s wife.

"My wife says she feels sure you must be in love with someone down
there, otherwise you could never stand the dulness of the country after
town; but I always say that your fate is to marry into a solid City
family, now that you have missed going to the other extreme."

Jimmy frowned as he read the last sentence. He had never given Kelly a
hint, and no one else could have told him. Possibly, it was the thought
of that which worried him, and made him turn to the decanter again; at
any rate, he had another whisky before he opened Lalage's letter. It had
been very different in the early days of their acquaintance; then, he
had torn the envelopes open eagerly, and almost learnt the contents by
heart before he thought of his other correspondence.

Jimmy had never given Lalage his address. All her letters went to the
club, whilst those he wrote to her he sent on under cover to one of the
waiters, who posted them in town. He, himself, never understood his own
reasons for this caution. It was not because he feared her blackmailing
him--even in his most bitter moments he had never thought of that; and
he knew her too well to be afraid she might pay him a visit unasked in
the hope of recapturing his affection; but probably it was due to some
vague feeling that it kept them further apart in spirit, helped to
preserve the barrier between them. Not that she had ever attempted to
break that barrier down. On the other hand, she seemed to have accepted
his decision as right, or at any rate as unalterable, and at times that
was the most horrible part of all to him, for it suggested the
possibility of someone succeeding him in her love, and, as she had long
since declined to take any more money from him, he had no right to
control her.

Lalage wrote from a little Yorkshire town, nearly two hundred miles
distant from Jimmy. "You know I told you I had a post as nurse-companion
to an old invalid lady. I am very grieved to say she died about three
weeks ago. She was the sweetest, best woman I ever met; she took me
without references, because she said she liked my face; and I really
believe her greatest sorrow at dying was due to the thought that she
could leave me nothing. All she had was a small annuity. Yet, in another
way, I was fortunate; for almost at once I got a situation in a draper's
shop, the only drapers here. It is not very much to boast of, I know;
but still I am making my own living honestly, and it is the sort of
p