Mrs. Marlow was a good woman. The rector himself had told her so only the week before when she had given him a cheque for twenty guineas in aid of his favourite charity, the Mission to the Moabites. Consequently, the discovery of Jimmy's double life had filled her with both sorrow and loathing; sorrow at the thought that a Grierson should have been so weak and foolish, loathing at the conduct of the woman who led him astray. She was sitting very grim and upright in the client's chair when Jimmy came in; whilst Walter was at the other side of the table, nervously playing with his eyeglasses and wishing inwardly he had telegraphed for his wife, a proposal which May had vetoed.

"Excuse me, Walter, but this is a matter for our father's children only," she had said, and Walter had, as usual, bowed to her ruling. Ever since their mother's death May had been the high priestess of the family fetish, the position of the Griersons.

The two brothers shook hands in silence, but Mrs. Marlow made no move beyond the very slightest nod, which seemed to be merely a recognition of the fact that the culprit had arrived.

Jimmy laid his hat on the table, then went and leaned against the fireplace with an assumption of indifference. "Well, May," he said at last, "what is it?"

His sister turned on him suddenly. "Please don't be a hypocrite any more, Jimmy, if you can help it." Her voice was hard and scornful. "You must know from my wire that we have found out all about your disgraceful conduct. As a matter of fact we knew of it a week ago, and might have sent for you then, but we have had detectives making inquiries into that," she hesitated, "that person's character and antecedents in the hope of being able to open your eyes. Isn't that so, Walter?"

The elder man nodded and gave a little grunt of acquiescence, though it was obvious he did not relish being dragged into the matter at all.

Jimmy, white with sudden passion, took a step forward. "Confound it, May——" he began.

His sister put her hands to her ears. "Please don't make it worse by swearing at me. I am not the Penrose woman. We have the right to speak to you as one of the family, if only to save you from further disgrace, and perhaps prosecution,"—she emphasised the last words, and then repeated them, "yes, from prosecution. Not only has this person been bleeding you, working you to death, and taking your last penny——"

Jimmy, remembering all that Lalage had done for him during the past three months, cut her short savagely. "That's a lie. She's been everything a woman should be to me."

His sister laughed in bitter scorn. "And to half a dozen other men as well. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, what a fool you are, how you've been fooled. Do you think she's been true to you? Do you think a vile creature like that could be true to anyone? No, I will speak for all your swearing at me. Do you think that whilst you have been slaving at that office at nights she has been at home thinking of you? Oh, you have been a blind fool! She has told you lies about everything, over the rent, over the amount she had to pay to the hire-purchase people, over what she was spending. Do you think your paltry two pounds a week was sufficient to dress her and keep her in luxury?"

Jimmy turned away, gripping the mantelpiece for support. He remembered many little things which had given him a momentary pang of suspicion at the time; now, suddenly those suspicions became certainties; and when he looked round again his face was five years older, for he had loved Lalage, and he knew that May was telling him the truth. He had been a blind fool; but still the remembrance of the past was strong in him, and he made a last fight against believing.

"It's a lie, it's a lie," he repeated hoarsely. There was something in his eyes which nearly broke down May's hardness, a look she had never seen on any man's face before, which she never got out of her memory again.

"I know it hurts, Jimmy, dear," she said far more gently. "It must hurt because you've been infatuated by a very clever and bad woman; but for all that it is true. Do you know anything of her past? What has she told you? We know now that she was the daughter of a scientific writer, and that, even when he lay on his dying bed, she went away with someone, then came back with a lie in her mouth, about having been to town, selling one of his unpublished books. Her own aunt told us of it, her aunt by marriage."

"I don't believe it. I won't believe it," Jimmy muttered.

May shrugged her shoulders. "We have proofs, the best of proofs. Is it not so, Walter?"

The elder brother nodded without looking up. In his case, too, it was the first time tragedy, real tragedy, had come into his life, and it was making him think. He realised dimly that the light had gone out for Jimmy, and as he scratched lines on his blotting-pad with the rim of his eyeglasses, he fell to wondering, in a dull, far-off sort of way, whether his brother would shoot himself as their father had done, and what the coroner's verdict would be, and what the world, by which he meant the City, would say. Then the spring of his glasses snapped suddenly, and the annoyance brought him back sharply to the immediate present.

"Yes, we have complete proof, legal proof," he said. "Your sister is quite right." Words seemed to be failing him, then he got up abruptly and laid a kindly hand on Jimmy's shoulder, as he had often done many years before when they had both been boys. "It's better for you to know, old man. She's a bad lot, and you're well clear of it all. You'll soon forget her and find someone very different."

His words had the effect of rousing May's anger anew. "Don't talk like that, Walter, please," she said sharply. "It's hardly decent under the present circumstances. I presume, Jimmy, that after what we have told you, you will neither see nor write to that creature again."

Jimmy's eyes flashed. "I shall see her and ask her side of it. Am I to condemn her unheard on the strength of the gossip some vile hangers-on have concocted in return for your money? I shall go down there at once."

Mrs. Marlow's laugh was very scornful. "I said you were a fool. Of course, she'll lie to you again, and wheedle round you. As for the hangers-on, to use your own elegant term, I heard first from Mrs. Fagin, who is a most respectable woman, I find, with a husband in a very good position in the Council office. She had no idea she was lending herself to such a deception, and sent me to the mayor, who very kindly had inquiries made. Then we actually caught this woman, as you can see by these."

She held out a little bundle of papers which Jimmy took mechanically, fingered for a moment, then with a sudden resolution he tossed it into the fire, and as it did not catch immediately drove it down into the glowing coals with the heel of his boot.

May watched him in silence, but when the blaze had died down again, "That stupid action won't alter the facts," she said; "and I may as well tell you that the mayor has asked the police to make her leave that flat. I am only sorry there is no charge we can bring against her. Anyway, she will be watched," she added vindictively. "Ida has gone to warn her now in case she tries to blackmail you."

Jimmy took up his hat quickly. "Good-bye, Walter," he said quietly, and, ignoring his sister, fumbled a little uncertainly for the handle of the door.

May sprang up and seized his arm. "Jimmy, oh, Jimmy, dear, don't go like that, don't go back to her. We are your own people, you must remember that, and because we love you, we want to overlook all this and see you get on. Don't spoil your life in this way and make us all miserable. If you see her again she has enough wicked cleverness to get you back into her power."

There was genuine feeling in her voice, and for a moment Jimmy was inclined to change his mind, then he released her clutch very gently, and without another word went out of the office.

"He will go back to her, Walter, I am sure he will. He is weak enough for anything where a woman is concerned," May sobbed.

Walter shook his head. "I think not. No, I'm sure he won't," he said with a degree of assurance he was far from feeling; then he looked at his watch. "Well, I've got an appointment with a client in a few minutes, May; I don't want to hurry you off, but——"

May wiped her eyes and drew down her veil. "I do hope Ida manages to frighten her away before Jimmy gets there," she said.