'I can look out for myself,' said Clem.
'Can you? I'm glad to hear it.'
And Mrs. Peckover sniffed the air, scornfully. The affectionate pair
dined together, each imbibing a pint and a half of 'mild and
bitter,' and Clem returned to Hanover Street. From Joseph she could
derive no information as to the state of the patient.
'If you will stay here, where you can do no good,' he said, 'sit
down and keep quiet.'
'Certainly I shall stay,' said his wife, 'because I know you want to
get rid of me.'
Joseph left her in the sitting-room, and went upstairs again to keep
his daughter company. Jane would not leave the bedside. To enter the
room, after an interval elsewhere, wrung her feelings too painfully;
better to keep her eyes fixed on the unmoving form, to overcome the
dread by facing it.
She and her father seldom exchanged a word. The latter was
experiencing human emotion, but at the same time he had no little
anxiety regarding his material interests. It was ten days since he
had learnt that there was no longer the least fear of a marriage
between Jane and Sidney, seeing that Kirkwood was going to marry
some one else--a piece of news which greatly astonished him, and
confirmed him in his judgment that he had been on the wrong tack in
judging Kirkwood's character.
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