ed
was wasted in comparison with what might have been done with it. I
suppose she must not be blamed for bringing children into the world
when those already born to her were but half-clothed, half-fed; she
increased the sum total of the world's misery in obedience to the laws
of the Book of Genesis. And one virtue she had which compensated for
all that was lacking--a virtue merely negative among the refined, but
in that other world the rarest and most precious of moral
distinctions--she resisted the temptations of the public-house.

This was the story present in Sidney Kirkwood's mind as often as he
climbed the staircase in Clerkenwell Close. By contrast, his own life
seemed one of unbroken ease. Outwardly it was smooth enough. He had no
liking for his craft, and being always employed upon the meaningless
work which is demanded by the rich vulgar, he felt such work to be
paltry and ignoble; but there seemed no hope of obtaining better, and
he made no audible complaint. His wages were consider ably more than he
needed, and systematically he put money aside each week.

But this orderly existence concealed conflicts of heart and mind which
Sidney himself could not have explained, could not lucidly have
described. The moral shock which he experienced at his father's death
put an end to the wanton play of his energies, but it could not ripen
him before due time; his nature was not of the sterile order common in
his world, and through passion, through conflict, through endurance, it
had to develop such maturity as fate should permit. Saved from
self-indulgence, he naturally turned into the way of political
enthusiasm; thither did his temper point him. With some help--mostly
negative--from Clerkenwell Green, he reached the stage of confident and
aspiring Radicalism, believing in the perfectibility of man, in human
brotherhood, in--anything you like that is the outcome of a noble heart
sheltered by ignorance. It had its turn, and passed.

To give place to nothing very satisfactory. It was not a mere
coincidence that Sidney was going through a period of mental and moral
confusion just in those years which brought Clara Hewett from childhood
to the state of woman. Among the acquaintances of Sidney's boyhood
there was not one but had a chosen female companion from the age of
fifteen or earlier; he himself had been no exception to the rule in his
class, but at the time of meeting with Hewett he was companionless, and
remained so