'Oh yes, I'm wrong! Of course I'm wrong! You always did go against me when there was anything to do with Clara. She'd never listen to him? No, of course she wouldn't, an' he couldn't rest until he saw her come to harm. What do you care either? She's no child of yours. But I tell you I'd see you an' all your children beg an' die in the streets rather than a hair of my own girl's head should be touched!'

Indulgence of his passion was making a madman of him. Never till now had he uttered an unfeeling word to his wife, but the look with which lie accompanied this brutal speech was one of fiery hatred.

'Don't turn on her!' cried Sidney, with bitterness. 'Say what you like to me, and believe the worst you can of me; I shouldn't have come here if I hadn't been ready to bear everything. It's no good speaking reason to you now, but maybe you'll understand some day.'

'Who know's as she's come to harm?' urged Mrs. Hewett. 'Nobody can say it of her for certain, yet.'

'I'd have told him that, if he'd only listened to me and given me credit for honesty,' said Kirkwood. 'It is as likely as not she's gone away just because I angered her on Saturday. Perhaps she said to herself she'd have done with me once for all. It would be just her way.'

'Speak another word against my girl,' Hewett shouted, misinterpreting the last phrase, 'an' I'll do more than say what I think of you—old man though they call me! Take yourself out of this room; it was the worst day of my life that ever you came into it. Never let me an' you come across each other again. I hate the sight of you, an' I hate the sound of your voice!'

The animal in Sidney Kirkwood made it a terrible minute for him as he turned away in silence before this savage injustice. The veins upon his forehead were swollen; his clenched teeth gave an appearance of ferocity to his spirited features. With head bent, and shoulders quivering as if in supreme muscular exertion, he left the room without another word.

In a few minutes Hewett also quitted the house. He went to the luncheon-bar in Upper Street, and heard for the first time Mrs. Tubbs's rancorous surmises. He went to Clara's recent lodgings; a girl of ten was the only person in the house, and she could say nothing more than that Miss Hewett no longer lived there. Till midway in the afternoon John walked about the streets of Islington, Highbury, Hoxton, Clerkenwell, impelled by the unreasoning hope that he might see Clara, but also because he could not rest in any place. He was half-conscious now of the madness of his behaviour to Kirkwood, but this only confirmed him in hostility to the young man; the thought of losing Clara was anguish intolerable, yet with it mingled a bitter resentment of the girl's cruelty to him. And all these sources of misery swelled the current of rebellious feeling which had so often threatened to sweep his life into wreckage. He was Clara's father, and the same impulse of furious revolt which had driven the girl to recklessness now inflamed him with the rage of despair.

On a Bank-holiday only a few insignificant shops remain open even in the poor districts of London; sweets you can purchase, and tobacco, but not much else that is sold across an ordinary counter. The more noticeable becomes the brisk trade of public-houses. At the gin-shop centres the life of each street; here is a wide door and a noisy welcome, the more attractive by contrast with the stretch of closed shutters on either hand. At such a door, midway in the sultry afternoon, John Hewett paused. To look at his stooping shoulders, his uncertain swaying this way and that, his flushed, perspiring face, you might have taken him for one who had already been drinking. No; it was only a struggle between his despairing wretchedness and a lifelong habit of mind. Not difficult to foresee which would prevail; the public-house always has its doors open in expectation of such instances. With a gesture which made him yet more like a drunken man he turned from the pavement and entered. . . .

About nine o'clock in the evening, just when Mrs. Hewett had put the unwilling children to bed, and had given her baby a sleeping-dose—it had cried incessantly for eighteen hours,—the door of the room was pushed open. Her husband came in. She stood looking at him—unable to credit the evidence of her eyes.

'John!'

She laid her hand upon him and stared into his face. The man shook her off, without speaking, and moved staggeringly forward. Then he turned round, waved his arm, and shouted:

'Let her go to the devil She cares nothing for her father.'

He threw himself upon the bed, and soon sank into drunken sleep.



CHAPTER XIV

A WELCOME GUEST

The bells of St. James's, Clerkenwell, ring melodies in intervals of the pealing for service-time. One morning of spring their music, like the rain that fell intermittently, was flung westwards by the boisterous wind, away over Clerkenwell Close, until the notes failed one by one, or were clashed out of existence by the clamour of a less civilised steeple. Had the wind been under mortal control it would doubtless have blown thus violently and in this quarter in order that the inhabitants of the House of Detention might derive no solace from the melody. Yet I know not; just now the bells were playing 'There is a happy land, far, far away,' and that hymn makes too great a demand upon the imagination to soothe amid instant miseries.

In Mrs. Peckover's kitchen the music was audible in bursts. Clem and her mother, however, it neither summoned to prepare for church, nor lulled into a mood of restful reverie. The two were sitting very close together before the fire, and holding intimate converse; their voices kept a low murmur, as if; though the door was shut, they felt it necessary to use every precaution against being overheard. Three years have come and gone since we saw these persons. On the elder time has made little impression; but Clem has developed noticeably. The girl is now in the very prime of her ferocious beauty. She has grown taller and somewhat stouter; her shoulders spread like those of a caryatid; the arm with which she props her head is as strong as a carter's and magnificently moulded. The head itself looks immense with its pile of glossy hair. Reddened by the rays of the fire, her features had a splendid savagery which seemed strangely at discord with the paltry surroundings amid which she sat; her eyes just now were gleaming with a crafty and cruel speculation which would have become those of a barbarian in ambush. I wonder how it came about that her strain, after passing through the basest conditions of modern life, had thus reverted to a type of ancestral exuberance.

'If only he doesn't hear about the old man or the girl from somebody!' said Mrs. Peckover. 'I've been afraid of it ever since he come into the 'ouse. There's so many people might tell him. You'll have to come round him sharp, Clem.'

The mother was dressed as her kind are wont to be on Sunday morning—that is to say, not dressed at all, but hung about with coarse garments, her hair in unbeautiful disarray. Clem, on the other hand, seemed to have devoted much attention to her morning toilet; she wore a dark dress trimmed with velveteen, and a metal ornament of primitive taste gleamed amid her hair.

'There ain't no mistake?' she asked, after a pause. 'You're jolly sure of that?'

'Mistake? What a blessed fool you must be! Didn't they advertise in the papers for him? Didn't the lawyers themselves say as it was something to his advantage? Don't you say yourself as Jane says her grandfather's often spoke about him and wished he could find him? How can it be a mistake? If it was only Bill's letter we had to go on, you might talk; but—there, don't be a ijiot!'

'If it turned out as he hadn't nothing,' remarked Clem resolutely, 'I'd leave him, if I was married fifty times.'

Her mother uttered a contemptuous sound. At the same time she moved her head as if listening; some one was, in fact, descending the stairs.

'Here he comes,' she whispered. 'Get the eggs ready, an' I'll make the corffee.'

A tap at the door, then entered a tallish man of perhaps forty, though he might be a year or two younger. His face was clean-shaven, harsh-featured, unwholesome of complexion; its chief peculiarity was the protuberance of the bone in front of each temple, which gave him a curiously animal aspect. His lower lip hung and jutted forward; when he smiled, as now in advancing to the fire, it slightly overlapped the one above. His hair was very sparse; he looked, indeed, like one who has received the tonsure. The movement of his limbs betokened excessive indolence; he dragged his feet rather than walked. His attire was equally suggestive; not only had it fallen into the last degree of shabbiness (having originally been such as is worn by a man above the mechanic ranks), but it was patched with dirt of many kinds, and held together by a most inadequate supply of buttons. At present he wore no collar, and his waistcoat, half-open, exposed a red shirt.

'Why, you're all a-blowin' and a-growin' this morning, Peckover,' was his first observation, as he dropped heavily into a wooden arm-chair. 'I shall begin to think that colour of yours ain't natural. Dare you let me rub it with a handkerchief?'

'Course I dare,' replied Clem, tossing her head. 'Don't be so forward, Mr. Snowdon.'

'Forward? Not I. I'm behind time if anything. I hope I haven't kept you from church.'

He chuckled at his double joke. Mother and daughter laughed appreciatively.

'Will you take your eggs boiled or fried?' inquired Mrs. Peckover.

'Going to give me eggs, are you? Well, I've no objection, I assure you. And I think I'll have them fried, Mrs. Peckover. But, I say, you mustn't be running up too big a bill. The Lord only knows when I shall get anything to do, and it ain't very likely to be a thousand a year when it does come.'

'Oh, that's all right,' replied the landlady, as if sordid calculation were a thing impossible to her. 'I can't say as you behaved quite straightforward years ago, Mr. Snowdon, but I ain't one to make a row about bygones, an' as you say you'll put it all straight as soon as you can, well, I won't refuse to trust you once more.'

