you when you are in want."

"When I am--dead there will be no more to be sent. Do not look like
that, papa. I know what I have done, and I must bear it. I have
thrown away my life. It is just that. If baby had lived it would
have been different." This was about the end of January, and then Mr.
Wharton heard of the great attack made by Mr. Quintus Slide against
the Prime Minister, and heard, of course, of the payment alleged to
have been made to Ferdinand Lopez by the Duke on the score of the
election at Silverbridge. Some persons spoke to him on the subject.
One or two friends at the club asked him what he supposed to be the
truth in the matter, and Mrs. Roby inquired of him on the subject. "I
have asked Lopez," she said, "and I am sure from his manner that he
did get the money."

"I don't know anything about it," said Mr. Wharton.

"If he did get it I think he was very clever." It was well known at
this time to Mrs. Roby that the Lopez marriage had been a failure,
that Lopez was not a rich man, and that Emily, as well as her father,
was discontented and unhappy. She had latterly heard of the Guatemala
scheme, and had of course expressed her horror. But she sympathised
with Lopez rather than with his wife, thinking that if Mr. Wharton
would only open his pockets wide enough things might still be right.
"It was all the Duchess's fault, you know," she said to the old man.

"I know nothing about it, and when I want to know I certainly shall
not come to you. The misery he has brought upon me is so great that
it makes me wish that I had never seen any one who knew him."

"It was Everett who introduced him to your house."

"It was you who introduced him to Everett."

"There you are wrong,--as you so often are, Mr. Wharton. Everett met
him first at the club."

"What's the use of arguing about it? It was at your house that Emily
met him. It was you that did it. I wonder you can have the face to
mention his name to me."

"And the man living all the time in your own house!"

Up to this time Mr. Wharton had not mentioned to a single person
the fact that he had paid his son-in-law's election expenses at
Silverbridge. He had given him the cheque without much consideration,
with the feeling that by doing so he would in some degree benefit
his daughter; and had since regretted the act, finding that no such
payment from him could be of any service to Emily. But the thing
had been done,--and there had been, so far, an end o