Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/163

 room frequently do more harm than the doctor's advice can remedy. She explained that Mrs. Peckover had requested the use of the other room.

"There's too many of us to be livin' an' sleepin' in this little place," she said; "but after all, it's a savin' of rent. It's a good thing Clara isn't here.—An' you've heard as John's got work?"

He had found a job at length with a cabinetmaker; to-night he would probably be working till ten or eleven o'clock. Good news so far. Then Mrs. Hewett began to speak with curiosity of the old man who claimed Jane as his grandchild. Sidney told her what had just happened.

"An' what did you say about the girl?" she asked anxiously.

"I said as little as I could; I thought it wisest. Do you know what made her ill?"

"It was that Clem as did it," Mrs. Hewett replied, subduing her voice. And she related what had befallen after Sidney's last visit.

"Mrs. Peckover, she's that afraid the truth