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.