Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/259

Sidney again hesitated, then, from a fragmentary beginning, passed into a detailed account of his relations with Clara. The girl herself, had she overheard him, could not have found fault with the way in which the story was narrated. He represented his love as from the first without response which could give him serious hope; her faults he dealt with not as characteristics to be condemned, but as evidences of suffering, the outcome of cruel conditions. Her engagement at the luncheon-bar he spoke of as a detestable slavery, which had wasted her health and driven her in the end to an act of desperation. What now could be done to aid her? John Hewett was still in ignorance of the step she had taken, and Sidney described himself as distracted by conflict between what he felt to be his duty and fear of what might happen if he invoked Hewett’s authority. At intervals through the day he had been going backwards and forwards in the street where Clara had her lodging. He did not think she would seek to escape from her friends