This resolve he registered whilst at work one morning.  The triumphant sunshine, refusing to be excluded even from London workshops, gleamed upon his tools and on the scraps of jewellery before him; he looked up to the blue sky, and thought with heavy heart of many a lane in Surrey and in Essex where he might be wandering but for this ceaseless necessity of earning the week’s wage.  A fly buzzed loudly against the grimy window, and by one of those associations which time and change cannot affect, he mused himself back into boyhood.  The glimpse before him of St. John’s Arch aided the revival of old impressions; his hand ceased from its mechanical activity, and he was absorbed in a waking dream, when a voice called to him and said that he was wanted.  He went down to the entrance, and there found Mrs. Hewett.  Her coming at all was enough to signal some disaster, and the trouble on her face caused Sidney to regard her with silent interrogation.

‘I couldn’t help comin’ to you,’ she began, gazing at him fixedly.  ‘I know you can’t do anything, but I had to speak to somebody, an’ I know nobody better than you.  It’s about Clara.’

‘What about her?’

’She’s left Mrs. Tubbs.  They had words about Bank-holiday last night, an’ Clara went off at once.  Mrs. Tubbs thought she’d come ‘ome, but this mornin’ her box was sent for, an’ it was to be took to a house in Islington.  An’ then Mrs. Tubbs came an’ told me.  An’ there’s worse than that, Sidney.  She’s been goin’ about to the theatre an’ such places with a man as she got to know at the bar, an’ Mrs. Tubbs says she believes it’s him has tempted her away.’

She spoke the last sentences in a low voice, painfully watching their effect.

‘And why hasn’t Mrs. Tubbs spoken about this before?’ Sidney asked, also in a subdued voice, but without other show of agitation.

’That’s just what, I said to her myself.  The girl was in her charge, an’ it was her duty to let us know if things went wrong.  But how am I to tell her father?  I dursn’t do it, Sidney; for my life, I dursn’t!  I’d go an’ see her where she’s lodging—­see, I’ve got the address wrote down here—­but I should do more harm than good; she’d never pay any heed to me at the best of times, an’ it isn’t likely she would now.’

’Look here if she’s made no attempt to hide away, you may be quite sure there’s no truth in what Mrs. Tubbs says.  They’ve quarrelled, and of course the woman makes Clara as black as she can.  Tell her father everything as soon as he comes home; you’ve no choice.’

Mrs. Hewett averted her face in profound dejection.  Sidney learnt at length what her desire had been in coming to him; she hoped he would see Clara and persuade her to return home.

‘I dursn’t tell her’ father,’ she kept repeating.  ’But perhaps it isn’t true what Mrs. Tubbs says.  Do go an’ speak to her before it’s too late.  Say we won’t ask her to come ’ome, if only she’ll let us know what she’s goin’ to do.’