e should be
condemned to such a waste of her young life.

Jane had obtained what she came for. At times the longing to see him
grew insupportable, and this evening she had yielded to it, going out
of her way in the hope of encountering him as he came from work. He
spoke very strangely. What did it all mean, and when would this winter
of suspense give sign of vanishing before sunlight?

CHAPTER XXIX

PHANTOMS

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Snowdon were now established in rooms in Burton
Crescent, which is not far from King's Cross. Joseph had urged that
Clerkenwell Close was scarcely a suitable quarter for a man of his
standing, and, though with difficulty, he had achieved thus much
deliverance. Of Clem he could not get rid--just yet; but it was
something to escape Mrs. Peckover's superintendence. Clem herself
favoured the removal, naturally for private reasons. Thus far working
in alliance with her shrewd mother, she was now forming independent
projects. Mrs. Peckover's zeal was assuredly not disinterested, and
why, Clem mused with herself, should the fruits of strategy be shared?
Her husband's father could not, she saw every reason to believe, be
much longer for this world. How his property was to be divided she had
no means of discovering; Joseph professed to have no accurate
information, but as a matter of course he was deceiving her. Should he
inherit a considerable sum, it was more than probable he would think of
again quitting his native land--and without encumbrances. That movement
must somehow be guarded against; how, it was difficult as yet to
determine. In the next place, Jane was sure to take a large share of
the fortune. To that Clem strongly objected, both on abstract grounds
and because she regarded Jane with a savage hatred--a hatred which had
its roots in the time of Jane's childhood, and which had grown in
proportion as the girl reaped happiness from life. The necessity of
cloaking this sentiment had not, you may be sure, tended to mitigate
it. Joseph said that there was no longer any fear of a speedy marriage
between Jane and Kirkwood, but that such a marriage would come off some
day,--if not prevented--Clem held to be a matter of certainty. Sidney
Kirkwood was a wide-awake young man; of course he had his satisfactory
reasons for delay. Now Clem's hatred of Sidney was, from of old, only
less than that wherewith she regarded Jane. To frustrate the hopes of
that couple would be a gratification worth a g