“Let that be as it may, I must request that you, sir, will absent yourself. I will not entertain as my guest a man who has acted as you have done in this matter—even though he be my son-in-law.”
“I can sleep here tonight, I suppose?”
“Or tomorrow if it suits you. As for Emily, she can remain here, if you will allow her to do so.”
“That will not suit me,” said Lopez.
“In that case, as far as I am concerned, I shall do whatever she may ask me to do. Good morning.”
Mr. Wharton left the room, but did not leave the house. Before he did so he would see his daughter; and, thinking it probable that Lopez would also choose to see his wife, he prepared to wait in his own room. But, in about ten minutes, Lopez started from the hall door in a cab, and did so without going upstairs. Mr. Wharton had reason to believe that his son-in-law was almost destitute of money for immediate purposes. Whatever he might have would at any rate be serviceable to him before he started. Any home for Emily must be expensive; and no home in their present circumstances could be so reputable for her as one under her father’s roof. He therefore almost hoped that she might still be left with him till that horrid day should come—if it ever did come—in which she would be taken away from him forever. “Of course, papa, I shall go if he bids me,” she said, when he told her all that he thought right to tell her of that morning’s interview.
“I hardly know how to advise you,” said the father, meaning in truth to bring himself round to the giving of some advice adverse to her husband’s will.
“I want no advice, papa.”
“Want no advice! I never knew a woman who wanted it more.”
“No, papa. I am bound to do as he tells me. I know what I have done. When some poor wretch has got himself into perpetual prison by his misdeeds, no advice can serve him then. So it is with me.”
“You can at any rate escape from your prison.”
“No;—no. I have a feeling of pride which tells me that as I chose to become the wife of my husband—as I insisted on it in opposition to all my friends—as I would judge for myself—I am bound to put up with my choice. If this had come upon me through the authority of others, if I had been constrained to marry him, I think I could have reconciled myself to deserting him. But I did it myself, and I will abide by it. When he bids me go, I shall go.” Poor Mr. Wharton went to his chambers, and sat there the whole day without taking a book or a paper into his hands. Could there be no rescue, no protection, no relief! He turned over in his head various plans, but in a vague and useless manner. What if the Duke were to prosecute Lopez for the fraud! What if he could induce Lopez to abandon his wife—pledging himself by some deed not to return to her—for, say, twenty or even thirty thousand pounds! What if he himself were to carry his daughter away to the continent, half forcing and half persuading her to make the journey! Surely there might be some means found by which the man might be frightened into compliance. But there he sat—and did nothing. And in the evening he ate a solitary mutton chop at The Jolly Blackbird, because he could not bear to face even his club, and then returned to his chambers—to the great disgust of the old woman who had them in charge at nights. And at about midnight he crept away to his own house, a wretched old man.
Lopez when he left Manchester Square did not go in search of a new home for himself and his wife, nor during the whole of the day did he trouble himself on that subject. He spent most of the day at the rooms in Coleman Street of the San Juan Mining Association, of which Mr. Mills Happerton had once been Chairman. There was now another Chairman and other Directors; but Mr. Mills Happerton’s influence had so far remained with the Company as to enable Lopez to become well known in the Company’s offices, and acknowledged as a claimant for the office of resident Manager at San Juan in Guatemala. Now the present project was this—that Lopez was to start on behalf of the Company early in May, that the Company was to pay his own personal expenses out to Guatemala, and that they should allow him while there a salary of £1,000 a year for managing the affairs of the mine. As far as this offer went, the thing was true enough. It was true that Lopez had absolutely secured the place. But he had done so subject to the burden of one very serious stipulation. He was to become proprietor of 50 shares in the mine, and to pay up £100 each on those shares. It was considered that the man who was to get £1,000 a year in Guatemala for managing the affair, should at any rate assist the affair, and show his confidence in the affair to an extent as great as that. Of course the holder of these 50 shares would be as fully entitled as any other shareholder to that 20 percent which those who promoted the mine promised as the immediate result of the speculation.
At first Lopez had hoped that he might be enabled to defer the actual payment of the £5,000 till after he had sailed. When once out in Guatemala as manager, as manager he would doubtless remain. But by degrees he found that the payment must actually be made in advance. Now there was nobody to whom he could apply but Mr. Wharton. He was, indeed,
