I fear I was right; you have been ill, have you not ?" "Not exactly ill, but very much worried and overworked." A light dawned on Adela Branston's troubled mind.

She began to think that Mr.Saltram's strange absent manner, his apparent indifference to her presence, might arise from preoccupation, caused by those pecuniary difficulties from which the Pallinsons declared him so constant a sufferer.

Yes, she told herself, it was trouble of this kind that oppressed him, that had banished him from her all this time.

He was too generous to repair his shattered fortunes by means of her money; he was too proud to confess his fallen state.
A tender pity took possession of her.

All that was most sentimental in her nature was awakened by the idea of John Saltram's generosity.