condescend to recite at times, to give help in getting up a dramatic entertainment, and soon, in this way, Scawthorne came to know an old actor named Drake, who supported himself by instructing novices, male and female, in his own profession; one of Mr. Drake’s old pupils was Miss Grace Danver, in whom, as soon as he met her, Scawthorne recognised the Grace Rudd of earlier days.  And it was not long after this that he brought to Mr. Drake a young girl of interesting appearance, but very imperfect education, who fancied she had a turn for acting; he succeeded in arranging for her instruction, and a year and a half later she obtained her first engagement at a theatre in Scotland.  The name she adopted was Clara Vale.  Joseph Snowdon saw her once or twice before she left London, and from Grace Danver he heard that Grace and she had been schoolfellows in Clerkenwell.  These facts revived in his memory when he afterwards heard Clem speak of Clara Hewett.

Nothing came of the alliance between Polkenhorne and Joseph; when the latter’s money was exhausted, they naturally fell apart.  Joseph made a living in sundry precarious ways, but at length sank into such straits that he risked the step of going to Clerkenwell Close.  Personal interest in his child he had then none whatever; his short married life seemed an episode in the remote past, recalled with indifference.  But in spite of his profound selfishness, it was not solely from the speculative point of view that he regarded Jane, when he had had time to realise that she was his daughter, and in a measure to appreciate her character.  With the merely base motives which led him to seek her affection and put him at secret hostility with Sidney Kirkwood, there mingled before long a strain of feeling which was natural and pure; he became a little jealous of his father and of Sidney on other grounds than those of self-interest.  Intolerable as his home was, no wonder that he found it a pleasant relief to spend an evening in Hanover Street; he never came away without railing at himself for his imbecility in having married Clem.  For the present he had to plot with his wife and Mrs. Peckover, but only let the chance for plotting against them offer itself!  The opportunity might come.  In the meantime, the great thing was to postpone the marriage—­he had no doubt it was contemplated—­between Jane and Sidney.  That would be little less than a fatality.

The week that Jane spent in Essex was of course a time of desperate anxiety with Joseph; immediately on her return he hastened to assure himself that things remained as before.  It seemed to him that Jane’s greeting had more warmth than she was wont to display when they met; sundry other little changes in her demeanour struck him at the same interview, and he was rather surprised that she had not so much blitheness as before she went away.  But his speculation on minutiae such as these was suddenly interrupted a day or two later by news which threw him into a state