Mr. Snowdon lay back in the chair, his hands in his waistcoat pockets, his legs outstretched upon the fender. He was smiling placidly, now at the preparing breakfast, now at Clem. The latter he plainly regarded with much admiration, and cared not to conceal it. When, in a few minutes, it was announced to him that the meal was ready, he dragged his chair up to the table and reseated himself with a sigh of satisfaction. A dish of excellent ham, and eggs as nearly fresh as can be obtained in Clerkenwell, invited him with appetising odour; a large cup of what is known to the generality of English people as coffee steamed at his right hand; slices of new bread lay ready cut upon a plate; a slab of the most expensive substitute for butter caught his eye with yellow promise; vinegar and mustard appealed to the refinements of his taste.

'I've got a couple more eggs, if you'd like them doin',' said Mrs. Peckover, when she had watched the beginning of his attack upon the viands.

'I think I shall manage pretty well with this supply,' returned Mr. Snowdon.

As he ate he kept silence, partly because it was his habit, partly in consequence of the activity of his mind. He was, in fact, musing upon a question which he found it very difficult to answer in any satisfactory way. 'What's the meaning of all this?' he asked himself, and not for the first time. 'What makes them treat me in this fashion? A week ago I came here to look up Mrs. Peckover, just because I'd run down to my last penny, and I didn't know where to find a night's lodging. I'd got an idea, too, that I should like to find out what had become of my child, whom I left here nine or ten years ago; possibly she was still alive, and might welcome the duty of supporting her parent. The chance was, to be sure, that the girl had long since been in her grave, and that Mrs. Peckover no longer lived in the old quarters; if I discovered the woman, on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane's keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while—till I find work, and I wonder when that'll be?—and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn't seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I'm told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn't send her to the workhouse? If I'm to believe her, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won't exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he's seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world, Still, what if I'm making a mistake about the old woman? There are some people do things of that sort; upon my soul, I've known people be kind even to me, without a chance of being paid back! You may think you know a man or a woman, and then all at once they'll go and do something you'd have taken your davy couldn't possibly happen. I'd have sworn she was nothing but a skinflint and a lying old witch. And so she maybe; the chances are there's some game going on that I can't see through. Make inquiries? Why, so I have done, as far as I know how. I've only been able to hit on one person who knows anything about the matter, and he tells me it's true enough the girl was taken away about three years ago, but he's no idea where she went to. Surely the old man must be dead b now, though he was tough. Well, the fact of the matter is, I've got a good berth, and I'm a precious sight too lazy to go on the private detective job. Here's this girl Clem, the finest bit of flesh I've seen for a long time; I've more than half a mind to see if she won't be fool enough to marry me. I'm not a bad-looking fellow, that's the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a Comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven't a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.'

The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself. Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantel-piece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner.

'How old may you be, Clem?' Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes.

'What's that to you? Guess.'

'Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You'll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.'

'Yes, I'm nineteen—last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain't it?'

'Ah! And who'd have thought you'd have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?'

'A dozen or two, I dessay,' Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully.

Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire.

'Tell me about some o' them, will you? Who is it you're keeping company with now?'

'Who, indeed? Why, there isn't one I'd look at! Several of 'em's took to drinking 'cause I won't have nothing to do with 'em.'

This excited Mr. Snowdon's mirth in a high degree; he rolled on his chair, and almost pitched backwards.

'I suppose you give one or other a bit of encouragement now and then, just to make a fool of him, eh?'

'Course I do. There was Bob Hewett; he used to lodge here, but that was after your time. I kep' him off an' on till he couldn't bear it no longer; then he went an' married a common slut of a thing, just because he thought it 'ud make me mad. Ha, ha! I believe he'd give her poison an' risk it any day, if only I promised to marry him afterwards. Then there was a feller called Jeck Bartley. I set him an' Bob fightin' one Bank-holiday—you should a' seen 'em go at it! Jack went an' got married a year ago to a girl called Suke Jollop; her mother forced him. How I did laugh! Last Christmas Day they smashed up their 'ome an' threw the bits out into the street. Jack got one of his eyes knocked out—I thought I should a' died o' laughin' when I saw him next mornin'.'

The hearer became uproarious in merriment.

'Tell you what it is, Clem,' he cried, 'you're something like a girl! Darn me if I don't like you! I say, I wonder what my daughter's grown up? Like her mother, I suppose. You an' she was sort of sisters, wasn't you?'

He observed her closely. Clem laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

'Queer sort o' sisters. She was a bit too quiet-like for me. There never was no fun in her.'

'Aye, like her mother. And where did you say she went to with the old man?'

'Where she went to?' repeated Clem, regarding him steadily with her big eyes, 'I never said nothing about it, 'cause I didn't know.'

'Well, I shan't cry about her, and I don't suppose she misses me much, wherever she is. All the same, Clem, I'm a domesticated sort of man; you can see that, can't you? I shouldn't wonder if I marry again one of these first days. Just tell me where to find a girl of the right sort. I dare say you know heaps.'

'Dessay I do. What sort do you want?'

'Oh, a littlish girl—yellow hair, you know—one of them that look as if they didn't weigh half-a-stone.'

'I'll throw this parsnip at you, Mr. Snowdon!'

'What's up now. You don't Call yourself littlish, do you?'

Clem snapped the small end off the vegetable she was paring, and aimed it at his head. He ducked just in time. Then there was an outburst of laughter from both.

'Say, Clem, you haven't got a glass of beer in the house?'

'You'll have to wait till openin' time,' replied the girl sourly, going away to the far end of the room.

'Have I offended you, Clem?'

'Offended, indeed As if I cared what you say!'

'Do you care what I think?'

'Not I!'

'That means you do. Say, Clem, just come here; I've something to tell you.'

'You're a nuisance. Let me get on with my work, can't you?'

'No, I can't. You just come here. You'd better not give me the trouble of fetching you!'

The girl obeyed him. Her cheeks were very hot, and the danger-signal was flashing in her eyes. Ten minutes later she went upstairs, and had a vivacious dialogue of whispers with Mrs. Peckover.



CHAPTER XV

SUNLIGHT IN DREARY PLACES

Among the by-ways of Clerkenwell you might, with some difficulty, have discovered an establishment known in its neighbourhood as 'Whitehead's.' It was an artificial-flower factory, and the rooms of which it consisted were only to be reached by traversing a timber-yard, and then mounting a wooden staircase outside a saw-mill. Here at busy seasons worked some threescore women and girls, who, owing to the nature of their occupation, were spoken of by the jocose youth of the locality as 'Whitehead's pastepots.'

Naturally they varied much in age and aspect. There was the child who had newly left school, and was now invited to consider the question of how to keep herself alive; there was the woman of uncertain age, who had spent long years of long days in the atmosphere of workrooms, and showed the result in her parchmenty cheek and lack-lustre eye; and between these extremes came all the various types of the London crafts-girl: she who is young enough to hope that disappointments may yet be made up for by the future; she who is already tasting such scanty good as life had in store for her; she who has outlived her illusions and no longer cares to look beyond the close of the week. If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. With few exceptions, they were clad neatly; on the whole, they plied their task in wonderful contentment. The general tone of conversation among them was not high; moralists unfamiliar with the ways of the nether world would probably have applied a term other than negative to the laughing discussions which now and then enlivened this or that group; but it was very seldom indeed that a child newly arriving heard anything with which she was not already perfectly familiar.

One afternoon at the end of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. The workers were arranged in groups of three, called 'parties,' consisting of a learner, an improver, and a hand. All sat with sleeves pushed up to their elbows, and had a habit of rocking to and fro as they plied their mechanical industry. Owing to the movement of a cloud, the sunlight spread gradually towards one of these groups; it touched the skirt, the arms, the head of one of the girls, who, as if gladdened by the kindly warmth, looked round and smiled. A smile you would have been pleased to observe—unconscious, gently thoughtful, rich in possibilities of happiness. She was quite a young girl, certainly not seventeen, and wore a smooth grey dress, with a white linen collar; her brown hair was closely plaited, her head well-shaped, the bend of her neck very graceful. From her bare arms it could be seen that she was anything but robustly made, yet her general appearance was not one of ill-health, and she held herself, even thus late in the day, far more uprightly than most of her companions. Had you watched her for a while, you would have noticed that her eyes occasionally strayed beyond the work-table, and, perhaps unconsciously, fixed themselves for some moments on one or other of the girls near her; when she remembered herself and looked down again upon her task, there rose to her face a smile of the subtlest meaning, the outcome of busy reflection.

