?«
    »Oh yes. And I think I can generally recognise your hand.«
    They issued from the library.
    »Which way are you going?« Jasper inquired, with something more of the old
freedom.
    »I walked from Gower Street station, and I think, as it's so fine, I shall
walk back again.«
    He accompanied her. They turned up Museum Street, and Amy, after a short
silence, made inquiry concerning his sisters.
    »I am sorry I saw them only once, but no doubt you thought it better to let
the acquaintance end there.«
    »I really didn't think of it in that way at all,« Jasper replied.
    »We naturally understood it so, when you even ceased to call, yourself.«
    »But don't you feel that there would have been a good deal of awkwardness in
my coming to Mrs Yule's?«
    »Seeing that you looked at things from my husband's point of view?«
    »Oh, that's a mistake! I have only seen your husband once since he went to
Islington.«
    Amy gave him a look of surprise.
    »You are not on friendly terms with him?«
    »Well, we have drifted apart. For some reason he seemed to think that my
companionship was not very profitable. So it was better, on the whole, that I
should see neither you nor him.«
    Amy was wondering whether he had heard of her legacy. He might have been
informed by a Wattleborough correspondent, even if no one in London had told
him.
    »Do your sisters keep up their friendship with my cousin Marian?« she asked,
quitting the previous difficult topic.
    »Oh yes!« He smiled. »They see a great deal of each other.«
    »Then of course you have heard of my uncle's death?«
    »Yes. I hope all your difficulties are now at an end.«
    Amy delayed a moment, then said: »I hope so,« without any emphasis.
    »Do you think of spending this winter abroad?«
    It was the nearest he could come to a question concerning the future of Amy
and her husband.
    »Everything is still quite uncertain. But tell me something about our old
acquaintances. How does Mr Biffen get on?«
    »I scarcely ever see him, but I think he pegs away at an interminable novel,
which no one will publish when it's done. Whelpdale I meet occasionally.«
    He talked of the latter's projects and
