Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/83

 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?"