Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/84

 Yes; as soon as consciousness could reconcile what seemed impossibilities Jane had remembered him. She was not seven years old when he forsook her, and a life of anything but orderly progress had told upon his features. Nevertheless Jane recognised the face she had never had cause to love, recognised yet more certainly the voice which carried her back to childhood. But what did it all mean? The shock was making her heart throb as it was wont to do before her fits of illness. She looked about her with dazed eyes.

“Sit down, sit down,” said her father, not without a note of genuine feeling. “It’s been a bit too much for you,—like something else was for me just now. Put some water in that glass, Clem; a drop of this will do her good.”

The smell of what was offered her proved sufficient to restore Jane; she shook her head and put the glass away. After an uncomfortable silence, during which Joseph dragged his feet about the floor, Clem remarked: