Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/286

276 because I can’t do the same. I hate to hear your voice when it’s like that! I’d rather you ragged at me or struck me!”

The beauty of her form had lost nothing since the evening when he visited her in Farringdon Road Buildings; now, as then, all her movements were full of grace and natural dignity. Whenever strong feeling was active in her, she could not but manifest it in motion unlike that of ordinary women. Her hair hung in disorder, though not at its full length, massing itself upon her shoulders, shadowing her forehead. Half-consumed by the fire that only death would extinguish, she looked the taller for her slenderness. Ah, had the face been untouched!

“You are unjust to me,” Sidney replied, with emotion, but not resentfully. “I can enter into all your sufferings. If I speak calmly, it’s because I must, because I daren’t give way. One of us must try and be strong, Clara, or else”

He turned away.

“Let us leave this house,” she continued, hardly noticing what he said. “Let us live in some other place. Never any