ter that Lopez told Mrs. Parker that he had already
bade adieu to her husband, and then he took his wife to their own
lodgings.

CHAPTER XLVII

As for Love!

The time spent by Mrs. Lopez at Dovercourt was by no means one of
complete happiness. Her husband did not come down very frequently,
alleging that his business kept him in town, and that the journey was
too long. When he did come he annoyed her either by moroseness and
tyranny, or by an affectation of loving good-humour, which was the
more disagreeable alternative of the two. She knew that he had no
right to be good-humoured, and she was quite able to appreciate the
difference between fictitious love and love that was real. He did not
while she was at Dovercourt speak to her again directly about her
father's money,--but he gave her to understand that he required from
her very close economy. Then again she referred to the brougham which
she knew was to be in readiness on her return to London; but he told
her that he was the best judge of that. The economy which he demanded
was that comfortless heart-rending economy which nips the practiser
at every turn, but does not betray itself to the world at large. He
would have her save out of her washerwoman and linendraper, and yet
have a smart gown and go in a brougham. He begrudged her postage
stamps, and stopped the subscription at Mudie's, though he insisted
on a front seat in the Dovercourt church, paying half a guinea more
for it than he would for a place at the side. And then before their
sojourn at the place had come to an end he left her for awhile
absolutely penniless, so that when the butcher and baker called for
their money she could not pay them. That was a dreadful calamity to
her, and of which she was hardly able to measure the real worth. It
had never happened to her before to have to refuse an application for
money that was due. In her father's house such a thing, as far as she
knew, had never happened. She had sometimes heard that Everett was
impecunious, but that had simply indicated an additional call upon
her father. When the butcher came the second time she wrote to her
husband in an agony. Should she write to her father for a supply? She
was sure that her father would not leave them in actual want. Then
he sent her a cheque, enclosed in a very angry letter. Apply to her
father! Had she not learned as yet that she was not to lean on her
father any longer, but simply on him? And was she such