I spat into the street. One of the Tories who stood to win Westminster was Griffin Melbury, Miriam’s husband. I little troubled myself about the details of politics, and not living within the boundaries of Westminster, I cared less for that election, but I understood one thing with certainty: I wished Melbury nothing but failure. Why had Miriam married him? Why had she abandoned her nation- and me- for this man who would force her to change her religion? If Ufford’s effort to aid the laborers would get Melbury elected, I would prefer to see Ufford hounded and the porters pauperized.

I still winced when I thought of Miriam married to that man. I had never met him or even set eyes upon him, but nonetheless I had a clear image of Melbury in my mind: tall, handsomely proportioned, fine in the face, strong in the calf. He would be charming and easy in the English way. This much I did know of him: He came from an old Tory family of landed wealth, his father and uncles had always sat in Parliament, and he had two brothers in the priesthood. He had served before in a pocket borough, and because he was well connected with certain bishops in the Church of England whose power was strong in Westminster, he had been encouraged to run for a seat in that borough- perhaps the most important in the nation.

Melbury would have to be charming. He had succeeded in convincing Miriam to convert to the Church. She had been married very young to my Uncle Miguel’s son, a dour lad who died at sea having hardly known his wife. I had come to be familiar with her during my efforts to discover the facts of my father’s death, and in truth I believed that she felt the same love for me that I did for her. But despite what the novelists will tell us, we live in a world more inclined to pragmatic action than romantical ideals. We might sit about with neat little volumes and imagine the blissful love in a cottage, but such ideas are but phantasms. We cannot live them. Instead, we must eat and dress and comport ourselves with companions of our liking. And it is always preferable to live without fear of creditors.