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."

"No, I knew you could not," he muttered; and was silent.

So was Hilary. A vague trouble came over her. Could it be that he,
Robert Lyon, had been seized with the _auri sacra fames_, which he had
so often inveighed against and despised? that his long battle with
poverty had caused in him such an overweening desire for riches that,