"May I speak to you a moment in the study, Mr. Ambrose?" he said as they rose from table. "Certainly," replied the vicar; and having conducted his wife to the drawing-room, he returned to find John. There was a low, smouldering fire in the study grate, and John had lit a solitary candle. The room looked very dark and dismal and John was seated in one of the black leather chairs, waiting. "Anything about those verses you were speaking of to-day?" asked the vicar cheerfully, in anticipation of a pleasant classical chat. "No," said John, gloomily. "The fact is--" he cleared his throat, "the fact is, I want to ask you rather a delicate question, sir." The vicar's heavy eyebrows contracted; the lines of his face all turned downwards, and his long, clean-shaved upper lip closed sharply upon its fellow, like a steel trap. He turned his grey eyes upon John's averted face with a searching look. "Have you got into any trouble at Trinity, John?" he asked severely. "Oh no--no indeed," said John. Nothing was further from his thoughts than his college at that moment. "I want to ask you a question, which no one else can answer. Is--do you think that--that Mr. Juxon has any idea of marrying Mrs. Goddard?" The vicar started in astonishment and laid both hands upon the arms of his chair. "What--in the world--put that--into your head?" he asked very slowly, emphasising every word of his question. John was prepared to see his old tutor astonished but was rather taken aback at the vicar's tone. "Do you think it is likely, sir?" he insisted. "Certainly not," answered the vicar, still eyeing him suspiciously. "Certainly not. I have positive reasons to prove the contrary. But, my dear John, why, in the name of all that is sensible, do you ask me such a question? You don't seriously think of proposing--" "I don't see why I should not," said John doggedly, seeing that he was found out. "You don't see why you should not? Why the thing is perfectly absurd, not to say utterly impossible! John, you are certainly mad." "I don't see why," repeated John. "I am a grown man. I have good prospects--" "Good prospects!" ejaculated the vicar in horror. "Good prospects! Why, you are only an undergraduate at Cambridge." "I may be senior classic in a few months," objected John. "That is not such a bad prospect, it seems to me." "It means that you may get a fellowship, probably will--in the course of a few years. But you lose it if you marry. Besides--do you know that Mrs. Goddard is ten years older than you, and more?" "Impossible," said John in a tone of conviction. "I know that she is. She will be two and thirty on her next birthday, and you are not yet one and twenty." "I shall be next month," argued John, who was somewhat taken aback, however, by the alarming news of Mrs. Goddard's age. "Besides, I can go into the church, before I get a fellowship--"