with paternal
fervour, and waddled off to chatter with someone else.

Marian replaced several books on the reference-shelves, returned others
to the central desk, and was just leaving the room, when again a voice
made demand upon her attention.

'Miss Yule! One moment, if you please!'

It was a tall, meagre, dry-featured man, dressed with the painful
neatness of self-respecting poverty: the edges of his coat-sleeves were
carefully darned; his black necktie and a skull-cap which covered
his baldness were evidently of home manufacture. He smiled softly and
timidly with blue, rheumy eyes. Two or three recent cuts on his chin and
neck were the result of conscientious shaving with an unsteady hand.

'I have been looking for your father,' he said, as Marian turned. 'Isn't
he here?'

'He has gone, Mr Hinks.'

'Ah, then would you do me the kindness to take a book for him? In fact,
it's my little "Essay on the Historical Drama," just out.'

He spoke with nervous hesitation, and in a tone which seemed to make
apology for his existence.

'Oh, father will be very glad to have it.'

'If you will kindly wait one minute, Miss Yule. It's at my place over
there.'

He went off with long strides, and speedily came back panting, in his
hand a thin new volume.

'My kind regards to him, Miss Yule. You are quite well, I hope? I won't
detain you.'

And he backed into a man who was coming inobservantly this way.

Marian went to the ladies' cloak-room, put on her hat and jacket, and
left the Museum. Some one passed out through the swing-door a moment
before her, and as soon as she had issued beneath the portico, she saw
that it was Jasper Milvain; she must have followed him through the hall,
but her eyes had been cast down. The young man was now alone; as he
descended the steps he looked to left and right, but not behind him.
Marian followed at a distance of two or three yards. Nearing the
gateway, she quickened her pace a little, so as to pass out into the
street almost at the same moment as Milvain. But he did not turn his
head.

He took to the right. Marian had fallen back again, but she still
followed at a very little distance. His walk was slow, and she might
easily have passed him in quite a natural way; in that case he could not
help seeing her. But there was an uneasy suspicion in her mind that he
really must have noticed her in the Reading-room. This was the first
time she had seen him since their parting at Finden. H