w.'

Maud glanced at her sister, but Dora was preoccupied.

'Why do you prefer to stay here?' Jasper asked abruptly of the younger
girl.

'It is so very much nicer,' she replied with some embarrassment.

He bit the ends of his moustache, and his eyes glared at the impalpable
thwarting force that to imagination seemed to fill the air about him.

'A lesson against being over-hasty,' he muttered, again kicking the
footstool.

'Did you make that considerate remark to Marian?' asked Maud.

'There would have been no harm if I had done. She knows that I shouldn't
have been such an ass as to talk of marriage without the prospect of
something to live upon.'

'I suppose she's wretched?' said Dora.

'What else can you expect?'

'And did you propose to release her from the burden of her engagement?'
Maud inquired.

'It's a confounded pity that you're not rich, Maud,' replied her brother
with an involuntary laugh. 'You would have a brilliant reputation for
wit.'

He walked about and ejaculated splenetic phrases on the subject of his
ill-luck.

'We are here, and here we must stay,' was the final expression of his
mood. 'I have only one superstition that I know of and that forbids me
to take a step backward. If I went into poorer lodgings again I should
feel it was inviting defeat. I shall stay as long as the position is
tenable. Let us get on to Christmas, and then see how things look.
Heavens! Suppose we had married, and after that lost the money!'

'You would have been no worse off than plenty of literary men,' said
Dora.

'Perhaps not. But as I have made up my mind to be considerably better
off than most literary men that reflection wouldn't console me much.
Things are in statu quo, that's all. I have to rely upon my own efforts.
What's the time? Half-past ten; I can get two hours' work before going
to bed.'

And nodding a good-night he left them.

When Marian entered the house and went upstairs, she was followed by her
mother. On Mrs Yule's countenance there was a new distress, she had been
crying recently.

'Have you seen him?' the mother asked.

'Yes. We have talked about it.'

'What does he wish you to do, dear?'

'There's nothing to be done except wait.'

'Father has been telling me something, Marian,' said Mrs Yule after a
long silence. 'He says he is going to be blind. There's something
the matter with his eyes, and he went to see someone about it this
afternoon. He'll get worse and worse, unt