She had never loved him; she never loved anyone; yet
the inclinations of her early girlhood had been drawn by the force
of the love he offered her, and to this day she thought of him with
a respect and liking such as she had for no other man. When she
heard from her father that Sidney had forgotten her, had found some
one by whom his love was prized, her instant emotion was so like a
pang of jealousy that she marvelled at it. Suppose fate had
prospered her, and she had heard in the midst of triumphs that
Sidney Kirkwood, the working man in Clerkenwell, was going to marry
a girl he loved, would any feeling of this kind have come to her?
Her indifference would have been complete. It was calamity that made
her so sensitive. Self-pity longs for the compassion of others. That
Sidney, who was once her slave, should stand aloof in freedom now
that she wanted sympathy so sorely, this was a wound to her heart.
That other woman had robbed her of something she could not spare.
Jane Snowdon, too! She found it scarcely conceivable that the
wretched little starveling of Mrs. Peckover's kitchen should have
grown into anything that a man like Sidney could love.
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