met him in the
little hall, whither she had dragged the luggage.

"It is all ready now," she said, and went out without looking back.

When Jimmy got down to the club a couple of hours later, he found a
telegram waiting for him in the rack, signed "Joseph Fenton."

It read: "Meet me any time to-night at the Grand Central Hotel. Shall be
alone."

CHAPTER XXII

Jimmy heaved a sigh of relief as he read the telegram. In after years,
he looked back on it as the one ray of brightness in the most ghastly
day of his life. It did not alter the essential fact that everything had
gone to pieces--nothing could alter that--but it made matters less
complicated so far as Lalage's immediate future was concerned. He had
intended asking his brother-in-law for a loan, and it was a load off his
mind to find that Joseph was actually in town. A letter might, probably
would, have fallen into Ida's hands, and this was one of those cases
where an interview was better than many pages of explanations.

In reply to the telegram, Jimmy wired that he would be at the hotel at
nine o'clock. He had given up all idea of going to the office that
night, or, rather, of ever going there again. He must get away, at once,
from everything which might remind him of the old life. He must cut
himself adrift from it, immediately, altogether, if he wished to
preserve his sanity. For himself, he cared nothing, at least at the
moment; but, though he might never see her again once she had left
London, he had to provide for Lalage. The Grierson strain in him had
asserted itself in so far as it had made him determine to leave Lalage.
He was able now to see her sin and his own, especially hers; but still
he could not abandon her to her fate, as a true Grierson would have
done, because he had been passionately in love, whilst the love of the
true Grierson is always decorous, and truly tempered by financial
considerations. The dowerless bride is regarded with coldness; the bride
with a past is anathema; there is no road back, at least in the opinion
of those who have sub-edited their religion in the interests of
propriety.

Jimmy had no difficulty in finding a substitute to take on his work at
the _Record_ office, especially when he made it known that there was
going to be a vacancy on the staff immediately.

"I'm a bit knocked out," he explained. "The malaria has got hold of me
again, and the doctor says I must go out at once."

The other man nodded sym