She was a pretty good judge of character; she knew quite well what sort of a man Jimmy Challoner was.  And six months—­well, six months was a long time.

“Mr. Kettering knows Jimmy’s brother,” Christine said presently, drying her eyes.  “So I suppose if he comes to live anywhere near here, he will know what—­what is the matter with—­with me and Jimmy, and he’ll write and tell Horace.”

“And then Jimmy will get his allowance stopped, and serve him right,” said Gladys bluntly.

Christine cried out in dismay: 

“Oh, but that would be dreadful!  What would he do?”

“Work, like other men, of course.”

But Christine would not listen.

“I shall ask Mr. Kettering not to tell Horace—­if I ever see him again,” she said agitatedly.

Gladys laughed dryly.

“Oh, you’ll see him again right enough,” she said laconically.

CHAPTER XVII

JIMMY BREAKS OUT

It took Jimmy a whole week to realise that Christine meant what she said when she asked him not to write to her, or go near her.  At first he had been so sure that in a day or two at most she would be sorry, and want to see him; somehow he could not believe that the little unselfish girl he had known all his life could so determinedly make up her mind and stick to it.

He grumbled and growled to Sangster every time they met.

“I was a fool to let her go.  The law is on my side; I could have insisted that she stayed with me.”  He looked at his friend. “I could have insisted, I say!” he repeated.

Sangster raised his eyes.

“I’m not denying it; but it’s much wiser as it is.  Leave her alone, and things will work out their own salvation.”

“She’ll forget all about me, and then what will happen?” Jimmy demanded.  “A nice thing—­a very nice thing that would be.”

“No doubt she thinks that is what you wish her to do.”

Jimmy called him a fool; he threw a half-smoked cigarette into the fire, and sat watching it burn with a scowl on his face.

The last week had seemed endless.  He had kept away from the club; the men in the club always knew everything—­he had learned that by previous experience; he had no desire for the shower of chaff which he knew would greet his appearance there.

Married a week—­and now Christine had gone!  It made his soul writhe to think of it.  It had hurt enough to be jilted; but this—­well, this struck at his pride even more deeply.

“I thought you promised me to go down to Upton House and see how things were,” he growled at Sangster.  “You haven’t been, have you?  I suppose you don’t mean to go either?”

“My dear chap——­”

“Oh, don’t ‘dear chap’ me,” Jimmy struck in irritably.  “Go if you mean to go. . . .  After all, if anything happens to Christine, it’s my responsibility——­”