He had not even heard what Jock had been saying for the last ten minutes. The child looked up in the utmost surprise. He was stopped in the middle of a sentence, the words taken out of his mouth. He looked with his eyes opening wide. “Run and play,” St. Clair repeated, his lips were quite dry with excitement; “I want to speak to Lucy.” He had never spoken of her as Lucy before, he had never thought of suggesting that Jock should run and play. The child, though startled and indignant, yielded to the emergency which was unmistakable in his instructor’s face. He looked at St. Clair for a moment, angry, then yielding to the necessity. And Lucy, whose interest in her history-book was never of an absorbing description, hearing the pause, the whisper, the little rustle of movement, looked up too. She saw with some astonishment that Jock was leaving the room. “Have you got through your lessons already?” she cried. St. Clair made the child an imperative sign, and got up and approached Lucy. “I have sent him away,” he said, and then stood for a moment looking down upon her. She, on her side, looked up with a surprised countenance. There could not have been a greater contrast than that which was apparent between them; he full of excitement, she perfectly calm, though surprised, wondering what it was he was about to say to her, and what his restrained agitation could mean. “I sent him away,” said St. Clair, “because I wanted to say something to you, Miss Trevor; I could not delay it any longer. It has been almost more than I could do to keep silence so long.” “What is it?” she said. She was gently anxious, concerned about him, wondering if he was going to relieve her of her difficulty by confessing his wants, and putting it into her power to help him. It did not occur to Lucy that a man would be very unlikely to confide troubles about money to a girl. The distribution of her money occupied her own mind so much that it seemed, on the contrary, a likely matter to her that others should be so preoccupied too.