It cannot be supposed that Ferdinand Lopez at this time was a very happy man. He had, at any rate, once loved his wife, and would have loved her still could he have trained her to think as he thought, to share his wishes, and "to put herself into the same boat with him,"—as he was wont¹ to describe the unison² and sympathy which he required from her. To give him his due, he did not know that he was a villain³. When he was exhorting⁴ her to "get round her father" he was not aware that he was giving her lessons which must shock a well-conditioned girl. He did not understand that everything that she had discovered of his moral disposition⁵ since her marriage was of a nature to disgust her. And, not understanding all this, he conceived that he was grievously wronged by her in that she adhered to her father rather than to him. This made him unhappy, and doubly disappointed him. He had neither got the wife that he had expected nor the fortune. But he still thought that the fortune must come if he would only hold on to the wife which he had got.

And then everything had gone badly with him since his marriage. He was apt, when thinking over his affairs, to attribute all this to the fears and hesitation⁶ and parsimony⁷ of Sexty Parker. None of his late ventures with Sexty Parker had been successful. And now Sexty was in a bad condition, very violent, drinking hard, declaring himself to be a ruined man, and swearing that if this and that were not done he would have bitter revenge. Sexty still believed in the wealth of his partner's father-in-law, and still had some hope of salvation⁸ from that source. Lopez would declare to him, and up to this very time persevered⁹ in protesting, that salvation was to be found in Bios. If Sexty would only risk two or three thousand pounds more upon Bios,—or his credit to that amount, failing the

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