"Oh, yes. Think how wretched I should be."
"And I shouldn't believe the telegraph. Don't you know how it always is? Besides we have been more than the usual time. We were to go to town in ten days, and you would not think of returning to fetch me. Of course I will go with you. I have already begun to pack my things, and Jane is now at it." Her father, not knowing how to oppose her, yielded, and Emily before she went to bed had made the ladies of the house aware that she also intended to start the next morning at eight o'clock.
During the first part of the journey very little was said between Mr. Wharton and Emily. There were other persons in the carriage, and she, though she had determined in some vague way that she would speak some words to her father before she reached their own house, had still wanted time to resolve what those words should be. But before she had reached Gloucester she had made up her mind, and going on from Gloucester she found herself for a time alone with her father. She was sitting opposite to him, and after conversing for a while she touched his knee with her hand. "Papa," she said, "I suppose I must now have to meet Mr. Lopez in Manchester Square?"
"Why should you have to meet Mr. Lopez in Manchester Square?"
"Of course he will come there to see Everett. After what has occurred you can hardly forbid him the house. He has saved Everett's life."
"I don't know that he has done anything of the kind," said Mr. Wharton, who was vacillating between different opinions. He did in his heart believe that the Portuguese whom he so hated had saved his son from the thieves, and he also had almost come to the conviction that he must give his daughter to the man,--but at the same time he could not as yet bring himself to abandon his opposition to the marriage.
"Perhaps you think the story is not true."
"I don't doubt the story in the least. Of course one man sticks to another in such an affair, and I have no doubt that Mr. Lopez behaved as any English gentleman would."
"Any English gentleman, papa, would have to come afterwards and see the friend he had saved. Don't you think so?"
"And Mr. Lopez will have an additional reason for calling,--and I know he will come. Don't you think he will come?"