is your final answer?'

Dora, who was now as angry as he, gave a short affirmative, and Jasper
at once left her.

But it was very unlikely that things should rest at this pass. The
brother and sister were bound by a strong mutual affection, and
Whelpdale was not long in effecting a compromise.

'My dear wife,' he exclaimed, in despair at the threatened calamity,
'you are right, a thousand times, but it's impossible for you to be
on ill terms with Jasper. There's no need for you to see much of Mrs
Reardon--'

'I hate her! She killed her husband; I am sure of it.'

'My darling!'

'I mean by her base conduct. She is a cold, cruel, unprincipled
creature! Jasper makes himself more than ever contemptible by marrying
her.'

All the same, in less than three weeks Mrs Whelpdale had called upon
Amy, and the call was returned. The two women were perfectly conscious
of reciprocal dislike, but they smothered the feeling beneath
conventional suavities. Jasper was not backward in making known his
gratitude for Dora's concession, and indeed it became clear to all his
intimates that this marriage would be by no means one of mere interest;
the man was in love at last, if he had never been before.

Let lapse the ensuing twelve months, and come to an evening at the end
of July, 1886. Mr and Mrs Milvain are entertaining a small and select
party of friends at dinner. Their house in Bayswater is neither large
nor internally magnificent, but it will do very well for the temporary
sojourn of a young man of letters who has much greater things in
confident expectation, who is a good deal talked of, who can gather
clever and worthy people at his table, and whose matchless wife would
attract men of taste to a very much poorer abode.

Jasper had changed considerably in appearance since that last holiday
that he spent in his mother's house at Finden. At present he would have
been taken for five-and-thirty, though only in his twenty-ninth year;
his hair was noticeably thinning; his moustache had grown heavier;
a wrinkle or two showed beneath his eyes; his voice was softer, yet
firmer. It goes without saying that his evening uniform lacked no point
of perfection, and somehow it suggested a more elaborate care than that
of other men in the room. He laughed frequently, and with a throwing
back of the head which seemed to express a spirit of triumph.

Amy looked her years to the full, but her type of beauty, as you
know, was independent of yo