'
His voice sank. Hewett had risen from his crouching attitude, and
was looking him full in the face with eyes which grew momentarily
darker and more hostile.
'Well? Why are you stopping? What have you got to say?'
The words came from a dry throat; the effort to pronounce them
clearly made the last all but violent.
'On Friday night,' Sidney resumed, his own utterance uncertain,
'Clara left her place. She took a room not far from Upper Street,
and I saw her, spoke to her. She'd quarrelled with Mrs. Tubbs. I
urged her to come home, but she wouldn't listen to me. This morning
I've been to try and see her again, but they tell me she went away
yesterday afternoon. I can't find where she's living now.'
Hewett took a step forward. His face was so distorted, so fierce,
that Sidney involuntarily raised an arm, as if to defend himself.
'An' it's you as comes tellin' me this!' John exclaimed, a note of
anguish blending with his fury. 'You have the face to stand there
an' speak like that to me, when you know it's all your own doing!
Who was the cause as the girl went away from 'ome? Who was it, I
say? Haven't been as friendly as we used to be, haven't we? An' why?
Haven't I seen it plainer an' plainer what you was thinkin' when you
told me to let her have her own way? I spoke the truth then--
'cause I felt it; an' I was fool enough, for all that, to try an'
believe I was in the wrong.
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