Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/294

 The volume of clanging melody fell with torture upon Kirkwood’s ear, and when he saw that the instrument was immediately before Mrs. Peckover’s house, he stood aside in gloomy impatience, waiting till it should move away. This happened in a few minutes. The house door being open, he walked straight upstairs.

On the landing he confronted Mrs. Hewett; she started on seeing him, and whispered a question. The exchange of a few words apprised Sidney that Hewett did not even know of Clara’s having quitted Mrs. Tubbs’.

“Then I must tell him everything,” he said. To put the task upon the poor woman would have been simple cowardice. Merely in hearing his news she was blanched with dread. She could only point to the door of the front room,—the only one rented by the family since Jane Snowdon’s occupation of the other had taught them to be as economical in this respect as their neighbours were.

Sidney knocked and entered. Two months had passed since his latest visit, and he