Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/273

 “Come and sit down to your dinner, father,” Annie said, when he became silent.

“Dinner? I want no dinner. I’ve no stomach for food when it’s stolen. What’s Sidney goin’ to have when he comes home?”

“He said he’d do with bread and cheese to-day. See, we’ve cut some meat for you?”

“You keep that for Sidney, then, and don’t one of you dare to say anything about it. Cut me a bit of bread, Annie.”

She did so. He ate it, standing by the fireplace, drank a glass of water, and went into the sitting-room. There he sat unoccupied for nearly an hour, his head at times dropping forward as if he were nearly asleep; but it was only in abstraction. The morning’s work had wearied him excessively, as such effort always did, but the mental misery he was suffering made him unconscious of bodily fatigue.

The clinking and grinding of the gate drew his attention; he stood up and saw his son-in-law, returned from Clerkenwell. When he had heard the house-door grind and shake and close, he called “Sidney!”

Sidney looked into the parlour, with a smile.