continue to bear these repeated attacks about her father's money. "I
see how it is," he continued. "You think that a husband should bear
all the troubles of life, and that a wife should never be made to
hear of them."

"Ferdinand," she said, "I declare I did not think that any man could
be so unfair to a woman as you are to me."

"Of course! Because I haven't got thousands a year to spend on you I
am unfair."

"I am content to live in any way that you may direct. If you are
poor, I am satisfied to be poor. If you are even ruined, I am content
to be ruined."

"Who is talking about ruin?"

"If you are in want of everything, I also will be in want and will
never complain. Whatever our joint lot may bring to us I will endure,
and will endeavour to endure with cheerfulness. But I will not ask
my father for money, either for you or for myself. He knows what he
ought to do. I trust him implicitly."

"And me not at all."

"He is, I know, in communication with you about what should be done.
I can only say,--tell him everything."

"My dear, that is a matter in which it may be possible that I
understand my own interest best."

"Very likely. I certainly understand nothing, for I do not even know
the nature of your business. How can I tell him that he ought to give
you money?"

"You might ask him for your own."

"I have got nothing. Did I ever tell you that I had?"

"You ought to have known."

"Do you mean that when you asked me to marry you I should have
refused you because I did not know what money papa would give me? Why
did you not ask papa?"

"Had I known him then as well as I do now you may be quite sure that
I should have done so."

"Ferdinand, it will be better that we should not speak about my
father. I will in all things strive to do as you would have me, but I
cannot hear him abused. If you have anything to say, go to Everett."

"Yes;--when he is such a gambler that your father won't even speak
to him. Your father will be found dead in his bed some day, and all
his money will have been left to some cursed hospital." They were at
their own door when this was said, and she, without further answer,
went up to her bedroom.

All these bitter things had been said, not because Lopez had thought
that he could further his own views by saying them;--he knew indeed
that he was injuring himself by every display of ill-temper;--but
she was in his power, and Sexty Parker was rebelling. He thought a
good deal th