the dark as you can
be."

"That is nonsense, Ferdinand."

"Thank you! Let it be nonsense if you will. It seems to me that there
is a great deal of nonsense going on in the world; but very little of
it as true as what I say now."

"But it is your duty to know. Of course you cannot stay here."

"Nor you, I suppose,--without me."

"I am not speaking of myself. If you choose, I can remain here."

"And--just throw me overboard altogether."

"If you provide another home for me, I will go to it. However poor it
may be I will go to it, if you bid me. But for you,--of course you
cannot stay here."

"Has your father told you to say so to me?"

"No;--but I can say so without his telling me. You are banishing him
from his own house. He has put up with it while he thought that you
were going to this foreign country; but there must be an end of that
now. You must have some scheme of life?"

"Upon my soul I have none."

"You must have some intentions for the future?"

"None in the least. I have had intentions, and they have
failed;--from want of that support which I had a right to expect. I
have struggled and I have failed, and now I have got no intentions.
What are yours?"

"It is not my duty to have any purpose, as what I do must depend on
your commands." Then again there was a silence, during which he lit
a cigar, although he was sitting in the drawing-room. This was a
profanation of the room on which even he had never ventured before,
but at the present moment she was unable to notice it by any words.
"I must tell papa," she said after a while, "what our plans are."

"You can tell him what you please. I have literally nothing to say to
him. If he will settle an adequate income on us, payable of course
to me, I will go and live elsewhere. If he turns me into the street
without provision, he must turn you too. That is all that I have got
to say. It will come better from you than from me. I am sorry, of
course, that things have gone wrong with me. When I found myself
the son-in-law of a very rich man I thought that I might spread my
wings a bit. But my rich father-in-law threw me over, and now I am
helpless. You are not very cheerful, my dear, and I think I'll go
down to the club."

He went out of the house and did go down to the Progress. The
committee which was to be held with the view of judging whether he
was or was not a proper person to remain a member of that assemblage
had not yet been held, and there wa