John strode forward and laid his hands roughly upon her shoulders.

‘Look at me, will you?  Speak, will you?’

Clara jerked herself from his grasp and regarded him with insolent surprise.  Of fear there was no trace upon her countenance; she seemed to experience only astonishment at such unwonted behaviour from her father, and resentment on her own behalf.  Sidney Kirkwood had risen, and advanced a step or two, as if in apprehension of harm to the girl, but his interference was unneeded.  Hewett recovered his self-control as soon as Clara repelled him.  It was the first time he had ever laid a hand upon one of his children other than gently; his exasperation came of over-tried nerves, of the experiences he had gone through in search of work that day, and the keen suffering occasioned by his argument with Sidney.  The practical confirmation of Sidney’s warning that he must no longer hope to control Clara like a child stung him too poignantly; he obeyed an unreasoning impulse to recover his authority by force.

The girl’s look entered his heart like a stab; she had never faced him like this before, saying more plainly than with words that she defied him to control her.  His child’s face, the face he loved best of all! yet at this moment he was searching it vainly for the lineaments that were familiar to him.  Something had changed her, had hardened her against him, in a moment.  It seemed impossible that there should come such severance between them.  John revolted against it, as against all the other natural laws that visited him harshly.

‘What’s come to you, my girl?’ he said in a thick voice.  ’What’s wrong between us, Clara?  Haven’t I always done my best for you?  If I was the worst enemy you had, you couldn’t look at me crueller.’

‘I think it’s me that should ask what’s come to you, father,’ she returned with her former self-possession.  ’You treat me as if I was a baby.  I want to know what you’re going to say about Mrs. Tubbs.  I suppose mother’s told you what she offers me?’

Sidney had not resumed his chair.  Before Hewett could reply he said: 

‘I think I’ll leave you to talk over this alone.’

‘No; stay where you are,’ said John gruffly.  ’Look here, Clara.  Sidney’s been talkin’ to me; he’s been sayin’ that I ought to let you have your own way in this.  Yes, you may well look as if it surprised you.’  Clara had just glanced at the young man, slightly raising her eyebrows, but at once looked away again with a careless movement of the head.  ‘He says what it’s hard an’ cruel for me to believe, though I half begin to see that he’s right; he says you won’t pay no more heed to what I wish, an’ it’s me now must give way to you.  I didn’t use to think me an’ Clara would come to that; but it looks like it—­it looks like it.’