Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/159

Rh you—alone. I have something to speak about—to tell you.”

“Let us sit down.”

Sidney waited till he met her look; she regarded him without self-consciousness, without any effort to conceal her agitated interest.

“You see young Hewett and his wife sometimes. Have you heard from either of them that Clara Hewett is living with her father again?”

“Not from them. A person in their house spoke about it yesterday. It was the first I had heard.”

“Spoke of Miss Hewett? In a gossiping way, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what has happened to her?”

“If the woman told the truth.”

There was silence.

“Miss Snowdon”

“Oh, I don’t like you to speak so. You used to call me Jane.”

He looked at her in distress. She had spoken impulsively, but not with the kind of emotion the words seem to imply. It was for his