By her side was a little girl just beginning to learn the work, whose employment it was to paper wires and make 'centres.' This toil always results in blistered fingers, and frequent was the child's appeal to her neighbour for sympathy.

'It'll be easier soon,' said the latter, on one of these occasions, bending her head to speak in a low voice. 'You should have seen what blisters I had when I began.'

'It's all very well to say that. I can't do no more, so there Oh, when'll it be five o'clock?'

'It's a quarter to. Try and go on, Annie.'

Five o'clock did come at length, and with it twenty minutes' rest for tea. The rule at Whitehead's was, that you could either bring your own tea, sugar, and eatables, or purchase them here from a forewoman; most of the workers chose to provide themselves. It was customary for each 'party' to club together, emptying their several contributions of tea out of little twists of newspaper into one teapot. Wholesome bustle and confusion succeeded to the former silence. One of the learners, whose turn it was to run on errands, was overwhelmed with commissions to a chandler's shop close by; a wry-faced, stupid little girl she was, and they called her, because of her slowness, the 'funeral horse.' She had strange habits, which made laughter for those who knew of them; for instance, it was her custom in the dinner-hour to go apart and eat her poor scraps on a doorstep close by a cook-shop; she confided to a companion that the odour of baked joints seemed to give her food a relish. From her present errand she returned with a strange variety of dainties—for it was early in the week, and the girls still had coppers in their pockets; for two or three she had purchased a farthing's-worth of jam, which she carried in paper. A bite of this and a taste of that rewarded her for her trouble.

The quiet-mannered girl whom we were observing took her cup of tea from the pot in which she had a share, and from her bag produced some folded pieces of bread and butter. She had begun her meal, when there came and sat down by her a young woman of very different appearance—our friend, Miss Peckover. They were old acquaintances; but when we first saw them together it would have been difficult to imagine that they would ever sit and converse as at present, apparently in all friendliness. Strange to say, it was Clem who, during the past three years, had been the active one in seeking to obliterate disagreeable memories. The younger girl had never repelled her, but was long in overcoming the dread excited by Clem's proximity. Even now she never looked straight into Miss Peckover's face, as she did when speaking with others; there was reserve in her manner, reserve unmistakable, though clothed with her pleasant smile and amiable voice.

'I've got something to tell you, Jane,' Clem began, in a tone inaudible to those who were sitting near. 'Something as'll surprise you.'

'What is it, I wonder?'

'You must swear you won't tell nobody.'

Jane nodded. Then the other brought her head a little nearer, and whispered:

'I'm goin' to be married!'

'Are you really?'

'In a week. Who do you think it is? Somebody as you know of, but if you guessed till next Christmas you'd never come right.'

Nor had Clem any intention of revealing the name, but she laughed consumedly, as if her reticence covered the most amusing situation conceivable.

'It'll be the biggest surprise you ever had in your life. You've swore you won't speak about it. I don't think I shall come to work after this week—but you'll have to come an' see us. You'll promise to, won't you?'

Still convulsed with mirth, Clem went off to another part of the room. From Jane's countenance the look of amusement which she had perforce summoned soon passed; it was succeeded by a shadow almost of pain, and not till she had been at work again for nearly an hour was the former placidity restored to her.

When final release came, Jane was among the first to hasten down the wooden staircase and get clear of the timber yard. By the direct way, it took her twenty minutes to walk from Whitehead's to her home in Hanover Street, but this evening she had an object in turning aside. The visit she wished to pay took her into a disagreeable quarter, a street of squalid houses, swarming with yet more squalid children. On all the doorsteps Bat little girls, themselves only just out of infancy, nursing or neglecting bald, red-eyed, doughy-limbed abortions in every stage of babyhood, hapless spawn of diseased humanity, born to embitter and brutalise yet further the lot of those who unwillingly gave them life. With wide, pitiful eyes Jane looked at each group she passed. Three years ago she would have seen nothing but the ordinary and the inevitable in such spectacles, but since then her moral and intellectual being had grown on rare nourishment; there was indignation as well as heartache in the feeling with which she had learnt to regard the world of her familiarity. To enter the house at which she paused it was necessary to squeeze through a conglomerate of dirty little bodies. At the head of the first flight of stairs she came upon a girl sitting in a weary attitude on the top step and beating the wood listlessly with the last remnant of a hearth-brush; on her lap was one more specimen of the infinitely-multiplied baby, and a child of two years sprawled behind her on the landing.

'Waiting for him to come home, Pennyloaf?' said Jane.

'Oh, is that you, Miss Snowdon!' exclaimed the other, returning to consciousness and manifesting some shame at being discovered in this position. Hastily she drew together the front of her dress, which for the baby's sake had been wide open, and rose to her feet. Pennyloaf was not a bit more womanly in figure than on the day of her marriage; her voice was still an immature treble; the same rueful irresponsibility marked her features; but all her poor prettiness was wasted under the disfigurement of pains and cares, Incongruously enough, she wore a gown of bright-patterned calico, and about her neck had a collar of pretentious lace; her hair was dressed as if for a holiday, and a daub recently made on her cheeks by the baby's fingers lent emphasis to the fact that she had but a little while ago washed herself with much care.

'I can't stop,' said Jane, 'but I thought I'd just look in and speak a word. How have you been getting on?'

'Oh, do come in for just a minute!' pleaded Pennyloaf, moving backwards to an open door, whither Jane followed. They entered a room—much like other rooms that we have looked into from time to time. Following the nomadic custom of their kind, Bob Hewett and his wife had lived in six or seven different lodgings since their honeymoon in Shooter's Gardens. Mrs. Candy first of all made a change necessary, as might have been anticipated, and the restlessness of domestic ill-being subsequently drove them from place to place. 'Come in 'ere, Johnny,' she Called to the child lying on the landing. 'What's the good o' washin' you, I'd like to know? Just see, Miss Snowdon, he's made his face all white with the milk as the boy spilt on the stairs! Take this brush an' play with it, do! I can't keep 'em clean, Miss Snowdon, so it's no use talkin'.'

'Are you going somewhere to-night?' Jane inquired, with a glance at the strange costume.

Pennyloaf looked up and down in a shamefaced way.

'I only did it just because I thought he might like to see me. He promised me faithful as he'd come 'ome to-night, and I thought—it's only somethink as got into my 'ed to-day, Miss Snowdon.'

'But hasn't he been coming home since I saw you last?'

'He did just once, an' then it was all the old ways again. I did what you told me; I did, as sure as I'm a-standin' 'ere! I made the room so clean you wouldn't have believed; I scrubbed the floor an' the table, an' I washed the winders—you can see they ain't dirty yet. An' he'd never a' paid a bit o' notice if I hadn't told him, He was jolly enough for one night, just like he can be when he likes. But I knew as it wouldn't last, an' the next night he was off with a lot o' fellers an' girls, same as ever. I didn't make no row when he came 'ome; I wish I may die if I said a word to set his back up! An' I've gone on just the same all the week; we haven't had not the least bit of a row; so you see I kep' my promise. But it's no good; he won't come 'ome; he's always got fellers an' girls to go round with. He took his hoath as he'd come back to-night, an' then it come into my 'ed as I'd put my best things on, just to—you know what I mean, Miss Snowdon. But he won't come before twelve o'clock; I know he won't. An' I get that low sittin' 'ere, you can't think I can't go nowhere, because o' the children. If it wasn't for them I could go to work again, an' I'd be that glad; I feel as if my 'ed would drop off sometimes! I ham so glad you just come in!'

Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy:

'I know what'll be the bend of it! I'll go an' do like mother does—I will! I will! I'll put my ring away, an' I'll go an' sit all night in the public-'ouse! It's what all the others does, an' I'll do the same. I often feel I'm a fool to go on like this. I don't know what I live for, P'r'aps he'll be sorry when I get run in like mother.'

'Don't talk like that, Pennyloaf!' cried Jane, stamping her foot, (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) 'You know better, and you've no right to give way to such thoughts. I was going to say I'd come and be with you all Saturday afternoon, but I don't know whether I shall now. And I'd been thinking you might like to come and see me on Sunday, but I can't have people that go to the public-house, so we won't say anything more about it. I shall have to be off; good-bye!'

She stepped to the door.

'Miss Snowdon!'

Jane turned, and after an instant of mock severity, broke into a laugh which seemed to fill the wretched den with sunlight. Words, too, she found; words of soothing influence such as leap from the heart to the tongue in spite of the heavy thoughts that try to check them. Pennyloaf was learning to depend upon these words for strength in her desolation. They did not excite her to much hopefulness, but there was a sustaining power in their sweet sincerity which made all the difference between despair tending to evil and the sigh of renewed effort. 'I don't care,' Pennyloaf had got into the habit of thinking, after her friend's departure, 'I won't give up as long as she looks in now and then.'

