Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/80

 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 breadknife, 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