He went to the luncheon-bar in Upper Street, and heard for the first time Mrs.Tubbs's rancorous surmises.

He went to Clara's recent lodgings; a girl of ten was the only person in the house, and she could say nothing more than that Miss Hewett no longer lived there.

Till midway in the afternoon John walked about the streets of Islington, Highbury, Hoxton, Clerkenwell, impelled by the unreasoning hope that he might see Clara, but also because he could not rest in any place.

He was half-conscious now of the madness of his behaviour to Kirkwood, but this only confirmed him in hostility to the young man; the thought of losing Clara was anguish intolerable, yet with it mingled a bitter resentment of the girl's cruelty to him.

And all these sources of misery swelled the current of rebellious feeling which had so often threatened to sweep his life into wreckage.