to the words he intended to speak to-day. "And what do you think of
it?" he said, taking both her hands in his.

"Think of what?"

"Of our Spanish venture."

"Have you given up Bios, my friend?"

"No; certainly not," said Lopez, seating himself beside her. "I have
not taken the other half share, but I have kept my old venture in the
scheme. I believe in Bios, you know."

"Ah;--it is so nice to believe."

"But I believe more firmly in the country to which I am going."

"You are going then?"

"Yes, my friend;--I am going. The allurements are too strong to
be resisted. Think of that climate and of this." He probably had
not heard of the mosquitoes of Central America when he so spoke.
"Remember that an income which gives you comfort here will there
produce for you every luxury which wealth can purchase. It is to be
a king there, or to be but very common among commoners here."

"And yet England is a dear old country."

"Have you found it so? Think of the wrongs which you have
endured;--of the injuries which you have suffered."

"Yes, indeed." For Lizzie Eustace had gone through hard days in her
time.

"I certainly will fly from such a country to those golden shores on
which man may be free and unshackled."

"And your wife?"

"Oh, Lizzie!" It was the first time that he had called her Lizzie,
and she was apparently neither shocked nor abashed. Perhaps he
thought too much of this, not knowing how many men had called her
Lizzie in her time. "Do not you at least understand that a man or a
woman may undergo that tie, and yet be justified in disregarding it
altogether?"

"Oh, yes;--if there has been bigamy, or divorce, or anything of that
kind." Now Lizzie had convicted her second husband of bigamy, and had
freed herself after that fashion.

"To h---- with their prurient laws," said Lopez, rising suddenly from
his chair. "I will neither appeal to them nor will I obey them. And
I expect from you as little subservience as I myself am prepared to
pay. Lizzie Eustace, will you go with me, to that land of the sun,

_Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?_

Will you dare to escape with me from the cold conventionalities, from
the miserable thraldom of this country bound in swaddling cloths?
Lizzie Eustace, if you will say the word, I will take you to that
land of glorious happiness."

But Lizzie Eustace had L4000 a year and a balance at her ba