Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/127

 noticed it, or else it was me as is so put about. What with havin' a burial"

"Where is she?" asked the old man anxiously.

"Where? Why, you don't think as I'd a sent her to be looked after by strangers? She's layin' in Mrs. Hewett's room—that's one o' the lodgers—all for the sake o' comfort. A better an kinder woman than Mrs. Hewett you wouldn't find, not if you was to"

With difficulty the stranger obtained a few details of the origin and course of the illness,—details wholly misleading, but devised to reassure. When he desired to see Jane, Mrs. Peckover assumed an air of perfect willingness, but reminded him that she had nothing save his word to prove that he had indeed a legitimate interest in the girl.

"I can do no more than tell you that Joseph James Snowdon was my younger son," replied the old man simply. "I've come back to spend my last years in England, and I hoped—I hope still—to find my son