why not thank her
fortune and plot collectedly now that the chances were so much improved?

But from the beginning of her interview with him, Clara knew that
something more entered into her designs on Sidney than a cold
self-interest. She had never loved him; she never loved anyone; yet the
inclinations of her early girlhood had been drawn by the force of the
love he offered her, and to this day she thought of him with a respect
and liking such as she had for no other man. When she heard from her
father that Sidney had forgotten her, had found some one by whom his
love was prized, her instant emotion was so like a pang of jealousy
that she marvelled at it. Suppose fate had prospered her, and she had
heard in the midst of triumphs that Sidney Kirkwood, the working man in
Clerkenwell, was going to marry a girl he loved, would any feeling of
this kind have come to her? Her indifference would have been complete.
It was calamity that made her so sensitive. Self-pity longs for the
compassion of others. That Sidney, who was once her slave, should stand
aloof in freedom now that she wanted sympathy so sorely, this was a
wound to her heart. That other woman had robbed her of something she
could not spare.

Jane Snowdon, too! She found it scarcely conceivable that the wretched
little starveling of Mrs. Peckover's kitchen should have grown into
anything that a man like Sidney could love. 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