Out from the swarm of babies Jane hurried homewards. She had a reason for wishing to be back in good time to-night; it was Wednesday, and on Wednesday evening there was wont to come a visitor, who sat for a couple of hours in her grandfather's room and talked, talked—the most interesting talk Jane had ever heard or could imagine. A latch-key admitted her; she ran up to the second floor. A voice from the front-room caught her ear; certainly not his voice—it was too early—but that of some unusual visitor. She was on the point of entering her own chamber, when the other door opened, and somebody exclaimed, 'Ah, here she is!'

The speaker was an old gentleman, dressed in black, bald, with small and rather rugged features; his voice was pleasant. A gold chain and a bunch of seals shone against his waistcoat, also a pair of eye-glasses. A professional man, obviously. Jane remembered that she had seen him once before, about a year ago, when he had talked with her for a few minutes, very kindly.

'Will you come in here, Jane?' her grandfather's voice called to her.

Snowdon had changed much. Old age was heavy upon his shoulders, and had even produced a slight tremulousness in his hands; his voice told the same story of enfeeblement. Even more noticeable was the ageing of his countenance. Something more, however, than the progress of time seemed to be here at work. He looked strangely careworn; his forehead was set in lines of anxiety; his mouth expressed a nervousness of which formerly there had been no trace. One would have said that some harassing preoccupation must have seized his mind. His eyes were no longer merely sad and absent, but restless with fatiguing thought. As Jane entered the room he fixed his gaze upon her—a gaze that appeared to reveal worrying apprehension.

'You remember Mr. Percival, Jane,' he said.

The old gentleman thus presented held out his hand with something of fatherly geniality.

'Miss Snowdon, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again before long, but just now I am carrying off your grandfather for a couple of hours, and indeed we mustn't linger that number of minutes. You look well, I think?'

He stood and examined her intently, then cried:

'Come, my dear sir, come! we shall be late.'

Snowdon was already prepared for walking. He spoke a few words to Jane, then followed Mr. Percival downstairs.

Flurried by the encounter, Jane stood looking about her. Then came a rush of disappointment as she reflected that the visitor of Wednesday evenings would call in vain. Hearing that her grandfather was absent, doubtless he would take his leave at once. Or, would he—

In a minute or two she ran downstairs to exchange a word with Mrs. Byass. On entering the kitchen she was surprised to see Bessie sitting idly by the fire. At this hour it was usual for Mr. Byass to have returned, and there was generally an uproar of laughing talk. This evening, dead silence, and a noticeable something in the air which told of trouble. The baby—of course a new baby—lay in a bassinette near its mother, seemingly asleep; the other child was sitting in a high chair by the table, clattering 'bricks.'

Bessie did not even look round.

'Is Mr. Byass late?' inquired Jane, in an apprehensive voice.

'He's somewhere in the house, I believe,' was the answer, in monotone.

'Oh dear!' Jane recognised a situation which had already come under her notice once or twice during the last six months She drew near, and asked in a low voice:

'What's happened, Mrs. Byass?'

'He's a beast! If he doesn't mind I shall go and leave him. I mean it!'

Bessie was in a genuine fit of sullenness. One of her hands was clenched below her chin; her pretty lips were not pretty at all; her brow was rumpled. Jane began to seek for the cause of dissension, to put affectionate questions, to use her voice soothingly.

'He's a beast!' was Bessie's reiterated observation; but by degrees she added phrases more explanatory. 'How can I help it if he cuts himself when he's shaving?—Serve him right!—What for? Why, for saying that babies was nothing but a nuisance, and that my baby was the ugliest and noisiest ever born!'

'Did she cry in the night?' inquired Jane, with sympathy.

'Of course she did! Hasn't she a right to?'

'And then Mr. Byass cut himself with his razor?'

'Yes. And he said it was because he was woke so often, and it made him nervous, and his hand shook. And then I told him he'd better cut himself on the other side, and it wouldn't matter. And then he complained because he had to wait for breakfast. And he said there'd been no comfort in the house since we'd had children. And I cared nothing about him, he said, and only about the baby and Ernest. And he went on like a beast, as he is! I hate him!'

'Oh no, not a bit of it!' said Jane, seeing the opportunity for a transition to jest.

'I do! And you may go upstairs and tell him so.'

'All right; I will.'

Jane ran upstairs and knocked at the door of the parlour. A gruff voice bade her enter, but the room was nearly in darkness.

'Will you have a light, Mr. Byass?'

'No—thank you.'

'Mr. Byass, Mrs. Byass says I'm to say she hates you.'

'All right. Tell her I've known it a long time. She needn't trouble about me; I'm going out to enjoy myself.'

Jane ran back to the kitchen.

'Mr. Byass says he's known it a long time,' she reported, with much gravity. 'And he's going out to enjoy himself.'

Bessie remained mute.

'What message shall I take back, Mrs. Byass?'

'Tell him if he dares to leave the house, I'll go to mother's the first thing to-morrow, and let them know how he's treating me.'

'Tell her,' was Mr. Byass's reply, 'that I don't see what it matters to her whether I'm at home or away. And tell her she's a cruel wife to me.'

Something like the sound of a snivel came out of the darkness as he concluded. Jane, in reporting his speech, added that she thought he was shedding tears. Thereupon Bessie gave a sob, quite in earnest.

'So am I,' she said chokingly. 'Go and tell him, Jane.'

'Mr. Byass, Mrs. Byass is crying,' whispered Jane at the parlour-door. 'Don't you think you'd better, go downstairs?'

Hearing a movement, she ran to be out of the way. Samuel left the dark room, and with slow step descended to the kitchen. Then Jane knew that it was all right, and tripped up to her room humming a song of contentment.

Had she, then, wholly outgrown the bitter experiences of her childhood? Had the cruelty which tortured her during the years when the soul is being fashioned left upon her no brand of slavish vice, nor the baseness of those early associations affected her with any irremovable taint? As far as human observation could probe her, Jane Snowdon had no spot of uncleanness in her being; she had been rescued while it was yet time, and the subsequent period of fostering had enabled features of her character, which no one could have discerned in the helpless child, to expand with singular richness. Two effects of the time of her bondage were, however, clearly to be distinguished. Though nature had endowed her with a good intelligence, she could only with extreme labour acquire that elementary book-knowledge which vulgar children get easily enough; it seemed as if the bodily overstrain at a critical period of life had affected her memory, and her power of mental application generally. In spite of ceaseless endeavour, she could not yet spell words of the least difficulty; she could not do the easiest sums with accuracy; geographical names were her despair. The second point in which she had suffered harm was of more serious nature. She was subject to fits of hysteria, preceded and followed by the most painful collapse of that buoyant courage which was her supreme charm and the source of her influence. Without warning, an inexplicable terror would fall upon her; like the weakest child, she craved protection from a dread inspired solely by her imagination, and solace for an anguish of wretchedness to which she could give no form in words. Happily this illness afflicted her only at long intervals, and her steadily improving health gave warrant for hoping that in time it would altogether pass away.

Whenever an opportunity had offered for struggling successfully with some form of evil—were it poor Pennyloaf's dangerous despair, or the very human difficulties between Bessie and her husband—Jane lived at her highest reach of spiritual joy. For all that there was a disappointment on her mind, she felt this joy to-night, and went about her pursuits in happy self-absorption. So it befell that she did not hear a knock at the house-door. Mrs. Byass answered it, and not knowing that Mr. Snowdon was from home, bade his usual visitor go upstairs. The visitor did so, and announced his presence at the door of the room.

'Oh, Mr. Kirkwood,' said Jane, 'I'm so sorry, but grandfather had to go out with a gentleman.'

And she waited, looking at him, a gentle warmth on her face.



CHAPTER XVI

DIALOGUE AND COMMENT

'Will it be late before he comes back?' asked Sidney, his smile of greeting shadowed with disappointment.

'Not later than half-past ten, he said.'

Sidney turned his face to the stairs. The homeward prospect was dreary after that glimpse of the familiar mom through the doorway. The breach of habit discomposed him, and something more positive strengthened his reluctance to be gone. It was not his custom to hang in hesitancy and court chance by indirectness of speech; recognising and admitting his motives, he said simply:

'I should like to stay a little, if you will let me—if I shan't be in your way?'

'Oh no! Please come in. I'm only sewing.'

