'I am content for you to think so,' she said. 'There is only one fact in my life of any importance, and I can never lose sight of it.'

'Well now, we are quite sure of each other. Tell me plainly, do you think me capable of forsaking you because you have perhaps lost your money?'

The question made her wince. If delicacy had held her tongue, it had no control of HIS.

'How can I answer that better,' she said, 'than by saying I love you?'

It was no answer, and Jasper, though obtuse compared with her, understood that it was none. But the emotion which had prompted his words was genuine enough. Her touch, the perfume of her pa.s.sion, had their exalting effect upon him. He felt in all sincerity that to forsake her would be a baseness, revenged by the loss of such a wife.

'There's an uphill fight before me, that's all,' he said, 'instead of the pretty smooth course I have been looking forward to. But I don't fear it, Marian. I'm not the fellow to be beaten.

You shall be my wife, and you shall have as many luxuries as if you had brought me a fortune.'

'Luxuries! Oh, how childish you seem to think me!'

'Not a bit of it. Luxuries are a most important part of life. I had rather not live at all than never possess them. Let me give you a useful hint; if ever I seem to you to flag, just remind me of the difference between these lodgings and a richly furnished house. Just hint to me that So-and-so, the journalist, goes about in his carriage, and can give his wife a box at the theatre. Just ask me, casually, how I should like to run over to the Riviera when London fogs are thickest. You understand? That's the way to keep me at it like a steam-engine.'

'You are right. All those things enable one to live a better and fuller life. Oh, how cruel that I--that we are robbed in this way! You can have no idea how terrible a blow it was to me when I read that letter this morning.'

She was on the point of confessing that she had swooned, but something restrained her.

'Your father can hardly be sorry,' said Jasper.

'I think he speaks more harshly than he feels. The worst was, that until he got your letter he had kept hoping that I would let him have the money for a new review.'

'Well, for the present I prefer to believe that the money isn't all lost. If the blackguards pay ten shillings in the pound you will get two thousand five hundred out of them, and that's something. But how do you stand? Will your position be that of an ordinary creditor?'

'I am so ignorant. I know nothing of such things.'

'But of course your interests will be properly looked after. Put yourself in communication with this Mr Holden. I'll have a look into the law on the subject. Let us hope as long as we can. By Jove! There's no other way of facing it.'

'No, indeed.'

'Mrs Reardon and the rest of them are safe enough, I suppose?'

'Oh, no doubt.'

'Confound them!--It grows upon one. One doesn't take in the whole of such a misfortune at once. We must hold on to the last rag of hope, and in the meantime I'll half work myself to death. Are you going to see the girls?'

'Not to-night. You must tell them.'

'Dora will cry her eyes out. Upon my word, Maud'll have to draw in her horns. I must frighten her into economy and hard work.'

He again lost himself in anxious reverie.

'Marian, couldn't you try your hand at fiction?'

She started, remembering that her father had put the same question so recently.

'I'm afraid I could do nothing worth doing.'

'That isn't exactly the question. Could you do anything that would sell?

With very moderate success in fiction you might make three times as much as you ever will by magazine pot-boilers. A girl like you. Oh, you might manage, I should think.'

'A girl like me?'

'Well, I mean that love-scenes, and that kind of thing, would be very much in your line.'Marian was not given to blushing; very few girls are, even on strong provocation. For the first time Jasper saw her cheeks colour deeply, and it was with anything but pleasure. His words were coa.r.s.ely inconsiderate, and wounded her.

'I think that is not my work,' she said coldly, looking away.

'But surely there's no harm in my saying--' he paused in astonishment.

'I meant nothing that could offend you.'

'I know you didn't, Jasper. But you make me think that--'

'Don't be so literal again, my dear girl. Come here and forgive me.'

She did not approach, but only because the painful thought he had excited kept her to that spot.

'Come, Marian! Then I must come to you.'

He did so and held her in his arms.

'Try your hand at a novel, dear, if you can possibly make time. Put me in it, if you like, and make me an insensible masculine. The experiment is worth a try I'm certain. At all events do a few chapters, and let me see them. A chapter needn't take you more than a couple of hours I should think.'

Marian refrained from giving any promise. She seemed irresponsive to his caresses. That thought which at times gives trouble to all women of strong emotions was working in her: had she been too demonstrative, and made her love too cheap? Now that Jasper's love might be endangered, it behoved her to use any arts which nature prompted. And so, for once, he was not wholly satisfied with her, and at their parting he wondered what subtle change had affected her manner to him.

'Why didn't Marian come to speak a word?' said Dora, when her brother entered the girls' sitting-room about ten o'clock.

'You knew she was with me, then?'

'We heard her voice as she was going away.'

'She brought me some enspiriting news, and thought it better I should have the reporting of it to you.'

With brevity he made known what had befallen.

'Cheerful, isn't it? The kind of thing that strengthens one's trust in Providence.'

The girls were appalled. Maud, who was reading by the fireside, let her book fall to her lap, and knit her brows darkly.

'Then your marriage must be put off, of course?' said Dora.

'Well, I shouldn't be surprised if that were found necessary,' replied her brother caustically. He was able now to give vent to the feeling which in Marian's presence was suppressed, partly out of consideration for her, and partly owing to her influence.

'And shall we have to go back to our old lodgings again?' inquired Maud.

Jasper gave no answer, but kicked a footstool savagely out of his way and paced the room.