How it came out Hilary hardly knew; she seemed to have told very little, and yet Miss Balquidder guessed it all.  It did not appear to surprise or shock her.  She neither began to question nor preach; she only laid her hand, her large, motherly, protecting hand, on the bowed head, saying.

“How much you must have suffered, my poor bairn!”

The soft Scotch tone and word—­the grave, quiet Scotch manner, implying more than it even expressed—­was it wonderful if underlying as well as outside influences made Hilary completely give way?

Robert Lyon had had a mother, who died when he was seventeen, but of whom he kept the tenderest remembrance, often saying that of all the ladies he had met with in the world there was none equal to her—­the strong, tender, womanly peasant woman—­refined in mind and word and ways—­though to the last day of her life she spoke broad Scotch, and did the work of her cottage with her own hands.  It seems as if that mother—­toward whom Hilary’s fancy had clung, lovingly as a woman ought to cling, above all others, to the mother of the man she loves—­were speaking to her now, comforting her and helping her—­comfort and help that it would have been sweeter to receive from her than from any woman living.

A mere fancy; but in her state of long uncontrolled excitement it took such possession of her that Hilary fell on her knees and hid her face in Miss Balquidder’s lap, sobbing aloud.

The other was a little surprised; it was not her Scotch way to yield to emotion before folk; but she was a wise woman she asked no questions, merely held the quivering hands and smoothed the throbbing head, till composure returned.  Some people have a magical, mesmeric power of soothing and controlling; it was hers.  When she took the poor face between her hands, and looked straight into the eyes, with, “There, you are better now,” Hilary returned the gaze as steadily, nay, smilingly, and rose.

“Now, may I tell you my business?”

“Certainly, my dear.  When one’s friends are in trouble, the last thing one ought to do is to sit down beside them and moan.  Did you come to ask my advice, or had you any definite plan of your own?”

“I had.”  And Hilary told it.

“A very good plan, and very generous in you to think of it.  But I see two strong objections:  first, whether it can be carried out; secondly, whether it ought.”

Hilary shrank, sensitively.

“Not on my account, my dear, but your own.  I often see people making martyrs of themselves for some worthless character on whom the sacrifice is utterly wasted.  I object to this, as I would object to throwing myself or my friend into a blazing house, unless I were morally certain there was a life to be saved.  Is there in this case?”

“I think there is!  I trust in Heaven there is!” said Hilary, earnestly.

There was both pleasure and pity expressed in Miss Balquidder’s countenance as she replied, “Be it so:  that is a matter on which no one can judge except yourself.  But on the other matter you ask my advice, and I must give it.  To maintain two ladies and pay a debt of eighty pounds out of one hundred a year is simply impossible.”