Hewett took her hand, and for a while they kept silence.
Having already taken the cup of tea to Clara, Hewett now returned to her with this food.
A tall figure, so wrapped and veiled that nothing but the womanly outline could be discerned, entered, supported by John Hewett.
One consolation alone offered itself in the course of Hewett's inquiries; Clara, if she recovered, would not have lost her eyesight.
Of late Amy Hewett had become the victim of a singular propensity; whenever she could obtain vinegar, she drank it as a toper does spirits.
She reached the door at length, and being too much exhausted to search her pocket for the latchkey, knocked for admission. Amy Hewett opened to her, and she sank on a chair in the first room, where the other two Hewett children were bending over 'home-lessons' with a studiousness not altogether natural.
The beauty of her form would have impressed anyone who approached her, the grace of her bent head; but the countenance was no longer that of Clara Hewett; none must now look at her, unless to pity. Feeling herself thus utterly changed, she could not speak in her former natural voice; her utterance was oppressed, unmusical, monotonous.
The truth of the situation was, that John had received by post, from he knew not whom, a newspaper report of the inquest held on the body of Grace Danver, wherein, of course, was an account of what had happened to Clara Vale; in the margin was pencilled, 'Clara Vale's real name is Clara Hewett.' An hour after receiving this John encountered Sidney Kirkwood.