"Polly," said a voice—it was Jasper's—"won't you undo the door? I want to speak to you."
"O, Jasper!" cried Polly, springing to her feet, and running over to the door, "I can't; don't ask me—not just yet."
"I won't ask you again," said Jasper, "if you don't wish it, Polly."
His voice showed his disappointment, and Polly, full of dismay at the trouble she had made for him, couldn't find it in her heart to cause him this new worry.
"You won't want to speak to me, Jasper," she cried, unlocking the door with trembling fingers, "when you know what I have done."
"What, Polly?" he cried, trying not to show how he felt at sight of the swollen eyelids and downcast face. Meanwhile he drew her out gently into the hall. "There, let us sit down here," pausing before the wide window-seat; "it's quiet here, and nobody will be likely to come here." He waited till Polly sat down, then made a place for himself beside her.
"Jasper," cried Polly, lifting her brown eyes, now filling with tears again, "you can't think what I've done. I've ruined your whole life for you!"
"How, Polly?" Jasper's face grew pale to his lips. "Oh! do tell me at once," yet he seemed to be afraid of what she was about to say.
"O, Jasper! I thought perhaps I could help you. I never knew till this morning, just before you came, that you had lost your place. Mrs. Cabot had a letter from her husband, and she told me. And I spoke to Grandpapa and begged him to let you go back, and, O, Jasper!" here Polly's tears, despite all her efforts to keep them back, fell in a shower, "you can't guess how dreadfully Grandpapa feels, and he says—oh! he says that you are to study law, and never, never go back to Mr. Marlowe."
"Is that all?" exclaimed Jasper in such a tone of relief that Polly sprang to her feet and stared at him through dry eyes.