no quints or semi-tenths now, no aspirations for decimal perfection, no delightfully fatiguing hours spent in the manipulation of the multiplication table. And she could not but observe that the old Duke now spoke to her much less frequently of her husband's political position than had been his habit. Through the first year and a half of the present ministerial arrangement he had been constant in his advice to her, and had always, even when things were difficult, been cheery and full of hope.