“I think he would be better so than with a wife he does not—love.”
“Who says I do not love you?”
“Or with one who does—not—love him.” This she said very slowly, very softly, but looking up into his eyes as she said it.
“Do you tell me that to my face?”
“Yes;—what good can I do now by lying? You have not been to me as I thought you would be.”
“And so, because you have built up some castle in the air that has fallen to pieces, you tell your husband to his face that you do not love him, and that you prefer not to live with him. Is that your idea of duty?”
“Why have you been so cruel?”
“Cruel! What have I done? Tell me what cruelty. Have I beat you? Have you been starved? Have I not asked and implored your assistance—only to be refused? The fact is that your father and you have found out that I am not a rich man, and you want to be rid of me. Is that true or false?”
“It is not true that I want to be rid of you because you are poor.”
“I do not mean to be rid of you. You will have to settle down and do your work as my wife in whatever place it may suit me to live. Your father is a rich man, but you shall not have the advantage of his wealth unless it comes to you, as it ought to come, through my hands. If your father would give me the fortune which ought to be yours there need be no going abroad. He cannot bear to part with his money, and therefore we must go. Now you know all about it.” She was then turning to leave him, when he asked her a direct question. “Am I to understand that you intend to resist my right to take you with me?”
“If you bid me go—I shall go.”
“It will be better, as you will save both trouble and exposure.”
Of course she told her father what had taken place, but he could only shake his head, and sit groaning over his misery in his chambers. He had explained to her what he was willing to do on her behalf, but she declined his aid. He could not tell her that she was wrong. She was the man’s wife, and out of that terrible destiny she could not now escape. The only question with him was whether it would not be best to buy the man—give him a sum of money to go, and to go alone. Could he have been quit of the man even for £20,000, he would willingly have paid the money. But the man would either not go, or would come back as soon as he had got the money. His own life, as he passed it now, with this man in the house with him, was horrible to him. For Lopez, though he had more than once threatened that he would carry his wife to another home, had taken no steps towards getting that other home ready for her.
During all this time Mr. Wharton had not seen his son. Everett had gone abroad just as his father returned to London from Brighton, and was still on the continent. He received his allowance punctually, and that was the only intercourse which took place between them. But Emily had written to him, not telling him much of her troubles—only saying that she believed that her husband would take her to Central America early in the spring, and begging him to come home before she went.
Just before Christmas her baby was born, but the poor child did not live a couple of days. She herself at the time was so worn with care, so thin and wan and wretched, that looking in the glass she hardly knew her own face. “Ferdinand,” she said to him, “I know he will not live. The Doctor says so.”
“Nothing thrives that I have to do with,” he answered gloomily.
“Will you not look at him?”
“Well; yes. I have looked at him, have I not? I wish to God that where he is going I could go with him.”
“I wish I was;—I wish I was going,” said the poor mother. Then the father went out, and before he had returned to the house the child was dead. “Oh, Ferdinand, speak one kind word to me now,” she said.
“What kind word can I speak when you have told me that you do not love me? Do you think that I can forget that because—because he has gone?”
“A woman’s love may always be won back again by kindness.”
“Psha! How am I to kiss and make pretty speeches with my mind harassed as it is now?” But he did touch her brow with his lips before he went away.
The infant was buried, and then there was not much show of mourning in the house. The poor mother would sit gloomily alone day after day, telling herself that it was perhaps better that she should have been robbed of her treasure than have gone forth with him into the wide, unknown, harsh world with such a father as she had given him. Then she would look at all the preparations she had made—the happy work of her fingers when her thoughts of their future use were her sweetest consolation—and weep till she would herself feel that there never could be an end to her tears.
The second week in January had come and yet nothing further had been settled as to this Guatemala project. Lopez talked about it as though it was certain, and even told his wife that as they would move so soon it would not be now worth while for him to take other lodgings for her. But when she asked as to her own preparations—the wardrobe necessary for the long voyage and her general outfit—he told her that three weeks or a fortnight would
