heat
through the glass."

"Don't, please don't," Jimmy muttered thickly. "I do hate to think of it
all. And it shan't be so again, I swear it shan't. Let's forget it all
to-night, and go out and have some dinner somewhere, for a change.
You're all on a shiver now. I'll go out and get some brandy, whilst you
put your things on. I may as well bring in a bottle."

Lalage put her hand on his arm. "Not a bottle, dear, only a quartern.
That'll be quite enough. Do what Lalage tells you this time."

"Don't I always do what you tell me?" he asked, laughing.

"Oh, I don't want you to say that," she answered quickly. "You ought to
be your own master; only when I know a thing is right I do like to tell
you. A woman should, I think."

For an instant, Jimmy felt a wild longing to beg her to change the word
"woman" to that of "wife," but she had already turned towards the door,
and at the same moment the noise of the grimy street seemed to come in
through the window and somehow fill the room. The sound recalled him to
his normal self. How could he, a Grierson, take a wife from those
surroundings?

CHAPTER XVI

Mrs. Marlow had learnt of her brother's sudden change of address with
mingled annoyance and anxiety. It was not pleasant to have him quit the
lodgings she had found for him after so short a trial, and she could not
help feeling that there was some very strong attraction drawing him to
town. Mrs. Benn, that uncompromising "Son of Temperance," had come over
herself to explain matters to Jimmy's sister, and had taken the
opportunity to enlarge on the number of bottles she had found in her
lodger's room, omitting to state, however, that these had included the
best part of a dozen of Bass, which, possibly because she hated liquor
so much, she had promptly sold to her next-door neighbour at a halfpenny
a bottle below the retail price.

"I'm afraid as how the house was too quiet for Mr. Grierson, mum," she
wound up. "Having nothing to do hisself, except just write, he seemed to
think other folks couldn't be tired and want to go to bed, folks that
worked." She emphasised her words with a truly British scorn for those
who live by their brains. "I'm sure the hours and hours as I've sat up
for him, it's fair worn me out. And him your brother, mum, and uncle to
these lovely little children, what I remember coming into the world."

Mrs. Marlow wrote plainly to her brother, doing her duty without
flinching. Jimmy read the