The beauty of her form had lost nothing since the evening when he visited her in Farringdon Road Buildings; now, as then, all her movements were full of grace and natural dignity. Whenever strong feeling was active in her, she could not but manifest it in motion unlike that of ordinary women. Her hair hung in disorder, though not at its full length, massing itself upon her shoulders, shadowing her forehead. Half-consumed by the fire that only death would extinguish, she looked the taller for her slenderness. Ah, had the face been untouched!
‘You are unjust to me,’ Sidney replied, with emotion, but not resentfully. ‘I can enter into all your sufferings. If I speak calmly, it’s because I must, because I daren’t give way. One of us must try and be strong, Clara, or else—’
He turned away.
‘Let us leave this house,’ she continued, hardly noticing what he said, ‘Let us live in some other place. Never any change—always, always the same walls to look at day and night—it’s driving me mad!’
‘Clara, we can’t move. I daren’t spend even the little money it would cost. Do you know what Amy has been doing?’
‘Yes; father told me.’
‘How can we go to the least needless expense, when every day makes living harder for us?’
‘What have we to do with them? How can you be expected to keep a whole family? It isn’t fair to you or to me. You sacrifice me to them. It’s nothing to you what I endure, so long as they are kept in comfort!’
He stepped nearer to her.
‘What do you really mean by that? Is it seriously your wish that I should tell them—your father and your sisters and our brother—to leave the house and support themselves as best they can? Pray, what would become of them? Kept in comfort, are they? How much comfort does your poor father enjoy? Do you wish me to tell him to go out into the street, as I can help him no more?’