"By the way, I saw the mysterious Jasper this morning--coming out of the Waterloo Station looking more mysterious than ever. What particular business has he in the country?" She shook her head and rose. "I know as little about Jasper as you," she answered. She turned and looked at him thoughtfully. "Frank," she said, "I am rather worried about you and Jasper. I am worried because your uncle does not seem to take the same view of Jasper as you take. It is not a very heroic position for either of you, and it is rather hateful for me." Frank looked at her with a quizzical smile. "Why hateful for you?" She shook her head. "I would like to tell you everything, but that would not be fair." "To whom?" Frank asked quickly. "To you, your uncle, or to Jasper." He came nearer to her. "Have you so warm a feeling for Jasper?" he asked. "I have no warm feeling for anybody," she said candidly. "Oh, don't look so glum, Frank! I suppose I am slow to develop, but you cannot expect me to have any very decided views yet a while." Frank smiled ruefully. "That is my one big trouble, dear," he said quietly; "bigger than anything else in the world." She stood with her hand on the door, hesitating, a look of perplexity upon her beautiful face. She was of the tall, slender type, a girl slowly ripening into womanhood. She might have been described as cold and a little repressive, but the truth was that she was as yet untouched by the fires of passion, and for all her twenty-one years she was still something of the healthy schoolgirl, with a schoolgirl's impatience of sentiment. "I am the last to spin a hard-luck yarn," Frank went on, "but I have not had the best of everything, dear. I started wrong with uncle. He never liked my father nor any of my father's family. His treatment of his wife was infamous. My poor governor was one of those easy-going fellows who was always in trouble, and it was always John Minute's job to get him out. I don't like talking about him--" He hesitated. She nodded. "I know," she said sympathetically. "Father was not the rotter that Uncle John thinks he was. He had his good points. He was careless, and he drank much more than was good for him, but all the scrapes he fell into were due to this latter failing." The girl knew the story of Doctor Merrill. It had been sketched briefly but vividly by John Minute. She knew also some of those scrapes which had involved Doctor Merrill's ruin, material and moral. "Frank," she said, "if I can help you in any way I would do it." "You can help me absolutely," said the young man quietly, "by marrying me." She gasped. "When?" she asked, startled. "Now, next week; at any rate, soon." He smiled, and, crossing to her, caught her hand in his. "May, dear, you know I love you. You know there is nothing in the world I would not do for you, no sacrifice that I would not make." She shook her head. "You must give me some time to think about this, Frank," she said.