said, "before you asked me here."

Rochester shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps," he said, "I preferred to keep up my reputation as an
eccentric person. At any rate, you must remember that it was open to
me at any moment to ask you the question I have asked you now."

Saton sat perfectly still in his chair, his eyes apparently fixed upon
the ground. All the time Rochester was watching him. Was it seven
years ago, seven years only, since he had stood by the side of that
boy, whose longing eyes had been fixed with almost passionate
intensity upon that world of shadows and unseen things? This was a
different person. With the swiftness of inspiration itself, he
recognised something of the change which had taken place. Saton had
fought his battle twice over. He might esteem himself a winner. He
might even say that he had proved it. Yet there was another side. This
young man with the lined face, and the almost unnatural restraint of
manner, might well have taken up the thread of life which the boy had
laid down. But there was a difference. The thread might be the same,
but it was no longer of gold.

Then Saton raised his eyes, and Rochester, who was watching him
intensely, realized with a sudden convincing thrill something which he
had felt from the moment when he had stepped into the library and
welcomed this unexpected visitor. There was nothing left of gratitude
or even kindly feeling in the heart of this young man. There was
something else which looked out from his eyes, something else which he
did not even trouble to conceal. Rochester knew, from that moment,
that he had an enemy.

"There are just two things," Saton said quietly, "of which I should
like to remind you. The first is that from the day I left this house
with five hundred pounds in bank-notes buttoned up in my pocket, I
regarded that sum as a loan. I have always regarded it as a loan, and
I have repaid it."

"I do not consider your obligation to me lessened," Rochester remarked
coldly. "If it was a loan, it was a loan such as no sane man would
have made. You had not a penny in the world, and I did not even know
your name. The chances were fifty to one against my ever seeing a
penny of my money again."

"I admit that," Saton answered. "Yet I will remind you of your own
words--five hundred pounds were no more to you than a crown piece to
me. You gave me the money. You gave me little else. You gave me no
encouragement, no word of kindly advice. Go back t