Michael had taken the last step in that process of dehumanisation which threatens idealists of his type.  He had reached at length the pass of those frenzied votaries of a supernatural creed who exact from their disciples the sacrifice of every human piety.  Returning home, he murmured to himself again and again, ’She must not marry.  She must overcome this desire of a happiness such as ordinary women may enjoy.  For my sake, and for the sake of her suffering fellow-creatures, Jane must win this victory over herself.’

He purposed speaking to her, but put it off from day to day.  Sidney paid his visits as usual, and tried desperately to behave as though he had no trouble.  Could he have divined why it was that Michael had ended by accepting his vague pretences with apparent calm, indignation, wrath, would have possessed him; he believed, however, that the old man out of kindness subdued what he really felt.  Sidney’s state was pitiable.  He knew not whether he more shrank from the thought of being infected with Joseph Snowdon’s baseness or despised himself for his attitude to Jane.  Despicable entirely had been his explanations to Michael, but how could he make them more sincere?  To tell the whole truth, to reveal Joseph’s tactics would be equivalent to taking a part in the dirty contest; Michael would probably do him justice, but who could say how far Joseph’s machinations were becoming effectual?  The slightest tinct of uncertainty in the old man’s thought, and he, Kirkwood, became a plotter, like the others, meeting mine with countermine.

’There will be no possibility of perfect faith between men until there is no such thing as money!  H’m, and when is that likely to come to pass?’

Thus he epigrammatised to himself one evening, savagely enough, as with head bent forward he plodded to Red Lion Street.  Some one addressed him; he looked up and saw Jane.  Seemingly it was a chance meeting, but she put a question at once almost as though she had been waiting for him.  ’Have you seen Pennyloaf lately, Mr. Kirkwood?’

Pennyloaf?  The name suggested Bob Hewett, who again suggested John Hewett, and so Sidney fell upon thoughts of some one who two days ago had found a refuge in John’s home.  To Michael he had said nothing of what he knew concerning Clara; a fresh occasion of uneasy thought.  Bob Hewett—­so John said—­had no knowledge of his sister’s situation, otherwise Pennyloaf might have come to know about it, and in that case, perchance, Jane herself.  Why not?  Into what a wretched muddle of concealments and inconsistencies and insincerities had he fallen!

‘It’s far too long since I saw her,’ he replied, in that softened tone which he found it impossible to avoid when his eyes met Jane’s.

She was on her way home from the soup-kitchen, where certain occupations had kept her much later than usual; this, however, was far out of her way, and Sidney remarked on the fact, perversely, when she had offered this explanation of her meeting him, Jane did not reply.  They walked on together, towards Islington.