There were two round-backed wooden chairs in the room; one stood on each side of the fireplace, and between them, beside the table, Jane always had her place on a small chair of the ordinary comfortless kind. She seated herself as usual, and Sidney took his familiar position, with the vacant chair opposite. Snowdon and he were accustomed to smoke their pipes whilst conversing, but this evening Sidney dispensed with tobacco.

It was very quiet here. On the floor below dwelt at present two sisters who kept themselves alive (it is quite inaccurate to use any other phrase in such instances) by doing all manner of skilful needlework; they were middle-aged women, gentle-natured, and so thoroughly subdued to the hopelessness of their lot that scarcely ever could even their footfall be heard as they went up and down stairs; their voices were always sunk to a soft murmur. Just now no infant wailing came from the Byasses' regions. Kirkwood enjoyed a sense of restfulness, intenser, perhaps, for the momentary disappointment he had encountered. He had no desire to talk; enough for a few minutes to sit and watch Jane's hand as it moved backwards and forwards with the needle.

'I went to see Pennyloaf as I came back from work,' Jane said at length, just looking up.

'Did you? Do things seem to be any better?'

'Not much, I'm afraid. Mr. Kirkwood, don't you think you might do something? If you tried again with her husband?'

'The fact is,' replied Sidney, 'I'm so afraid of doing more harm than good.'

'You think—But then perhaps that's just what I'm doing?'

Jane let her hand fall on the sewing and regarded him anxiously.

'No, no! I'm quite sure you can't do harm. Pennyloaf can get nothing but good from having you as a friend. She likes you; she misses you when you happen not to have seen her for a few days. I'm sorry to say it's quite a different thing with Bob and me. We're friendly enough—as friendly as ever—but I haven't a scrap of influence with him like you have with his wife. It was all very well to get hold of him once, and try to make him understand, in a half-joking way, that he wasn't behaving as well as he might. He didn't take it amiss—just that once. But you can't think how difficult it is for one man to begin preaching to another. The natural thought is: Mind your own business. If I was the parson of the parish—'

He paused, and in the same instant their eyes met. The suggestion was irresistible; Jane began to laugh merrily.

What sweet laughter it was? How unlike the shrill discord whereby the ordinary workgirl expresses her foolish mirth! For years Sidney Kirkwood had been unused to utter any sound of merriment; even his smiling was done sadly. But of late he had grown conscious of the element of joy in Jane's character, had accustomed himself to look for its manifestations—to observe the brightening of her eyes which foretold a smile, the moving of her lips which suggested inward laughter—and he knew that herein, as in many another matter, a profound sympathy was transforming him. Sorrow such as he had suffered will leave its mark upon the countenance long after time has done its kindly healing, and in Sidney's case there was more than the mere personal affliction tending to confirm his life in sadness. With the ripening of his intellect, he saw only more and more reason to condemn and execrate those social disorders of which his own wretched experience was but an illustration. From the first, his friendship with Snowdon had exercised upon him a subduing influence; the old man was stern enough in his criticism of society, but he did not belong to the same school as John Hewett, and the sober authority of his character made appeal to much in Sidney that had found no satisfaction amid the uproar of Clerkenwell Green. For all that, Kirkwood could not become other than himself; his vehemence was moderated, but he never affected to be at one with Snowdon in that grave enthusiasm of far-off hope which at times made the old man's speech that of an exhorting prophet. Their natural parts were reversed; the young eyes declared that they could see nothing but an horizon of blackest cloud, whilst those enfeebled by years bore ceaseless witness to the raying forth of dawn.

And so it was with a sensation of surprise that Sidney first became aware of light-heartedness in the young girl who was a silent hearer of so many lugubrious discussions. Ridiculous as it may sound—as Sidney felt it to be—he almost resented this evidence of happiness; to him, only just recovering from a shock which would leave its mark upon his life to the end, his youth wronged by bitter necessities, forced into brooding over problems of ill when nature would have bidden him enjoy, it seemed for the moment a sign of shallowness that Jane could look and speak cheerfully. This extreme of morbid feeling proved its own cure; even in reflecting upon it, Sidney was constrained to laugh contemptuously at himself. And therewith opened for him a new world of thought. He began to study the girl. Of course he had already occupied himself much with the peculiarities of her position, but of Jane herself he knew very little; she was still, in his imagination, the fearful and miserable child over whose shoulders he had thrown his coat one bitter night; his impulse towards her was one of compassion merely, justified now by what he heard of her mental slowness, her bodily sufferings. It would take very long to analyse the process whereby this mode of feeling was changed, until it became the sense of ever-deepening sympathy which so possessed him this evening. Little by little Jane's happiness justified itself to him, and in so doing began subtly to modify his own temper. With wonder he recognised that the poor little serf of former days had been meant by nature for one of the most joyous among children. What must that heart have suffered, so scorned and trampled upon! But now that the days of misery were over, behold nature having its way after all. If the thousands are never rescued from oppression, if they perish abortive in their wretchedness, is that a reason for refusing to rejoice with the one whom fate has blest? Sidney knew too much of Jane by this time to judge her shallow-hearted. This instinct of gladness had a very different significance from the animal vitality which prompted the constant laughter of Bessie Byass; it was but one manifestation of a moral force which made itself nobly felt in many another way. In himself Sidney was experiencing its pure effects, and it was owing to his conviction of Jane's power for good that he had made her acquainted with Bob Hewett's wife. Snowdon warmly approved of this; the suggestion led him to speak expressly of Jane, a thing he very seldom did, and to utter a strong wish that she should begin to concern herself with the sorrows she might in some measure relieve.

Sidney joined in the laughter he had excited by picturing himself the parson of the parish. But the topic under discussion was a serious one, and Jane speedily recovered her gravity.

'Yes, I see how hard it is,' she said. 'But it's a cruel thing for him to neglect poor Pennyloaf as he does. She never gave him any cause.'

'Not knowingly, I quite believe,' replied Kirkwood. 'But what a miserable home it is!'

'Yes.' Jane shook her head. 'She doesn't seem to know how to keep things in order. She doesn't seem even to understand me when I try to show her how it might be different.'

'There's the root of the trouble, Jane. What chance had Pennyloaf of ever learning how to keep a decent home, and bring up her children properly? How was she brought up? The wonder is that there's so much downright good in her; I feel the same wonder about people every day. Suppose Pennyloaf behaved as badly as her mother does, who on earth would have the right to blame her? But we can't expect miracles; so long as she lives decently, it's the most that can be looked for. And there you are; that isn't enough to keep a fellow like Bob Hewett in order. I doubt whether any wife would manage it, but as for poor Pennyloaf—'

'I shall speak to him myself,' said Jane quietly.

'Do! There's much more hope in that than in anything I could say. Bob isn't a bad fellow; the worst thing I know of him is his conceit. He's good-looking, and he's clever in all sorts of ways, and unfortunately he can't think of anything but his own merits. Of course he'd no business to marry at all whilst he was nothing but a boy.'

Jane plied her needle, musing.

'Do you know whether he ever goes to see his father?' Sidney inquired presently.

'No, I don't,' Jane answered, looking at him, but immediately dropping her eyes.

'If he doesn't I should think worse of him. Nobody ever had a kinder father, and there's many a reason why he should be careful to pay the debt he owes.'

Jane waited a moment, then again raised her eyes to him. It seemed as though she would ask a question, and Sidney's grave attentiveness indicated a surmise of what she was about to say. But her thought remained unuttered, and there was a prolongation of silence.

Of course they were both thinking of Clara. That name had never been spoken by either of them in the other's presence, but as often as conversation turned upon the Hewetts, it was impossible for them not to supplement their spoken words by a silent colloquy of which Clara was the subject. From her grandfather Jane knew that, to this day, nothing had been heard of Hewett's daughter; what people said at the time of the girl's disappearance she had learned fully enough from Clem Peckover, who even yet found it pleasant to revive the scandal, and by contemptuous comments revenge herself for Clara's haughty usage in old days. Time had not impaired Jane's vivid recollection of that Bank-holiday morning when she herself was the first to make it known that Clara had gone away. Many a time since then she had visited the street whither Snowdon led her—had turned aside from her wonted paths in the thought that it was not impossible she might meet Clara, though whether with more hope or fear of such a meeting she could not have said. When two years had gone by, her grandfather one day led the talk to that subject; he was then beginning to change in certain respects the tone he had hitherto used with her, and to address her as one who had outgrown childhood. He explained to her how it came about that Sidney could no longer be even on terms of acquaintance with John Hewett. The conversation originated in Jane's bringing the news that Hewett and his family had at length left Mrs. Peckover's house. For two years things had gone miserably with them, their only piece of good fortune being the death of the youngest child. John was confirmed in a habit of drinking. Not that he had become a brutal sot; sometimes for as much as a month he would keep sober, and even when he gave way to temptation he never behaved with violence to his wife and children. Still, the character of his life had once more suffered a degradation, and he possessed no friends who could be of the least use to him. Snowdon, for some reason of his own, maintained a slight intercourse with the Peckovers, and through them he endeavoured to establish an intimacy with Hewett; but the project utterly failed. Probably on Kirkwood's account, John met the old man's advances with something more than coldness. Sternly he had forbidden his wife and the little ones to exchange a word of any kind with Sidney, or with any friend of his. He appeared to nourish incessantly the bitter resentment to which he gave expression when Sidney and he last met.

