Knowing the likelihood that Clara Hewett would go from home for Bank-holiday, Sidney made it his request before he left Hanover Street on Sunday night that Jane might be despatched on her errand at an early hour next morning. At eight o’clock, accordingly, Snowdon went forth with his granddaughter, and, having discovered the street to which Sidney had directed him, he waited at a distance whilst Jane went to make her inquiries. In a few minutes the girl rejoined him.
‘Miss Hewett has gone away,’ she reported.
‘To spend the day, do you mean?’ was Snowdon’s troubled question.
‘No, she has left the house. She went yesterday, in the afternoon. It was very sudden, the landlady says, and she doesn’t know where she’s gone to.’
Jane had no understanding of what her information implied; seeing that it was received as grave news, she stood regarding her grandfather anxiously. Though Clara had passed out of her world since those first days of illness, Jane held her in a memory which knew no motive of retention so strong as gratitude. The thought of harm or sorrow coming upon her protector had a twofold painfulness. Instantly she divined that Clara was in some way the cause of Sidney Kirkwood’s inability to go into the country today. For a long time the two had been closely linked in her reflections; Mrs. Peckover and Clem used constantly to exchange remarks which made this inevitable. But not until now had Jane really felt the significance of the bond. Of a sudden she had a throbbing at her heart, and a confusion of mind which would not allow her to pursue the direct train of thought naturally provoked by the visit she had just paid. A turbid flood of ideas, of vague surmises, of apprehensions, of forecasts, swept across her consciousness. The blood forsook her cheeks. But that the old man began to move away, she could have remained thus for many minutes, struggling with that new, half-understood thing which was taking possession of her life.
The disappointment of the day was no longer simple, and such as a child experiences. Nor ever from this hour onwards would Jane regard things as she had been wont to do, with the simple feelings of childhood.
Snowdon walked on in silence until the street they had visited was far behind them. Jane was accustomed to his long fits of musing, but now she with difficulty refrained from questioning him. He said at length:
‘Jane, I’m afraid we shall have to give up our day in the country.’
She assented readily, gladly; all the joy had gone out of the proposed excursion, and she wished Dow to be by herself in quietness.
‘I think I’ll let you go home alone,’ Snowdon continued. ‘I want to see Mr. Kirkwood, and I dare say I shall find him in, if I walk on at once.’
They went in different directions, and Snowdon made what speed he could to Tysoe Street. Sidney had already been out, walking restlessly and aimlessly for two or three hours. The news he now heard was the half-incredible fulfilment of a dread that had been torturing him through the night. No calamity is so difficult to realise when it befalls as one which has haunted us in imagination.
‘That means nothing!’ he exclaimed, as if resentfully. ‘She was dissatisfied with the lodging, that’s all. Perhaps she’s already got a place. I dare say there’s a note from her at home this morning.’
‘Shall you go and see if there is?’ asked Snowdon, allowing, as usual, a moment’s silence to intervene.
Sidney hesitated, avoiding the other’s look.
‘I shall go to that house first of all, I think. Of course I shall hear no more than they told Jane; but —’
He took a deep breath.
‘Yes, go there,’ said Snowdon; ‘but afterwards go to the Hewetts’. If she hasn’t written to them, or let them have news of any kind, her father oughtn’t to be kept in ignorance for another hour.’
‘He ought to have been told before this,’ replied Sidney ill a thick under-voice. ‘He ought to have been told on Saturday. And the blame’ll be mine.’
It is an experience familiar to impulsive and self-confident men that a moment’s crisis may render scarcely intelligible a mode of thought or course of action which till then one had deemed perfectly rational. Sidney, hopeless in spite of the pretences he made, stood aghast at the responsibility he had taken upon himself. It was so obvious to him now that he ought to have communicated to John Hewett without loss of time the news which Mrs. Hewett brought on Saturday morning. But could he be sure that John was still in ignorance of Clara’s movements? Was it not all but certain that Mrs. Hewett must have broken the news before this? If not, there lay before him a terrible duty.
The two went forth together, and another visit was paid to the lodging-house. After that Sidney called upon Mrs. Tubbs, and made a simple inquiry for Clara, with the anticipated result.
‘You won’t find her in this part of London, it’s my belief,’ said the woman significantly. ‘She’s left the lodgings as she took — so much I know. Never meant to stay there, not she! You’re a friend of her father’s, mister?’
Sidney could not trust himself to make a reply. He rejoined Snowdon at a little distance, and expressed his intention of going at once to Clerkenwell Close.
‘Let me see you again today,’ said the old man sadly.
Sidney promised, and they took leave of each other. It was now nearing ten o’clock. In the Close an organ was giving delight to a great crowd of children, some of them wearing holiday garb, but most clad in the native rags which served them for all seasons and all days. The volume of clanging melody fell with torture upon Kirkwood’s ear, and when he saw that the instrument was immediately before Mrs. Peckover’s house, he stood aside in gloomy impatience, waiting till it should move away. This happened in a few minutes. The house door being open, he walked straight upstairs.
On the landing he confronted Mrs. Hewett; she started on seeing him, and whispered a question. The exchange of a few words apprised Sidney that Hewett did not even know of Clara’s having quitted Mrs. Tubbs’.
‘Then I must tell him everything,’ he said. To put the task upon the poor woman would have been simple cowardice. Merely in hearing his news she was blanched with dread. She could only point to the door of the front room — the only one rented by the family since Jane Snowdon’s occupation of the other had taught them to be as economical in this respect as their neighbours were.
Sidney knocked and entered. Two months had passed since his latest visit, and he observed that in the meantime everything had become more squalid. The floor, the window, the furniture, were not kept so clean as formerly — inevitable result of the overcrowding of a room; the air was bad, the children looked untidy. The large bed had not been set in order since last night; in it lay the baby, crying as always, ailing as it had done from the day of its birth. John Hewett was engaged in mending one of the chairs, of which the legs had become loose. He looked with surprise at the visitor, and at once averted his face sullenly.
‘Mr. Hewett,’ Kirkwood began, without form of greeting, ‘on Saturday morning I heard something that I believe I ought to have let you know at once. I felt, though, that it was hardly my business; and somehow we haven’t been quite so open with each other just............