e her bed. The
last reserve of energy was exhausted, and the end near.

After her death, what then? Through the nights of this week after her
doom had been spoken she lay questioning the future. She knew that but
for her unremitting efforts Hewett would have yielded to the despair of
a drunkard; the crucial moment was when he found himself forsaken by
his daughter, and no one but this poor woman could know what force of
loving will, what entreaties, what tears, had drawn him back a little
way from the edge of the gulf. Throughout his life until that day of
Clara's disappearance he had seemed in no danger from the deadliest
enemy of the poor; one taste of the oblivion that could be bought at
any street-corner, and it was as though drinking had been a recognised
habit with him. A year, two years, and he still drank himself into
forgetfulness as often as his mental suffering waxed unendurable. On
the morrow of every such crime--interpret the word rightly--he hated
himself for his cruelty to that pale sufferer whose reproaches were
only the utterances of love. The third year saw an improvement, whether
owing to conscious self-control or to the fact that time was blunting
his affliction. Instead of the public-house, he frequented all places
where the woes of the nether world found fierce expression. He became a
constant speaker at the meetings on Clerkenwell Green and at the
Radical clubs. The effect upon him of this excitement was evil enough,
yet not so evil as the malady of drink. Mrs. Hewett was thankful for
the alternative. But when she was no longer at his side--what then?

His employment was irregular, but for the most part at cabinet-making.
The workshop where he was generally to be found was owned by two
brothers, who invariably spent the first half of each week in steady
drinking. Their money gone, they set to work and made articles of
furniture, which on Saturday they took round to the shops of small
dealers and sold for what they could get. When once they took up their
tools, these men worked with incredible persistency, and they expected
the same exertion from those they employed. 'I wouldn't give a ---- for
the chap as can't do his six-and-thirty hours at the bench!' remarked
one of them on the occasion of a workman falling into a fainting-fit,
caused by utter exhaustion. Hewett was anything but strong, and he
earned little.

Late on Saturday afternoon, Sidney Kirkwood and his friends were back
in London. As