er?'

'He has nothing,' replied his sister, 'and she has five thousand
pounds.'

Jasper walked on with bent head. He said nothing more until he was
upstairs in the sitting-room, where Maud greeted him carelessly.

'Mrs Reardon anything?'

Dora informed him.

'What?' he cried incredulously. 'Ten thousand? You don't say so!'

He burst into uproarious laughter.

'So Reardon is rescued from the slum and the clerk's desk! Well, I'm
glad; by Jove, I am. I should have liked it better if Marian had had the
ten thousand and he the five, but it's an excellent joke. Perhaps the
next thing will be that he'll refuse to have anything to do with his
wife's money; that would be just like him.' After amusing himself with
this subject for a few minutes more, he turned to the window and stood
there in silence.

'Are you going to have tea with us?' Dora inquired.

He did not seem to hear her. On a repetition of the inquiry, he answered
absently:

'Yes, I may as well. Then I can go home and get to work.'

During the remainder of his stay he talked very little, and as Maud also
was in an abstracted mood, tea passed almost in silence. On the point of
departing he asked:

'When is Marian likely to come here again?'

'I haven't the least idea,' answered Dora.

He nodded, and went his way.

It was necessary for him to work at a magazine article which he had
begun this morning, and on reaching home he spread out his papers in
the usual businesslike fashion. The subject out of which he was
manufacturing 'copy' had its difficulties, and was not altogether
congenial to him; this morning he had laboured with unwonted effort to
produce about a page of manuscript, and now that he tried to resume the
task his thoughts would not centre upon it. Jasper was too young to have
thoroughly mastered the art of somnambulistic composition; to write,
he was still obliged to give exclusive attention to the matter under
treatment. Dr Johnson's saying, that a man may write at any time if he
will set himself doggedly to it, was often upon his lips, and had even
been of help to him, as no doubt it has to many another man obliged to
compose amid distracting circumstances; but the formula had no efficacy
this evening. Twice or thrice he rose from his chair, paced the room
with a determined brow, and sat down again with vigorous clutch of the
pen; still he failed to excogitate a single sentence that would serve
his purpose.

'I must have it out with