There was no topic on which Sidney was more desirous of speaking with Jane than this which now occupied both their minds. How far she understood Clara's story, and his part in it, he had no knowledge; for between Snowdon and himself there had long been absolute silence on that matter. It was not improbable that Jane had been instructed in the truth; he hoped she had not been left to gather what she could from Clem Peckover's gossip. Yet the difficulty with which he found himself beset, now that an obvious opportunity offered for frank speech, was so great that, after a few struggles, he fell back on the reflection with which he was wont to soothe himself: Jane was still so young, and the progress of time, by confirming her knowledge of him, would make it all the simpler to explain the miserable past. Had he, in fact, any right to relate this story, to seek her sympathy in that direct way? It was one aspect of a very grave question which occupied more and more of Sidney's thought.

With an effort, he turned the dialogue into quite a new direction, and Jane, though a little absent for some minutes, seemed at length to forget the abruptness of the change. Sidney had of late been resuming his old interest in pencil-work; two or three of his drawings hung on these walls, and he spoke of making new sketches when he next went into the country. Years ago, one of his favourite excursions—of the longer ones which he now and then allowed himself—was to Danbury Hill, some five miles to the east of Chelmsford, one of the few pieces of rising ground in Essex, famous for its view over Maldon and the estuary of the Blackwater. Thither Snowdon and Jane accompanied him during the last summer but one, and the former found so much pleasure in the place that he took lodgings with certain old friends of Sidney's, and gave his granddaughter a week of healthful holiday. In the summer that followed, the lodgings were again taken for a week, and this year the same expedition was in view. Sidney had as good as promised that he would join his friends for the whole time of their absence, and now he talked with Jane of memories and anticipations. Neither was sensible how the quarters and the half-hours went by in such chatting. Sidney abandoned himself to the enjoyment of peace such as he had never known save in this room, to a delicious restfulness such as was always inspired in him by the girl's gentle voice, by her laughter, by her occasional quiet movements. The same influence was affecting his whole life. To Jane he owed the gradual transition from tumultuous politics and social bitterness to the mood which could find pleasure as of old in nature and art. This was his truer self, emancipated from the distorting effect of the evil amid which he perforce lived. He was recovering somewhat of his spontaneous boyhood; at the same time, reaching after a new ideal of existence which only ripened manhood could appreciate.

Snowdon returned at eleven; it alarmed Sidney to find how late he had allowed himself to remain, and he began shaping apologies. But the old man had nothing but the familiar smile and friendly words.

'Haven't you given Mr. Kirkwood any supper?' he asked of Jane, looking at the table.

'I really forgot all about it, grandfather,' was the laughing reply.

Then Snowdon laughed, and Sidney joined in the merriment; but he would not be persuaded to stay longer.



CHAPTER XVII

CLEM MAKES A DISCLOSURE

When Miss Peckover suggested to her affianced that their wedding might as well take place at the registry-office, seeing that there would then be no need to go to expense in the article of costume, Mr. Snowdon readily assented; at the same time it gave him new matter for speculation. Clem was not exactly the kind of girl to relinquish without good reason that public ceremony which is the dearest of all possible ceremonies to women least capable of reverencing its significance. Every day made it more obvious that the Peckovers desired to keep this marriage a secret until it was accomplished. In one way only could Joseph James account for the mystery running through the whole affair; it must be that Miss Peckover had indiscretions to conceal, certain points in her history with which she feared lest her bridegroom should be made acquainted by envious neighbours. The thought had no effect upon Mr. Snowdon save to excite his mirth; his attitude with regard to such possibilities was that of a philosopher. The views with which he was entering upon this alliance were so beautifully simple that he really did not find it worth while to puzzle further as soon as the plausible solution of his difficulties had presented itself. Should he hereafter discover that something unforeseen perturbed the smooth flow of life to which he looked forward, nothing could be easier than his remedy; the world is wide, and a cosmopolitan does not attach undue importance to a marriage contracted in one of its somewhat numerous parishes. In any case he would have found the temporary harbour of refuge which stress of weather had made necessary. He surrendered himself to the pleasant tickling of his vanity which was an immediate result of the adventure. For, whatever Clem might be hiding, it seemed to him beyond doubt that she was genuinely attracted by his personal qualities. Her demonstrations were not extravagant, but in one noteworthy respect she seemed to give evidence of a sensibility so little in keeping with her general character that it was only to be explained as the result of a strong passion. In conversing with him she at times displayed a singular timidity, a nervousness, a self-subdual surprisingly unlike anything that could be expected from her. It was true that at other moments her lover caught a gleam in her eyes, a movement of her lips, expressive of anything rather than diffidence, and tending to confirm his view of her as a cunning as well as fierce animal, but the look and tone of subjugation came often enough to make their impression predominant. One would have said that she suffered from jealous fears which for some reason she did not venture to utter. Now and then he surprised her gazing at him as if in troubled apprehension, the effect of which upon Mr. Snowdon was perhaps more flattering than any other look.

'What's up, Clem?' he inquired, on one of these occasions. 'Are you wondering whether I shall cut and leave you when we've had time to get tired of each other?'

Her face was transformed; she looked at him for an instant with fierce suspicion, then laughed disagreeably.

'We'll see about that,' was her answer, with a movement of the head and shoulders strongly reminding one of a lithe beast about to spring.

The necessary delay passed without accident. As the morning of the marriage approached there was, however, a perceptible increase of nervous restlessness in Clem. She had given up her work at Whitehead's, and contrived to keep her future husband within sight nearly all day long. Joseph James found nothing particularly irksome in this, for beer and tobacco were supplied him ad libitum, and a succession of appetising meals made the underground kitchen a place of the pleasantest associations. A loan from Mrs. Peckover had enabled him to renew his wardrobe. When the last night arrived, Clem and her mother sat conversing to a late hour, their voices again cautiously subdued. A point had been for some days at issue between them, and decision was now imperative.

'It's you as started the job,' Clem observed with emphasis, 'an' it's you as'll have to finish it.'

'And who gets most out of it, I'd like to know?' replied her mother. 'Don't be such a fool! Can't you see as it'll come easier from you? A nice thing for his mother-in-law to tell him! If you don't like to do it the first day, then leave it to the second, or third. But if you take my advice, you'll get it over the next morning.'

'You'll have to do it yourself,' Clem repeated stubbornly, propping her chin upon her fists.

'Well, I never thought as you was such a frightened babby! Frightened of a feller like him! I'd be ashamed o' myself!'

'Who's frightened? Hold your row!'

'Why, you are; what else?'

'I ain't!'

'You are!'

'I ain't! You'd better not make me mad, or I'll tell him before, just to spite you.'

'Spite me, you cat! What difference 'll it make to me? I'll tell you what: I've a jolly good mind to tell him myself beforehand, and then we'll see who's spited.'

In the end Clem yielded, shrugging her shoulders defiantly.

'I'll have a kitchen-knife near by when I tell him,' she remarked with decision. 'If he lays a hand on me I'll cut his face open, an' chance it!'

Mrs. Peckover smiled with tender motherly deprecation of such extreme measures. But Clem repeated her threat, and there was something in her eyes which guaranteed the possibility of its fulfilment.

No personal acquaintance of either the Peckover or the Snowdon family happened to glance over the list of names which hung in the registrar's office during these weeks. The only interested person who had foreknowledge of Clem's wedding was Jane Snowdon, and Jane, though often puzzled in thinking of the matter, kept her promise to speak of it to no one. It was imprudence in Clem to have run this risk, but the joke was so rich that she could not deny herself its enjoyment; she knew, moreover, that Jane was one of those imbecile persons who scruple about breaking a pledge. On the eve of her wedding-day she met Jane as the latter came from Whitehead's, and requested her to call in the Close next Sunday morning at twelve o'clock.

'I want you to see my 'usband,' she said, grinning. 'I'm sure you'll like him.'

