me. From five to seven I shall be
frantically busy, and then I have to rush off to dine with some people.'

'I couldn't see you before five?'

'Is it something important?'

'Yes, it is.'

'I tell you what. If you could meet me at Gloucester Gate at four, then
I shall be glad of half an hour in the park. But I mustn't talk now; I'm
driven to my wits' end. Gloucester Gate, at four sharp. I don't think
it'll rain.'

He dragged out a tome of the 'Britannica.' Marian nodded, and returned
to her seat.

At the appointed hour she was waiting near the entrance of Regent's
Park which Jasper had mentioned. Not long ago there had fallen a light
shower, but the sky was clear again. At five minutes past four she
still waited, and had begun to fear that the passing rain might have
led Jasper to think she would not come. Another five minutes, and from a
hansom that rattled hither at full speed, the familiar figure alighted.

'Do forgive me!' he exclaimed. 'I couldn't possibly get here before. Let
us go to the right.'

They betook themselves to that tree-shadowed strip of the park which
skirts the canal.

'I'm so afraid that you haven't really time,' said Marian, who was
chilled and confused by this show of hurry. She regretted having made
the appointment; it would have been much better to postpone what she had
to say until Jasper was at leisure. Yet nowadays the hours of leisure
seemed to come so rarely.

'If I get home at five, it'll be all right,' he replied. 'What have you
to tell me, Marian?'

'We have heard about the money, at last.'

'Oh?' He avoided looking at her. 'And what's the upshot?'

'I shall have nearly fifteen hundred pounds.'

'So much as that? Well, that's better than nothing, isn't it?'

'Very much better.'

They walked on in silence. Marian stole a glance at her companion.

'I should have thought it a great deal,' she said presently, 'before I
had begun to think of thousands.'

'Fifteen hundred. Well, it means fifty pounds a year, I suppose.'

He chewed the end of his moustache.

'Let us sit down on this bench. Fifteen hundred--h'm! And nothing more
is to be hoped for?'

'Nothing. I should have thought men would wish to pay their debts, even
after they had been bankrupt; but they tell us we can't expect anything
more from these people.'

'You are thinking of Walter Scott, and that kind of thing'--Jasper
laughed. 'Oh, that's quite unbusinesslike; it would be setting a
pernicious example