“Left them at home, and at tea?”

“Yes, Miss Hilary.”

It was an inexpressible relief.  For the discovery must have come.  Ascott must have known or guessed that Mr. Ascott had found him out; he must have confessed all to his Aunt, or Johanna would never have done two things which her sister knew she strongly disliked—­sending Elizabeth wandering through London at night, and fetching Hilary home before the time.  Yet they had been left sitting quietly at their tea!

Perhaps, after all, the blow had not been so dreadful.  Johanna saw comfort through it all.  Vague hopes arose in Hilary also; visions of the poor sinner sitting “clothed and in his right mind,” contrite and humbled; comforted by them all, with the inexpressible tenderness with which we yearn over one who “was dead and is alive again, was lost, and is found;” helped by them all in the way that women—­some women especially, and these were of them—­seem formed to help the erring and unfortunate; for, erring as he was, he had also been unfortunate.

Many an excuse for him suggested itself.  How foolish of them, ignorant women that they were, to suppose that seventeen years of the most careful bringing up could, with his temperament, stand against the countless dangers of London life; of any life where a young man is left to himself in a great town, with his temptations so many, and his power of resistance so small.

And this might not, could not be a deliberate act.  It must have been committed under a sudden impulse, to be repented of for the rest of his days.  Nay, in the strange way in which our sins and mistakes are made not only the whips to scourge us, but the sicknesses out of which we often come—­suffering and weak indeed, but yet relieved, and fresh, and sound—­who could tell but that this grave fault, this actual guilt, the climax of so many lesser errors, might not work out in the end Ascott’s complete reformation?

So in the strange way in which, after a great shock, we begin to revive a little, to hope against hope, to see a slender ray breaking through the darkness, Hilary composed herself, at least so far as to enable her to bid Elizabeth go down stairs, and she would be ready directly.

“I think it is the best thing I can do—­to go home at once,” said she.

“Certainly, my dear.” replied Mr. Ascott, rather flattered by her involuntary appeal, and by an inward consciousness of his own exceeding generosity.  “And pray don’t disturb yourselves.  Tell your sister from me—­your sister Selina, I mean—­that I overlook every thing, on condition that you keep him out of my sight, that young blackguard!”

“Don’t, don’t!” cried Hilary, piteously.

“Well, I won’t, though it’s his right name—­a fellow who could—­ Look you, Miss Hilary, when his father sent to me to beg ten pounds to bury his mother with.  I did bury her, and him also, a month after, very respectably too, though he had no claim upon me, except that he came from Stowbury.  And I stood godfather to the child, and I’ve done my duty by him.  But mark my words, what’s bred in the bone will come in the flesh.  He was born in a prison, and he’ll die in a prison.”