But the subject is one very difficult to broach when no previous light has been thrown on it.

Ferdinand Lopez, however, was not the man to stand shivering on the brink when a plunge was necessary,--and therefore he made his plunge.

"Mr.
Wharton, I have taken the liberty to call upon you here, because I want to speak to you about your daughter." "About my daughter!" The old man's surprise was quite genuine.

Of course when he had given himself a moment to think, he knew what must be the nature of his visitor's communication.

But up to that moment he had never mixed his daughter and Ferdinand Lopez in his thoughts together.