ng of it. Had he gone to the depth of ruin
without a wife, what would it have mattered? For years past he had
been at the same kind of work,--but while he was unmarried there
had been a charm in the very danger. And as a single man he had
succeeded, being sometimes utterly impecunious, but still with a
capacity of living. Now he had laden himself with a burden of which
the very intensity of his love immensely increased the weight. As for
not thinking of it, that was impossible. Of course she must help him.
Of course she must be taught how imperative it was that she should
help him at once. "Is there anything troubles you?" she said, as she
sat leaning against him after their dinner in the hotel at Dover.

"What should trouble me on such a day as this?"

"If there is anything, tell it me. I do not mean to say now, at this
moment,--unless you wish it. Whatever may be your troubles, it shall
be my greatest happiness, as it is my first duty, to lessen them if I
can."

The promise was very well. It all went in the right direction. It
showed him that she was at any rate prepared to take a part in the
joint work of their life. But, nevertheless, she should be spared for
the moment. "When there is trouble, you shall be told everything," he
said, pressing his lips to her brow, "but there is nothing that need
trouble you yet." He smiled as he said this, but there was something
in the tone of his voice which told her that there would be trouble.

When he was in Paris he received a letter from Parker, to whom he
had been obliged to intrust a running address, but from whom he had
enforced a promise that there should be no letter-writing unless
under very pressing circumstances. The circumstances had not been
pressing. The letter contained only one paragraph of any importance,
and that was due to what Lopez tried to regard as fidgety cowardice
on the part of his ally. "Please to bear in mind that I can't and
won't arrange for the bills for L1500 due 3rd February." That was
the paragraph. Who had asked him to arrange for these bills? And
yet Lopez was well aware that he intended that poor Sexty should
"arrange" for them, in the event of his failure to make arrangements
with Mr. Wharton.

At last he was quite unable to let the fortnight pass by without
beginning the lessons which his wife had to learn. As for that first
intention as to driving his cares out of his own mind for that time,
he had long since abandoned even the attem