Jane promised to come. On the next day, Saturday, Clem entered the registry-office in a plain dress, and after a few simple formalities came forth as Mrs. Snowdon; her usual high colour was a trifle diminished, and she kept glancing at her husband from under nervously knitted brows. Still the great event was unknown to the inhabitants of the Close. There was no feasting, and no wedding-journey; for the present Mr. and Mrs. Snowdon would take possession of two rooms on the first floor.

Twenty-four hours later, when the bells of St. James's were ringing their melodies before service, Clem requested her husband's attention to something of importance she had to tell him.

Mr. Snowdon had just finished breakfast and was on the point of lighting his pipe; with the match burning down to his fingers, he turned and regarded the speaker shrewdly. Clem's face put it beyond question that at last she was about to make a statement definitely bearing on the history of the past month. At this moment she was almost pale, and her eyes avoided his. She stood close to the table, and her right hand rested near the bread-knife; her left held a piece of paper.

'What is it?' asked Joseph James mildly. 'Go ahead, Clem.'

'You ain't bad-tempered, are you? You said you wasn't.'

'Not I! Best-tempered feller you could have come across. Look at me smiling.'

His grin was in a measure reassuring, but he had caught sight of the piece of paper in her hand, and eyed it steadily.

'You know you played mother a trick a long time ago,' Clem pursued, 'when you went off an' left that child on her 'ands.'

'Hollo! What about that?'

'Well, it wouldn't be nothing but fair if someone was to go and play tricks with you—just to pay you off in a friendly sort o' way—see?'

Mr. Snowdon still smiled, but dubiously.

'Out with it!' he muttered. 'I'd have bet a trifle there was some game on. You're welcome, old girl. Out with it!'

'Did you know as I'd got a brother in 'Stralia—him as you used to know when you lived here before?'

'You said you didn't know where he was.'

'No more we do—not just now. But he wrote mother a letter about this time last year, an' there's something in it as I'd like you to see. You'd better read for yourself.'

Her husband laid down his pipe on the mantel-piece and began to cast his eye over the letter, which was much defaced by frequent foldings, and in any case would have been difficult to decipher, so vilely was it scrawled. But Mr. Snowdon's interest was strongly excited, and in a few moments he had made out the following communication:

'I don't begin with no deering, because it's a plaid out thing, and because I'm riting to too people at onse, both mother and Clem, and it's so long since I've had a pen in my hand I've harf forgot how to use it. If you think I'm making my pile, you think rong, so you've got no need to ask me when I'm going to send money home, like you did in the last letter. I jest keep myself and that's about all, because things ain't what they used to be in this busted up country. And that remminds me what it was as I ment to tell you when I cold get a bit of time to rite. Not so long ago, I met a chap as used to work for somebody called Snowdon, and from what I can make out it was Snowdon's brother at home, him as we use to ere so much about. He'd made his pile, this Snowdon, you bet, and Ned Williams says he died worth no end of thousands. Not so long before he died, his old farther from England came out to live with him; then Snowdon and a son as he had both got drownded going over a river at night. And Ned says as all the money went to the old bloak and to a brother in England, and that's what he herd when he was paid off. The old farther made traks very soon, and they sed he'd gone back to England. So it seams to me as you ouht to find Snowdon and make him pay up what he ose you. And I don't know as I've anything more to tell you both, ecsep I'm working at a place as I don't know how to spell, and it woldn't be no good if I did, because there's no saying were I shall be before you could rite back. So good luck to you both, from yours truly, W. P.'

In reading, Joseph James scratched his bald head thoughtfully. Before he had reached the end there were signs of emotion in his projecting lower lip. At length he regarded Clem, no longer smiling, but without any of the wrath she had anticipated.

'Ha, ha! This was your game, was it? Well, I don't object, old girl—so long as you tell me a bit more about it. Now there's no need for any more lies, perhaps you'll mention where the old fellow is.'

'He's livin' not so far away, an' Jane with him.'

Put somewhat at her ease, Clem drew her hand from the neighbourhood of the bread-knife, and detailed all she knew with regard to old Mr. Snowdon and his affairs. Her mother had from the first suspected that he possessed money, seeing that he paid, with very little demur, the sum she demanded for Jane's board and lodging. True, he went to live in poor lodgings, but that was doubtless a personal eccentricity. An important piece of evidence subsequently forthcoming was the fact that in sundry newspapers there appeared advertisements addressed to Joseph James Snowdon, requesting him to communicate with Messrs. Percival & Peel of Furnival's Inn, whereupon Mrs. Peckover made inquiries of the legal firm in question (by means of an anonymous letter), and received a simple assurance that Mr. Snowdon was being sought for his own advantage.

'You're cool hands, you and your mother,' observed Joseph James, with a certain involuntary admiration. 'This was not quite three years ago, you say; just when I was in America. Ha—hum! What I can't make out is, how the devil that brother of mine came to leave anything to me. We never did anything but curse each other from the time we were children to when we parted for good. And so the old man went out to Australia, did he? That's a rum affair, too; Mike and he could never get on together. Well, I suppose there's no mistake about it. I shouldn't much mind if there was, just to see the face you'd pull, young woman. On the whole, perhaps it's as well for you that I am fairly good-tempered—eh?'

Clem stood apart, smiling dubiously, now and then eyeing him askance. His last words once more put her on her guard; she moved towards the table again.

'Give me the address,' said her husband. 'I'll go and have a talk with my relations. What sort of a girl's Janey grown up—eh?'

'If you'll wait a bit, you can see for yourself. She's goin' to call here at twelve.'

'Oh, she is? I suppose you've arranged a pleasant little surprise for her? Well, I must say you're a cool band, Clem. I shouldn't wonder if she's been in the house several times since I've been here?'

'No, she hasn't. It wouldn't have been safe, you see.'

'Give me the corkscrew, and I'll open this bottle of whisky. It takes it out of a fellow, this kind of thing. Here's to you, Mrs. Clem! Have a drink? All right; go downstairs and show your mother you're alive still; and let me know when Jane comes. I want to think a bit.'

When he had sat for a quarter of an hour in solitary reflection the door opened, and Clem led into the room a young girl, whose face expressed timid curiosity. Joseph James stood up, joined his hands under his coat-tail, and examined the stranger.

'Do you know who it is?' asked Clem of her companion.

'Your husband—but I don't know his name.'

'You ought to, it seems to me,' said Clem, giggling. 'Look at him.'

Jane tried to regard the man for a moment. Her cheeks flushed with confusion. Again she looked at him, and the colour rapidly faded. In her eyes was a strange light of painfully struggling recollection. She turned to Clem, and read her countenance with distress.

'Well, I'm quite sure I should never have known you, Janey,' said Snowdon, advancing. 'Don't you remember your father?'

Yes; as soon as consciousness could reconcile what seemed impossibilities Jane had remembered him. She was not seven years old when he forsook her, and a life of anything but orderly progress had told upon his features. Nevertheless Jane recognised the face she had never had cause to love, recognised yet more certainly the voice which carried her back to childhood. But what did it all mean? The shock was making her heart throb as it was wont to do before her fits of illness. She looked about her with dazed eyes.

'Sit down, sit down,' said her father, not without a note of genuine feeling. 'It's been a bit too much for you—like something else was for me just now. Put some water in that glass, Clem; a drop of this will do her good.'

The smell of what was offered her proved sufficient to restore Jane; she shook her head and put the glass away. After an uncomfortable silence, during which Joseph dragged his feet about the floor, Clem remarked:

'He wants you to take him home to see your grandfather, Jane. There's been reasons why he couldn't go before. Hadn't you better go at once, Jo?'

Jane rose and waited whilst her father assumed his hat and drew on a new pair of gloves. She could not look at either husband or wife. Presently she found herself in the street, walking without consciousness of things in the homeward direction.

'You've grown up a very nice, modest girl, Jane,' was her father's first observation. 'I can see your grandfather has taken good care of you.'

He tried to speak as if the situation were perfectly simple. Jane could find no reply.

'I thought it was better,' he continued, in the same matter-of-fact voice, 'not to see either of you till this marriage of mine was over. I've had a great deal of trouble in life—I'll tell you all about it some day, my dear—and I wanted just to settle myself before—I dare say you'll understand what I mean. I suppose your grandfather has often spoken to you about me?'

'Not very often, father,' was the murmured answer.

'Well, well; things'll soon be set right. I feel quite proud of you, Janey; I do, indeed. And I suppose you just keep house for him, eh?'

'I go to work as well.'

'What? You go to work? How's that, I wonder?'

'Didn't Miss Peckover tell you?'

Joseph laughed. The girl could not grasp all these astonishing facts at once, and the presence of her father made her forget who Miss Peckover had become.

