n the strongest way to this marriage?'

'No, I didn't know that.'

'He will neither see me nor hear of me. Merely because of my connection
with Fadge. Think of that poor girl thus situated. And I could so easily
put her at rest by renouncing all claim upon her.'

'I surmise that--that you yourself would also be put at rest by such a
decision?'

'Don't look at me with that ironical smile,' he pleaded. 'What you have
said is true. And really, why should I not be glad of it? I couldn't go
about declaring that I was heartbroken, in any event; I must be content
for people to judge me according to their disposition, and judgments are
pretty sure to be unfavourable. What can I do? In either case I must to
a certain extent be in the wrong. To tell the truth, I was wrong from
the first.'

There was a slight movement about Amy's lips as these words were
uttered: she kept her eyes down, and waited before replying.

'The case is too delicate, I fear, for my advice.'

'Yes, I feel it; and perhaps I oughtn't to have spoken of it at all.
Well, I'll go back to my scribbling. I am so very glad to have seen you
again.'

'It was good of you to take the trouble to come--whilst you have so much
on your mind.'

Again Jasper held the white, soft hand for a superfluous moment.

The next morning it was he who had to wait at the rendezvous; he was
pacing the pathway at least ten minutes before the appointed time.
When Marian joined him, she was panting from a hurried walk, and this
affected Jasper disagreeably; he thought of Amy Reardon's air of repose,
and how impossible it would be for that refined person to fall into such
disorder. He observed, too, with more disgust than usual, the signs in
Marian's attire of encroaching poverty--her unsatisfactory gloves, her
mantle out of fashion. Yet for such feelings he reproached himself, and
the reproach made him angry.

They walked together in the same direction as when they met here before.
Marian could not mistake the air of restless trouble on her companion's
smooth countenance. She had divined that there was some grave reason
for this summons, and the panting with which she had approached was half
caused by the anxious beats of her heart. Jasper's long silence again
was ominous. He began abruptly:

'You've heard that Harold Biffen has committed suicide?'

'No!' she replied, looking shocked.

'Poisoned himself. You'll find something about it in today's Telegraph.'

He gave her su