To be sure,
there was a mystery in her lot. Clara remembered perfectly how
Scawthorne pointed out of the cab at the old man Snowdon, and said
that he was very rich. A miser, or what? More she had never tried to
discover. Now Sidney himself had hinted at something in Jane's
circumstances which, he professed, put it out of the question that
he could contemplate marrying her. Had he told her the truth? Could
she in fact consider him free? Might there not be some reason for
his wishing to keep a secret?
With burning temples, with feverish lips, she moved about her little
room like an animal in a cage, finding the length of the day
intolerable. She was constrained to inaction, when it seemed to her
that every moment in which she did not do something to keep Sidney
in mind of her was worse than lost. Could she not see that girl,
Jane Snowdon? But was not Sidney's denial as emphatic as it could
be? She recalled his words, and tried numberless interpretations.
Would anything that he had said bear being interpreted as a sign
that something of the old tenderness still lived in him? And the
strange thing was, that she interrogated herself on these points not
at all like a coldly scheming woman, who aims at something that is
to be won, if at all, by the subtlest practising on another's
emotions, whilst she remains unaffected.
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