him, but to speculate on a future in
which Vera should play the main part.

Vera had money of her own, Jimmy knew that, and, unquestionably, the
fact weighed with him, not from a sordid point of view, but because it
made the risks of marriage so much smaller. There would be no fear of
his wife being left penniless, dependent on the charity of relatives. As
for his own prospects, he was inclined to take a rosy view of them. He
had made a good start, and that, as he was well aware, was more than
half the battle. Another year, and he ought to be earning enough to
justify him in marrying.

It would be very pleasant to have his own house, a permanent home. Vera
had plenty of friends, and he knew that there were many others who would
be glad enough to meet the rising author. They would soon have a
position, especially if, as seemed probable, Canon Farlow did get the
first vacant bishopric.

Jimmy had not much fear as to what Vera's answer would be. They had got
to know one another very well in that fortnight at Drylands, and much
of her almost prim reserve had already disappeared. She was twenty-five,
or thereabouts, quite old enough to know her own mind, and it was not
likely that her father, having three other unmarried daughters on his
hands, would offer any serious objection. May, too, would probably be
pleased when she came to look at the matter in the right light, because,
as he told himself with a cynical little smile, it would prove that the
Lalage episode was definitely at an end. And then, for a moment, he
thought of Lalage again, the Lalage of whom the doctor had told him,
young, almost childish in her inexperience, sacrificing her innocence
for the sake of her dying father. Suddenly he got up, feeling half
choked. If only that man had not died after the motor smash, if only he
had lived to suffer.

He walked up and down the little room several times, trying to regain
his self-control, trying to put Lalage out of his mind, and to think
only of Vera. But it was impossible. Phrases the doctor had used seemed
to be engraved on his memory. Almost against his will, he found himself
repeating them, and with them came a mental picture of Lalage's pitiful
shame and grief when the real meaning of what she had done came home to
her. And then the horror of it, the crowning tragedy of it all--her
father had died in the end, and she had been driven to the streets of
London.

He had thought he had forgotten, and now he fou