There had befallen him what most people would have considered a piece of rare good fortune.  At the London University, a fellow student, whom he had been gratuitously “coaching” in Hindostanee, fell ill, and was “thrown upon his hands.” as he briefly defined services which must have been great, since they had resulted in this end.  The young man’s father—­a Liverpool and Bombay merchant—­made him an offer to go out there, to their house, at a rising salary of 300 rupees a month for three years; after the third year to become a junior partner; remaining at Bombay in that capacity for two years more.

This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words as I have here put it—­for brevity seemed a refuge to him.  It was also to one of them.  But Ascott asked so many questions that his aunt needed to ask none.  She only listened, and tried to take all in, and understand it, that is, in a consecutive, intelligent, business shape, without feeling it.  She dared not let herself feel it, not for a second, till they were out, arm-in-arm, under the quiet winter stars.  Then she heard his voice asking her, “So you think I was right?”

“Right?” she echoed mechanically.

“I mean in accepting that sudden chance, and changing my whole plan of life.  I did not do it—­believe me—­without a motive.”

“What motive?” she would once unhesitatingly have asked; now she could not.

Robert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in an undertone, that though Ascott was walking a few yards off, Hilary felt was meant for her alone to hear.

“The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student to that of a man of business.  I do not deny that I preferred the first.  Once upon a time to be a fellow in a college, or a professor, or the like, was my utmost aim and I would have half killed myself to attain it.  Now, I think differently.”

He paused, but did not seem to require an answer, and it did not come.

“I want, not to be rich but to get a decent competence, and to get it as soon as I can.  I want not to ruin my health with incessant study.  I have already injured it a good deal.”

“Have you been ill?  You never said so.”

“Oh no, it was hardly worth while.  And I knew an active life would soon set me right again.  No fear! there’s life in the old dog yet.  He does not wish to die.  But,” Mr. Lyon pursued, “I have had a ’sair fecht’ the last year or two.  I would not go through it again, nor see any one dear to me go through it.  It is over, but it has left its scars.  Strange!  I have been poor all my life, yet I never till now felt an actual terror of poverty.”

Hilary shrank within herself; less even at the words than at something in their tone—­something hard, nay fierce; something at once despairing and aggressive.

“It is strange,” she said; “such a terror is not like you.  I feel none; I can not even understand it.”