'Well, there's one trouble you'd better get rid of, at all events.
Let Clara go to Mrs. Tubbs. You'll never have any peace till she
does, I can see that. Why shouldn't she go, after all? She's
seventeen; if she can't respect herself now, she never will, and
there's no help for it. Tell John to let her go.'

There was bitterness in the tone with which he gave this advice; he
threw out his hands impatiently, and then flung himself back, so
that the cranky chair creaked and tottered.

'An' if 'arm comes to her, what then?' returned Mrs. Hewett
plaintively. 'We know well enough why Mrs. Tubbs wants her; it's
only because she's good-lookin', an' she'll bring more people to the
bar. John knows that, an' it makes him wild. Mind what I'm tellin'
you, Sidney; if any 'arm comes to that girl, her father'll go out of
his 'ead. I know he will! I know he will! He worships the ground as
she walks on, an' if it hadn't been for that, she'd never have given
him the trouble as she is doin'. It 'ud a been better for her if
she'd had a father like mine, as was a hard, careless man. I don't
wish to say no 'arm of him as is dead an' buried, an' my own father
too, but he was a hard father to us, an' as long as he lived we
dursn't say not a word as he didn't like. He'd a killed me if I'd
gone on like Clara. It was a good thing as he was gone, before--'

'Don't, don't speak of that,' interposed Kirkwood, with kindly
firmness. 'That's long since over and done with and forgotten.'

'No, no; not forgotten. Clara knows, an' that's partly why she makes
so little of me; I know it is.'