Already she was reaping the fruit of
obstinate folly. Clara read what his eyes expressed; she trembled
with responsive hostility.
'No, it doesn't concern me,' Sidney replied, half turning away. 'But
it's perhaps as well you should know that Mrs. Tubbs is doing her
best to take away your good name. However little we are to each
other, it's my duty to tell you that, and put you on your guard. I
hope your father mayn't hear these stories before you have spoken to
him yourself.'
Clara listened with a contemptuous smile.
'What has she been saying?'
'I shan't repeat it.'
As he gazed at her, the haggardness of her countenance smote like a
sword-edge through all the black humours about his heart, piercing
the very core of love and pity. He spoke in a voice of passionate
appeal.
'Clara, come home before it is too late! Come with me--now--come
at once? Thank heaven you have got out of that place! Come home, and
stay there quietly till we can find you something better.'
'I'll die rather than go home!' was her answer, flung at him as if
in hatred. 'Tell my father that, and tell him anything else you
like. I want no one to take any thought for me; and I wouldn't do as
_you_ wish, not to save my soul!'
How often, in passing along the streets, one catches a few phrases
of discord such as this! The poor can seldom command privacy; their
scenes alike of tenderness and of anger must for the most part be
enacted on the peopled ways.
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