g, and had tried to help
him fight his demon, he told himself that Vera's was the right view for
a girl of her position. She was too good and pure to come into contact
with the ugly things of life.

Already, he had made up his mind to ask her to marry him, later on, when
she came back from a promised visit of indefinite duration. There was no
hurry, Ethel had told him so frankly, no other suitor being in the
running. At first, the thought of the past troubled him a little, in the
abstract, as a kind of treason to Vera; but, after a while, he put that
thought aside. She need never know, and Lalage had gone out of his life
now.

His book had been published a week, and the one or two reviews which had
appeared had been satisfactory, almost flattering, though one reviewer
apparently voiced the general opinion when he said, "Mr. Grierson seems
anxious to uphold the conventions of modern society, and yet he writes
of them without conviction, as though he would like to believe in them,
and could not manage to do so."

Vera had frowned over the notice. "What rubbish, Mr. Grierson. It is as
much as to say that you would write one of the nasty kind of book, if
you dared. I think yours is very, very good and perfectly sincere."
Whereupon Jimmy had gone home well pleased, feeling that, at last, he
was receiving absolution, if not from his own family, at least from his
own people.

When Vera went back to town, Ethel deputed Jimmy to see her off at the
station, alleging that she herself had a headache.

"It's only _au revoir_," Jimmy said, as he shook hands at the railway
carriage door.

Miss Farlow smiled brightly. "That's all. I am coming down again very
soon. Father is going away for a couple of months' holiday; and, as he
is taking my younger sister, Florence, Ethel has made me promise to come
down here. She is awfully good-hearted, isn't she?"

Jimmy nodded emphatically. "She is indeed. One of the best I know."

As the train steamed out of the station, he stood a full minute deep in
thought, staring at it until it disappeared round a slight curve; then
he turned to find the doctor watching him with a grim smile.

"Hullo, Grierson," the old man said. "I've hardly seen you lately, only
caught glimpses of you whizzing past in a motor, surrounded by
millinery." Then he scanned the other's face critically. "You're
looking better. Found the cure for it, eh? I always thought that both
the reason and the remedy would prove to