Her face was very white as she opened the door, some of the young soft lines of her early youth seemed to have left it; her beautiful brown eyes looked in a heavy sort of fashion out at the world from their dark surroundings. She came up to her father, and put her hand on his shoulder. He was bending over his desk, busily writing.
"What is the matter, Hilda?" he asked, glancing up at her with a quick start, and an endeavor to make his voice sound as usual.
"I—I have come, father, to say that if you like, I—I will give up my engagement to Jasper Quentyns."
Mr. Merton rose from his seat and put his arm round her neck.
"My dear child," he said, "it is my comfort to-day to know that you, at least, are provided for. Quentyns is fairly well off. If he will take you without any fortune, there is certainly no reason why you should not go to him."
"Money can't make any difference to Jasper," said Hilda, just a little proudly, although her lips trembled; "but I—it seems wrong that I should be so happy when the rest of you are so miserable."
"Tut, tut!" said the Rector. "I shall get over this in time. I own that just now the blow is so severe that I can scarcely quite realize it. When I opened my eyes this morning, I was pleasantly conscious that I was the possessor of a private income of quite two thousand a year; I felt this fact in the comforts that surrounded me, and the ease which filled my life. Except that small stipend which is represented by my living, and which I have always hitherto devoted to the poor of the flock, I am now reduced to nothing a year. My poor must divide my money with me in future, that is all; I don't intend to be miserable when I get accustomed to the change, Hilda. I must dismiss most of the servants, and give up the carriage and horses, and live as a poor man instead of a rich one; but I owe no man anything, my dear, and I have not the least doubt there is a certain zest in poverty which will make the new order of things agreeable enough when once I get used to it."
The tears gathered slowly in Hilda's eyes.
"I don't feel as if I could quite bear it," she said, with a sob.
The Rector, who was always rather absent-minded, and had a dreamy way of looking far ahead even when he was most roused, scarcely noticed Hilda's tears. He talked on in a monotonous sort of voice: