 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
