aid Mrs
Carter. 'And how dreadful! In such a place as that!'

'It would be so kind of you to go and see him, Mr Milvain,' urged Mrs
Yule. 'We should be so glad to hear what you think.'

'Certainly, I will go,' replied Jasper. 'Will you give me his address?'

He remained for an hour, and before his departure the subject was
discussed with rather more 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-bye? 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