It was quite time that the Record had a vacancy for a sub-editor, and Dodgson was willing to give the berth to Jimmy; only his ideas of salary were far from being satisfactory.

"You see, you're new to the work, wholly inexperienced," he explained, "and, under the circumstances, I cannot give you more than two pounds a week for a start. Afterwards, if the chief sub-editor is satisfied, I will raise it. If it is worth your while you can start to-morrow."

Jimmy bit his lip. He had expected three pounds at the very least, and this would be poor news to take back to Lalage. Still, his work would only be from about six in the evening until midnight, and he could do some articles or stories during the day, or at any rate he hoped so. After all, a certain two pounds was far better than nothing, even though the rent of the flat would swallow fully half of it. So he accepted, after a nervous and unsuccessful attempt to get Dodgson to increase the offer by ten shillings.

As he walked back westwards, he found himself wondering what the editor would have said had he explained how much that extra ten shillings would have meant to him. The paper was paying a dividend of twenty per cent., and if the wages of all the sub-editors had been doubled the shareholders would never have noticed the difference; but to Lalage and Jimmy the lack of that half-sovereign would involve semi-starvation, unless it were possible to sell some articles.

Lalage put on a brave face when he told her. "It's a beginning, dear," she said. "Of course, it's a shame to pay a clever man like you so little; but now you've got your foot in, you'll soon get on. You mustn't be downhearted about it, Jimmy." She glanced at him keenly. "You're tired out to-night, and I don't believe you've spent anything on yourself in getting a drink and so on; and you've walked all the way from Fleet Street. Now haven't you?"

Jimmy tried to protest he was all right, but his heavy eyes betrayed him, and she insisted that he should go out and get a quartern of brandy.

"But that will take pretty well all we've got," he answered. "And what will you do to-morrow?"

"Oh, something will happen," she retorted. "And the worst thing for me would be to have you ill. What would poor Lalage do then? Now go, like a dear good boy."

As the door closed behind him, all the brightness left her face. "I suppose his people would say I was making him drink," she sighed. "Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, I'm so afraid. If only I dare agree to give up this flat, and we could go into quite cheap lodgings. But how can I risk losing everything?"

Jimmy's work proved more tiring than he had expected. He was thoroughly conscientious, savagely anxious to satisfy the chief sub-editor and get a raise; moreover, he was in anything but good health. Consequently, he always got back to the flat in the early mornings tired out, and, though he tried hard to write during the daytime, even he, himself, could see that the work he produced was below his usual level. Anyway, it did not sell, coming back every time with sickening regularity.

Despite his protests, Lalage always insisted on sitting up for him. "You must have something hot when you come in," she declared, "even if we can only run to a cup of cocoa and a little bit of plaice from the fried fish shop. You can't do brain work on nothing."

Jimmy gladly left all the finances to her. Sometimes he wondered how she contrived to feed him as well as she did, besides paying the rent, and letting him have at least a shilling a night when he went down to the office. She even managed to get some bottled stout for him, and yet, at any rate whilst he was at home, no one came to the door to dun her for money. Had he been stronger, he would probably have been suspicious and have made inquiries; but he was thoroughly run down and weary, and only too ready to be free from household worries. He had never kept house himself, knew but little of the cost of things, and had infinite faith in Lalage's capacity for management.

Once or twice, during the first three months of Jimmy's engagement at the Record, Dodgson asked him to write a special article with reference to something which had happened abroad, and, when he went to draw his money for the first of these, Jimmy found that his rate had been raised to three guineas a column; but his weekly wage remained the same, and, somehow, he could not summon up courage to ask boldly for a raise. He was, as Lalage could see plainly, growing a little thinner, a little more weary and nervous, every week.

At the end of the second month, Lalage sprang a surprise on him. They were at breakfast when, with a rather heightened colour, she brought five sovereigns out of her purse and gave them to him. "Jimmy," she said, hurriedly, "you must get a new suit, and some collars and ties and things, really you must."

He looked at the money, then at her. "Where did you get this, Lalage?" he asked, very quietly.

She faced him so bravely that his suspicions vanished at once. "I saved it up, from those articles of yours."

"And how about you? You want things far more than I do, sweetheart. I don't think you have had any new clothes since I met you."

Lalage shook her head vehemently. "That's for you. You have to go to work, and it worries me terribly when I see you shabby. You will feel ever so much better when you've got a new suit, and they'll think more of you at the office. Clothes give one confidence. Now, you shall come out this morning and order a nice dark tweed, or a grey. I'm not sure I shan't like you best in grey. Anyway, we'll see."

The new clothes certainly made Jimmy look better, and, for a little while, Lalage deluded herself into the belief that he really was growing stronger; then one night he came home shivering, with a severe chill, and his old enemy, the malaria, gripped him again. True, he was only absent from the office two nights; but the trouble seemed to remain, and Lalage had to redouble her efforts to feed him up. Often, during those days, she tried to steel herself into sending him away, into forcing him to go back to his own people to be nursed as they could afford to nurse him; but when it came to the point of speaking, her resolution always failed her. She could not bear to part from him—yet. And, if she did send him away, there was always the fear, amounting almost to a certainty, that he would drink to drown remembrance of her.

No, she told herself, she must keep him as long as she could, for his own sake, as well as for hers. What would happen to herself if the parting did come, she never tried to consider. The thought of it was too awful. Jimmy had been so sweet and kind and thoughtful that it was absolutely impossible for her to imagine anyone replacing him. The fact that the question of marriage between them had been tacitly dropped did not weigh with her now. She had never dared to hope that he would redeem his promise eventually; and, latterly, she had tried to make herself forget that the matter had ever been mentioned between them.

Jimmy had seen none of his own people since his visit to the Walter Griersons'. His work gave him a good and sufficient excuse for not leaving town, and it never occurred to him to call on either Henry or Walter in the City. Still, he wrote frequently; and, as time went on, he began to lose some of his fear of their discovering the existence of Lalage. Neither Ida nor May seemed to have any suspicions, so far as he could judge from their letters. Consequently, it gave him a terrible shock when, one morning, about the beginning of his fourth month on the Record, he received a wire from May commanding him to meet her as soon as possible at Walter's office.

Lalage, who had gone deadly pale, picked up the detestable brown envelope.

"It's addressed here. So they know," she whispered.

"Yes, they know," he repeated dully.

They sat for a long time in silence, then he got up, evidently intending to go out.

Lalage stood up, too. "Jimmy, you will leave me," she said.

He turned round quickly and took her in his arms. "Never, never, sweetheart. After all you've done for me! You ought to know me better."

For answer, she gave him a long, passionate kiss, as though saying farewell.