Marian was at work as usual in the Reading-room. She did her best, during the hours spent here, to convert herself into the literary machine which it was her hope would some day be invented for construction in a less sensitive material than human tissue. Her eyes seldom strayed beyond the limits of the desk; and if she had occasion to rise and go to the reference shelves, she looked at no one on the way. Yet she herself was occasionally an object of interested regard. Several readers were acquainted with the chief facts of her position; they knew that her father was now incapable of work, and was waiting till his diseased eyes should be ready for the operator; it was surmised, moreover, that a good deal depended upon the girl’s literary exertions. Mr Quarmby and his gossips naturally took the darkest view of things; they were convinced that Alfred Yule could never recover his sight, and they had a dolorous satisfaction in relating the story of Marian’s legacy. Of her relations with Jasper Milvain none of these persons had heard; Yule had never spoken of that matter to any one of his friends.

Jasper had to look in this morning for a hurried consultation of certain encyclopaedic volumes, and it chanced that Marian was standing before the shelves to which his business led him. He saw her from a little distance, and paused; it seemed as if he would turn back; for a moment he wore a look of doubt and worry. But after all he proceeded. At the sound of his ‘Good-morning,’ Marian started — she was standing with an open book in hand — and looked up with a gleam of joy on her face.

‘I wanted to see you to-day,’ she said, subduing her voice to the tone of ordinary conversation. ‘I should have come this evening.’

‘You wouldn’t have found me at home. 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 nowadays. Well, and what’s to be done?’

Marian had no answer for such a question. The tone of it was a new stab to her heart, which had suffered so many during the past half-year.

‘Now, I’ll ask you frankly,’ Jasper went on, ‘and I know you will reply in the same spirit: would it be wise for us to marry on this money?’

‘On this money?’

She looked into his face with painful earnestness.

‘You mean,’ he said, ‘that it can’t be spared for that purpose?’

What she really meant was uncertain even to herself. She had wished to hear how Jasper would receive the news, and thereby to direct her own course. Had he welcomed it as offering a possibility of their marriage, that would have gladdened her, though it would then have been necessary to show him all the difficulties by which she was beset; for some time they had not spoken of her father’s position, and Jasper seemed willing to forget all about that complication of their troubles. But marriage did not occur to him, and he was evidently quite prepared to hear that she could no longer regard this money as her own to be freely disposed of. This was on one side a relief but on the other it confirmed her fears. She would rather have heard him plead with her to neglect her parents for the sake of being his wife. Love excuses everything, and his selfishness would have been easily lost sight of in the assurance that he still desired her.

‘You say,’ she replied, with bent head, ‘that it would bring us fifty pounds a year. If another fifty were added to that, my father and mother would be supported in case the worst comes. I might earn fifty pounds.’

‘You wish me to understand, Marian, that I mustn’t expect that you will bring me anything when we are married.’

His tone was that of acquiescence; not by any means of displeasure. He spoke as if desirous of saying for her something she found a difficulty in saying for herself.

‘Jasper, it is so hard for me! So hard for me! How could I help remembering what you told me when I promised to be your wife?’

‘I spoke the truth rather brutally,’ he replied, in a kind voice. ‘Let all that be unsaid, forgotten. We are in quite a different position now. Be open with me, Marian; surely you can trust my common sense and good feeling. Put aside all thought of things I have said, and don’t be restrained by any fear lest you should seem to me unwomanly — you can’t be that. What is your own wish? What do you really wish to do, now that there is no uncertainty calling for postponements?’

Marian raised her eyes, and was about to speak as she regarded him; but with the first accent her look fell.

‘I wish to be your wife.’

He waited, thinking and struggling with himself.

‘Yet you feel that it would be heartless to take and use this money for our own purposes?’

‘What is to become of my parents, Jasper?’

‘But then you admit that the fifteen hundred pounds won’t support them. You talk of earning fifty pounds a year for them.’

‘Need I cease to write, dear, if we were married? Wouldn’t you let me help them?’

‘But, my dear girl, you are taking for granted that we shall have enough for ourselves.’

‘I didn’t mean at once,’ she explained hurriedly. ‘In a short time — in a year. You are getting on so well. You will soon have a sufficient income, I am sure.’

