looking very serious.

"I am not going to Guatemala or anywhere else. I thought I'd just
look in to tell you that I'm just done for,--that I haven't a hope
of a shilling now or hereafter. You told me the other day that I was
afraid to come here. You see that as soon as anything is fixed, I
come and tell you everything at once."

"What is fixed?"

"That I am ruined. That there isn't a penny to come from any source."

"Wharton has got money," said Sexty.

"And there is money in the Bank of England,--but I cannot get at it."

"What are you going to do, Lopez?"

"Ah; that's the question. What am I going to do? I can say nothing
about that, but I can say, Sexty, that our affairs are at an end. I'm
very sorry for it, old boy. We ought to have made fortunes, but we
didn't. As far as the work went, I did my best. Good-bye, old fellow.
You'll do well some of these days yet, I don't doubt. Don't teach the
bairns to curse me. As for Mrs. P. I have no hope there, I know."
Then he went, leaving Sexty Parker quite aghast.

CHAPTER LIX

"The First and the Last"

When Mr. Wharton was in Coleman Street, having his final interview
with Mr. Hartlepod, there came a visitor to Mrs. Lopez in Manchester
Square. Up to this date there had been great doubt with Mr. Wharton
whether at last the banishment to Guatemala would become a fact. From
day to day his mind had changed. It had been an infinite benefit that
Lopez should go, if he could be got to go alone, but as great an evil
if at last he should take his wife with him. But the father had never
dared to express these doubts to her, and she had taught herself
to think that absolute banishment with a man whom she certainly no
longer loved, was the punishment she had to pay for the evil she had
done. It was now March, and the second or third of April had been
fixed for her departure. Of course, she had endeavoured from time to
time to learn all that was to be learned from her husband. Sometimes
he would be almost communicative to her; at other times she could get
hardly a word from him. But, through it all, he gave her to believe
that she would have to go. Nor did her father make any great effort
to turn his mind the other way. If it must be so, of what use would
be such false kindness on his part? She had therefore gone to work to
make her purchases, studying that economy which must henceforth be
the great duty of her life, and reminding herself as to everything
she bought