 frankness than at first; even the word money was once or twice
heard.
    »Mr Carter has very kindly promised,« said Mrs Yule, »to do his best to hear
of some position that would be suitable. It seems a most shocking thing that a
successful author should abandon his career in this deliberate way; who could
have imagined anything of the kind two years ago? But it is clearly quite
impossible for him to go on as at present - if there is really no reason for
believing his mind disordered.«
    A cab was summoned for Mrs Carter, and she took her leave, suppressing her
native cheerfulness to the tone of the occasion. A minute or two after, Milvain
left the house.
    He had walked perhaps twenty yards, almost to the end of the silent street
in which his friends' house was situated, when a man came round the corner and
approached him. At once he recognised the figure, and in a moment he was face to
face with Reardon. Both stopped. Jasper held out his hand, but the other did not
seem to notice it.
    »You are coming from Mrs Yule's?« said Reardon, with a strange smile.
    By the gaslight his face showed pale and sunken, and he met Jasper's look
with fixedness.
    »Yes, I am. The fact is, I went there to hear of your address. Why haven't
you let me know about all this?«
    »You went to the flat?«
    »No, I was told about you by Whelpdale.«
    Reardon turned in the direction whence he had come, and began to walk
slowly; Jasper kept beside him.
    »I'm afraid there's something amiss between us, Reardon,« said the latter,
just glancing at his companion.
    »There's something amiss between me and everyone,« was the reply, in an
unnatural voice.
    »You look at things too gloomily. Am I detaining you, by-the-by? You were
going -«
    »Nowhere.«
    »Then come to my rooms, and let us see if we can't talk more in the old
way.«
    »Your old way of talk isn't much to my taste, Milvain. It has cost me too
much.«
    Jasper gazed at him. Was there some foundation for Mrs Yule's seeming
extravagance? This reply sounded so meaningless, and so unlike Reardon's manner
of speech, that the younger man experienced a sudden alarm.
    »Cost you too much? I don't understand you