'You mean my wife, Janey! No, no; she didn't tell me you went to work;—an accident. But I'm delighted you and Clem are such good friends. Kind-hearted girl, isn't she?'

Jane whispered an assent.

'No doubt your grandfather often tells you about Australia, and your uncle that died there?'

'No, he never speaks of Australia. And I never heard of my uncle.'

'Indeed? Ha—hum!'

Joseph continued his examination all the way to Hanover Street, often expressing surprise, but never varying from the tone of affection and geniality. When they reached the door of the house he said:

'Just let me go into the room by myself. I think it'll be better. He's alone, isn't he?'

'Yes. I'll come up and show you the door.'

She did so, then turned aside into her own room, where she sat motionless for a long time.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE JOKE IS COMPLETED

Michael Snowdon—to distinguish the old man by name from the son who thus unexpectedly returned to him—professed no formal religion. He attended no Sunday service, nor had ever shown a wish that Jane should do so. We have seen that he used the Bible as a source of moral instruction; Jane and he still read passages together on a Sunday morning, but only such were chosen as had a purely human significance, and the comments to which they gave occasion never had any but a human bearing. Doubtless Jane reflected on these things; it was her grandfather's purpose to lead her to such reflection, without himself dogmatising on questions which from his own point of view were unimportant. That Jane should possess the religious spirit was a desire he never lost sight of; the single purpose of his life was involved therein; but formalism was against the bent of his nature. Born and bred amid the indifference of the London working classes, he was one of the very numerous thinking men who have never needed to cast aside a faith of childhood; from the dawn of rationality, they simply stand apart from all religious dogmas, unable to understand the desire of such helps to conduct, untouched by spiritual trouble—as that phrase is commonly interpreted. And it seemed that Jane closely resembled him in this matter. Sensitive to every prompting of humanity, instinct with moral earnestness, she betrayed no slightest tendency to the religion of church, chapel, or street-corner. A promenade of the Salvation Army half-puzzled, half-amused her; she spoke of it altogether without intolerance, as did her grandfather, but never dreamt that it was a phenomenon which could gravely concern her. Prayers she had never said; enough that her last thought before sleeping was one of kindness to those beings amid whom she lived her life, that on awaking her mind turned most naturally to projects of duty and helpfulness.

Excepting the Bible, Snowdon seldom made use of books either for inquiry or amusement. Very imperfectly educated in his youth, he had never found leisure for enriching his mind in the ordinary way until it was too late; as an old man he had so much occupation in his thoughts that the printed page made little appeal to him. Till quite recently he had been in the habit of walking for several hours daily, always choosing poor districts; now that his bodily powers were sensibly failing him, he passed more and more of his time in profound brooding, so forgetful of external things that Jane, on her return from work, had more than once been troubled by noticing that he had taken no midday meal. It was in unconsciousness such as this that he sat when his son Joseph, receiving no reply to his knock, opened the door and entered; but that his eyes were open, the posture of his body and the forward drooping of his head would have made it appear that he slept. Joseph stepped towards him, and at length the old man looked up. He gazed at his visitor first unintelligently, then with wonder and growing emotion.

'Jo?—Jo, at last? You were in my mind only a few minutes ago, but I saw you as a boy.'

He rose from the chair and held out both his hands, trembling more than they were wont to do.

'I almost wonder you knew me,' said Joseph. 'It's seventeen years since we saw each other. It was all Jane could do to remember me.'

'Jane? Where have you seen her? At the house in the Close?'

'Yes. It was me she went to see, but she didn't know it. I've just been married to Miss Peckover. Sit down again, father, and let's talk over things quietly.'

'Married to Miss Peckover?' repeated the old man, as if making an effort to understand the words. 'Then why didn't you come here before?'

Joseph gave the explanation which he had already devised for the benefit of his daughter. His manner of speaking was meant to be very respectful, but it suggested that he looked upon the hearer as suffering from feebleness of mind, as well as of body. He supplemented his sentences with gestures and smiles, glancing about the room meantime with looks of much curiosity.

'So you've been living here a long time, father? It was uncommonly good of you to take care of my girl. I dare say you've got so used to having her by you, you wouldn't care for her to go away now?'

'Do you wish to take Jane away?' Michael inquired gravely.

'No, no; not I! Why, it's nothing but her duty to keep you company and be what use she can. She's happy enough, that I can see. Well, well; I've gone through a good deal since the old days, father, and I'm not what you used to know me. I'm gladder than I can say to find you so easy in your old age. Neither Mike nor me did our duty by you, that's only too sure. I wish I could have the time back again; but what's the good of that? Can you tell me anything about Mike?'

'Yes. He died in Australia, about four years ago.'

'Did he now? Well, I've been in America, but I never got so far as Australia. So Mike's dead, is he? I hope he had better luck than me.'

The old man did not cease from examining his son's countenance.

'What is your position, at present?' he asked, after a pause. 'You don't look unprosperous.'

'Nothing to boast of, father. I've gone through all kinds of trades. In the States I both made and lost money. I invented a new method of nickel-plating, but it did me no good, and then I gave up that line altogether. Since I've been back in England—two years about—I've mostly gone in for canvassing, advertising agencies, and that kind of thing. I make an honest living, and that's about all. But I shouldn't wonder if things go a bit better now; I feel as if I was settled at last. What with having a home of my own, and you and Janey near at hand—You won't mind if I come and see you both now and then?'

'I shall hope to see you often,' replied the other, still keeping his grave face and tone. 'It's been my strong desire that we might come together again, and I've done the best I could to find you. But, as you said, we've been parted for a very long time, and it isn't in a day that we can come to understand each other. These seventeen years have made an old man of me, Jo; I think and speak and act slowly:—better for us all if I had learned to do so long ago! Your coming was unexpected; I shall need a little time to get used to the change it makes.'

'To be sure; that's true enough. Plenty of time to talk over things. As far as I'm concerned, father, the less said about bygones the better; it's the future that I care about now. I want to put things right between us—as they ought to be between father and son. You understand me, I hope?'

Michael nodded, keeping his eyes upon the ground. Again there was a silence, then Joseph said that if Jane would come in and speak a few words—so as to make things home-like—it would be time for him to take his leave for the present. At her grandfather's summons Jane entered the room. She was still oppressed by the strangeness of her position, and with difficulty took part in the colloquy. Joseph, still touching the note of humility in his talk, eyed his relatives alternately, and exhibited reluctance to quit them.

When he returned to the Close, it was with a face expressing dissatisfaction. Clem's eager inquiries he met at first with an ill-tempered phrase or two, which informed her of nothing; but when dinner was over he allowed himself to be drawn into a confidential talk, in which Mrs. Peckover took part. The old man, he remarked, was devilish close; it looked as if 'some game was on.' Mrs. Peckover ridiculed this remark; of course there was a game on; she spoke of Sidney Kirkwood, the influence he had obtained over Snowdon, the designs he was obviously pursuing. If Joseph thought he would recover his rights, at this time of day, save by direct measures, it only proved how needful it was for him to be instructed by shrewd people. The old man was a hard nut to crack; why he lived in Hanover Street, and sent Jane to work, when it was certain that he had wealth at command, Mrs. Peckover could not pretend to explain, but in all probability he found a pleasure in accumulating money, and was abetted therein by Sidney Kirkwood. Clem could bear witness that Jane always seemed to have secrets to hide; nevertheless a good deal of information had been extracted from the girl during the last year or so, and it all went to confirm the views which Mrs. Peckover now put forth. After long discussion, it was resolved that Joseph should call upon the lawyers whose names had appeared in the advertisement addressed to himself. If he was met with any shuffling, or if they merely referred him to his father, the next step would be plain enough.

Clem began to exhibit sullenness; her words were few, and it was fortunate for Joseph that he could oppose a philosophical indifference to the trouble with which his honeymoon was threatened. As early as possible on Monday morning he ascended the stairs of a building in Furnival's Inn and discovered the office Of Messrs. Percival and Feel. He was hesitating whether to knock or simply turn the handle, when a man came up to the same door, with the quick step of one at home in the place.

'Business with us?' inquired the newcomer, as Joseph drew back.

They looked at each other. He who had spoken was comparatively a young man, dressed with much propriety, gravely polite in manner.

'Ha! How do you do?' exclaimed Snowdon, with embarrassment, and in an undertone. 'I wasn't expecting—'

The recognition was mutual, and whilst Joseph, though disconcerted, expressed his feelings in a familiar smile, the other cast a quick glance of uneasiness towards the stairs, his mouth compressed, his eyebrows twitching a little.

'Business with Mr. Percival?' he inquired confidentially, but without Joseph's familiar accentuation.