not know why I should not tell you the truth."

"I do not know either."

"I think he did--intend to banish you."

"And you?"

"I shall be guided by him in all things,--as far as I can."

"Then I am banished by you also?"

"I did not say so. But if papa says that you are not to come there,
of course I cannot ask you to do so."

"But I may see you here?"

"Mr. Lopez, I will not be asked some questions. I will not indeed."

"You know why I ask them. You know that to me you are more than all
the world." She stood still for a moment after hearing this, and then
without any reply walked away into the other room. She felt half
ashamed of herself in that she had not rebuked him for speaking to
her in that fashion after his interview with her father, and yet his
words had filled her heart with delight. He had never before plainly
declared his love to her,--though she had been driven by her father's
questions to declare her own love to herself. She was quite sure of
herself,--that the man was and would always be to her the one being
whom she would prefer to all others. Her fate was in her father's
hands. If he chose to make her wretched he must do so. But on one
point she had quite made up her mind. She would make no concealment.
To the world at large she had nothing to say on the matter. But with
her father there should be no attempt on her part to keep back the
truth. Were he to question her on the subject she would tell him, as
far as her memory would serve her, the very words which Lopez had
spoken to her this evening. She would ask nothing from him. He had
already told her that the man was to be rejected, and had refused to
give any other reason than his dislike to the absence of any English
connexion. She would not again ask even for a reason. But she would
make her father understand that though she obeyed him she regarded
the exercise of his authority as tyrannical and irrational.

They left the house before any of the other guests and walked round
the corner together into the Square. "What a very vulgar set of
people!" said Mr. Wharton as soon as they were down the steps.

"Some of them were," said Emily, making a mental reservation of her
own.

"Upon my word I don't know where to make the exception. Why on earth
any one should want to know such a person as Lord Mongrober I can't
understand. What does he bring into society?"

"A title."

"But what does that do of itself? He is an insolent, bloated brute