However, there was physical suffering.  It came and went, and at such moments she saw the traces of it in the tightening of his lips, and longed with womanly intuition to alleviate it.  She had not spoken —­although she could have cried aloud; she knew not what to say.  And then suddenly she reached out and touched his hand.  Nor could she have accounted for the action.

“Are you in much pain?” she asked.

She felt him tremble.

“No,” he said; “it’s only a spell—­I’ve had ’em before.  I—­I can drive in a few minutes.”

“And do you think,” she asked, “that I would allow you to go the rest of the way alone?”

“I guess I ought to thank you for comin’ with me,” he said.

Victoria looked at him and smiled.  And it was an illuminating smile for her as well as for Hilary.  Suddenly, by that strange power of sympathy which the unselfish possess, she understood the man, understood Austen’s patience with him and affection for him.  Suddenly she had pierced the hard layers of the outer shell, and had heard the imprisoned spirit crying with a small persistent voice,—­a spirit stifled for many years and starved—­and yet it lived and struggled still.

Yes, and that spirit itself must have felt her own reaching out to it —­who can, say?  And how it must have striven again for utterance—­

“It was good of you to come,” he said.

“It was only common humanity,” she answered, touching the horse.

“Common humanity,” he repeated.  “You’d have done it for anybody along the road, would you?”

At this remark, so characteristic of Hilary, Victoria, hesitated.  She understood it now.  And yet she hesitated to give him an answer that was hypocritical.

“I have known you all my life, Mr. Vane, and you are a very old friend of my father’s.”

“Old,” he repeated, “yes, that’s it.  I’m ready for the scrap-heap —­better have let me lie, Victoria.”

Victoria started.  A new surmise had occurred to her upon which she did not like to dwell.

“You have worked too hard, Mr. Vane—­you need a rest.  And I have been telling father that, too.  You both need a rest.”

He shook his head.

“I’ll never get it,” he said.  “Stopping work won’t give it to me.”

She pondered on these words as she guided the horse over a crossing.  And all that Austen had said to her, all that she had been thinking of for a year past, helped her to grasp their meaning.  But she wondered still more at the communion which, all at once, had been established between Hilary Vane and herself, and why he was saying these things to her.  It was all so unreal and inexplicable.

“I can imagine that people who have worked hard all their lives must feel that way,” she answered, though her voice was not as steady as she could have wished.  “You—­you have so much to live for.”

Her colour rose.  She was thinking of Austen—­and she knew that Hilary Vane knew that she was thinking of Austen.  Moreover, she had suddenly grasped the fact that the gentle but persistently strong influence of the son’s character had brought about the change in the father.  Hilary Vane’s lips closed again, as in pain, and she divined the reason.