Jasper rose.

‘Let us walk as far as the next seat. Don’t speak. I have something to think about.’

Moving on beside him, she slipped her hand softly within his arm; but Jasper did not put the arm into position to support hers, and her hand fell again, dropped suddenly. They reached another bench, and again became seated.

‘It comes to this, Marian,’ he said, with portentous gravity. ‘Support you, I could — I have little doubt of that. Maud is provided for, and Dora can make a living for herself. I could support you and leave you free to give your parents whatever you can earn by your own work. But — ’

He paused significantly. It was his wish that Marian should supply the consequence, but she did not speak.

‘Very well,’ he exclaimed. ‘Then when are we to be married?’

The tone of resignation was too marked. Jasper was not good as a comedian; he lacked subtlety.

‘We must wait,’ fell from Marian’s lips, in the whisper of despair.

‘Wait? But how long?’ he inquired, dispassionately.

‘Do you wish to be freed from your engagement, Jasper?’

He was not strong enough to reply with a plain ‘Yes,’ and so have done with his perplexities. He feared the girl’s face, and he feared his own subsequent emotions.

‘Don’t talk in that way, Marian. The question is simply this: Are we to wait a year, or are we to wait five years? In a year’s time, I shall probably be able to have a small house somewhere out in the suburbs. If we are married then, I shall be happy enough with so good a wife, but my career will take a different shape. I shall just throw overboard certain of my ambitions, and work steadily on at earning a livelihood. If we wait five years, I may perhaps have obtained an editorship, and in that case I should of course have all sorts of better things to offer you.’

‘But, dear, why shouldn’t you get an editorship all the same if you are married?’

‘I have explained to you several times that success of that kind is not compatible with a small house in the suburbs and all the ties of a narrow income. As a bachelor, I can go about freely, make acquaintances, dine at people’s houses, perhaps entertain a useful friend now and then — and so on. It is not merit that succeeds in my line; it is merit plus opportunity. Marrying now, I cut myself off from opportunity, that’s all.’

She kept silence.

‘Decide my fate for me, Marian,’ he pursued, magnanimously. ‘Let us make up our minds and do what we decide to do. Indeed, it doesn’t concern me so much as yourself. Are you content to lead a simple, unambitious life? Or should you prefer your husband to be a man of some distinction?’

‘I know so well what your own wish is. But to wait for years — you will cease to love me, and will only think of me as a hindrance in your way.’

‘Well now, when I said five years, of course I took a round number. Three — two might make all the difference to me.’

‘Let it be just as you wish. I can bear anything rather than lose your love.’

‘You feel, then, that it will decidedly be wise not to marry whilst we are still so poor?’

‘Yes; whatever you are convinced of is right.’

He again rose, and looked at his watch.

‘Jasper, you don’t think that I have behaved selfishly in wishing to let my father have the money?’

‘I should have been greatly surprised if you hadn’t wished it. I certainly can’t imagine you saying: “Oh, let them do as best they can!” That would have been selfish with a vengeance.’

‘Now you are speaking kindly! Must you go, Jasper?’

‘I must indeed. Two hours’ work I am bound to get before seven o’clock.’

‘And I have been making it harder for you, by disturbing your mind.’

‘No, no; it’s all right now. I shall go at it with all the more energy, now we have come to a decision.’

‘Dora has asked me to go to Kew on Sunday. Shall you be able to come, dear?’

‘By Jove, no! I have three engagements on Sunday afternoon. I’ll try and keep the Sunday after; I will indeed.’

‘What are the engagements?’ she asked timidly.

As they walked back towards Gloucester Gate, he answered her question, showing how unpardonable it would be to neglect the people concerned. Then they parted, Jasper going off at a smart pace homewards.

Marian turned down Park Street, and proceeded for some distance along Camden Road. The house in which she and her parents now lived was not quite so far away as St Paul’s Crescent; they rented four rooms, one of which had to serve both as Alfred Yule’s sitting-room and for the gatherings of the family at meals. Mrs Yule generally sat in the kitchen, and Marian used her bedroom as a study. About half the collection of books had been sold; those that remained were still a respectable library, almost covering the walls of the room where their disconsolate possessor passed his mournful days.

