“Guatemala!”
“Yes;—friends of mine have a connection there. I have not broken it to Emily yet, but under these circumstances she will have to go.”
“You will not take her to Guatemala!”
“Not take my wife, sir? Indeed I shall. Do you suppose that I would go away and leave my wife a pensioner on your bounty? Do you think that she would wish to desert her husband? I don’t think you know your daughter.”
“I wish you had never known her.”
“That is neither here nor there, sir. If I cannot succeed in this country I must go elsewhere. As I have told you before, £20,000 at the present moment would enable me to surmount all my difficulties, and make me a very wealthy man. But unless I can command some such sum by Christmas everything here must be sacrificed.”
“Never in my life did I hear so base a proposition,” said Mr. Wharton.
“Why is it base? I can only tell you the truth.”
“So be it. You will find that I mean what I have said.”
“So do I, Mr. Wharton.”
“As to my daughter, she must, of course, do as she thinks fit.”
“She must do as I think fit, Mr. Wharton.”
“I will not argue with you. Alas, alas; poor girl!”
“Poor girl, indeed! She is likely to be a poor girl if she is treated in this way by her father. As I understand that you intend to use, or to try to use, authority over her, I shall take steps for removing her at once from your house.” And so the interview was ended.
Lopez had thought the matter over, and had determined to “brazen it out,” as he himself called it. Nothing further was, he thought, to be got by civility and obedience. Now he must use his power. His idea of going to Guatemala was not an invention of the moment, nor was it devoid of a certain basis of truth. Such a suggestion had been made to him some time since by Mr. Mills Happerton. There were mines in Guatemala which wanted, or at some future day might want, a resident director. The proposition had been made to Lopez before his marriage, and Mr. Happerton probably had now forgotten all about it;—but the thing was of service now. He broke the matter very suddenly to his wife. “Has your father been speaking to you of my plans?”
“Not lately;—not that I remember.”
“He could not speak of them without your remembering, I should think. Has he told you that I am going to Guatemala?”
“Guatemala! Where is Guatemala, Ferdinand?”
“You can answer my question though your geography is deficient.”
“He has said nothing about your going anywhere.”
“You will have to go—as soon after Christmas as you may be fit.”
“But where is Guatemala;—and for how long, Ferdinand?”
“Guatemala is in Central America, and we shall probably settle there for the rest of our lives. I have got nothing to live on here.”
During the next two months this plan of seeking a distant home and a strange country was constantly spoken of in Manchester Square, and did receive corroboration from Mr. Happerton himself. Lopez renewed his application and received a letter from that gentleman saying that the thing might probably be arranged if he were in earnest. “I am quite in earnest,” Lopez said as he showed this letter to Mr. Wharton. “I suppose Emily will be able to start two months after her confinement. They tell me that babies do very well at sea.”
During this time, in spite of his threat, he continued to live with Mr. Wharton in Manchester Square, and went every day into the city—whether to make arrangements and receive instructions as to Guatemala, or to carry on his old business, neither Emily nor her father knew. He never at this time spoke about his affairs to either of them, but daily referred to her future expatriation as a thing that was certain. At last there came up the actual question—whether she were to go or not. Her father told her that though she was doubtless bound by law to obey her husband, in such a matter as this she might defy the law. “I do not think that he can actually force you on board the ship,” her father said.
“But if he tells me that I must go?”
“Stay here with me,” said the father. “Stay here with your baby. I’ll fight it out for you. I’ll so manage that you shall have all the world on your side.”
Emily at that moment came to no decision, but on the following day she discussed the matter with Lopez himself. “Of course you will go with me,” he said, when she asked the question.
“You mean that I must, whether I wish to go or not.”
“Certainly you must. Good G⸺! where is a wife’s place? Am I to go out without my child, and without you, while you are enjoying all the comforts of your father’s wealth at home? That is not my idea of life.”
“Ferdinand, I have been thinking about it very much. I must beg you to allow me to remain. I ask it of you as if I were asking my life.”
“Your father has put you up to this.”
“No;—not to this.”
“To what then?”
“My father thinks that I should refuse to go.”
“He does, does he?”
“But I shall not refuse. I shall go if you insist upon it. There shall be no contest between us about that.”
“Well; I should hope not.”
“But I do implore you to spare me.”
“That is very selfish, Emily.”
“Yes,”—she said, “yes. I cannot contradict that. But so is the man selfish who prays the judge to spare his life.”
“But you do not think of me. I must go.”
“I shall not make you happier, Ferdinand.”
“Do you think that it is a fine thing for a man to