He could read for a few hours a day, but only large type, and fear of consequences kept him well within the limit of such indulgence laid down by his advisers. Though he inwardly spoke as if his case were hopeless, Yule was very far from having resigned himself to this conviction; indeed, the prospect of spending his latter years in darkness and idleness was too dreadful to him to be accepted so long as a glimmer of hope remained. He saw no reason why the customary operation should not restore him to his old pursuits, and he would have borne it ill if his wife or daughter had ever ceased to oppose the despair which it pleased him to affect.

On the whole, he was noticeably patient. At the time of their removal to these lodgings, seeing that Marian prepared herself to share the change as a matter of course, he let her do as she would without comment; nor had he since spoken to her on the subject which had proved so dangerous. Confidence between them there was none; Yule addressed his daughter in a grave, cold, civil tone, and Marian replied gently, but without tenderness. For Mrs Yule the disaster to the family was distinctly a gain; she could not but mourn her husband’s affliction, yet he no longer visited her with the fury or contemptuous impatience of former days. Doubtless the fact of needing so much tendance had its softening influence on the man; he could not turn brutally upon his wife when every hour of the day afforded him some proof of her absolute devotion. Of course his open-air exercise was still unhindered, and in this season of the returning sun he walked a great deal, decidedly to the advantage of his general health — which again must have been a source of benefit to his temper. Of evenings, Marian sometimes read to him. He never requested this, but he did not reject the kindness.

This afternoon Marian found her father examining a volume of prints which had been lent him by Mr Quarmby. The table was laid for dinner (owing to Marian’s frequent absence at the Museum, no change had been made in the order of meals), and Yule sat by the window, his book propped on a second chair. A whiteness in his eyes showed how the disease was progressing, but his face had a more wholesome colour than a year ago.

‘Mr Hinks and Mr Gorbutt inquired very kindly after you to-day,’ said the girl, as she seated herself.

‘Oh, is Hinks out again?’

‘Yes, but he looks very ill.’

They conversed of such matters until Mrs Yule — now her own servant — brought in the dinner. After the meal, Marian was in her bedroom for about an hour; then she went to her father, who sat in idleness, smoking.

‘What is your mother doing?’ he asked, as she entered.

‘Some needlework.’

‘I had perhaps better say’ — he spoke rather stiffly, and with averted face — ‘that I make no exclusive claim to the use of this room. As I can no longer pretend to study, it would be idle to keep up the show of privacy that mustn’t be disturbed. Perhaps you will mention to your mother that she is quite at liberty to sit here whenever she chooses.’

It was characteristic of him that he should wish to deliver this permission by proxy. But Marian understood how much was implied in such an announcement.

‘I will tell mother,’ she said. ‘But at this moment I wished to speak to you privately. How would you advise me to invest my money?’

Yule looked surprised, and answered with cold dignity.

‘It is strange that you should put such a question to me. I should have supposed your interests were in the hands of — of some competent person.’

‘This will be my private affair, father. I wish to get as high a rate of interest as I safely can.’

‘I really must decline to advise, or interfere in any way. But, as you have introduced this subject, I may as well put a question which is connected with it. Could you give me any idea as to how long you are likely to remain with us?’

‘At least a year,’ was the answer, ‘and very likely much longer.’

‘Am I to understand, then, that your marriage is indefinitely postponed?’

‘Yes, father.’

‘And will you tell me why?’

‘I can only say that it has seemed better — to both of us.’

Yule detected the sorrowful emotion she was endeavouring to suppress. His conception of Milvain’s character made it easy for him to form a just surmise as to the reasons for this postponement; he was gratified to think that Marian might learn how rightly he had judged her wooer, and an involuntary pity for the girl did not prevent his hoping that the detestable alliance was doomed. With difficulty he refrained from smiling.

‘I will make no comment on that,’ he remarked, with a certain emphasis. ‘But do you imply that this investment of which you speak is to be solely for your own advantage?’

‘For mine, and for yours and mother’s.’

There was a silence of a minute or two. As yet it had not been necessary to take any steps for raising money, but a few months more wo............