The rare hearing of Mr. Lyon’s name—­for, time and absence having produced their natural effect, except when his letter came, he was seldom talked about now—­set Hilary thinking.

“Do you go to see him often?” she said, at last.

“Who?  Mr. Lyon?” And Ascott, delighted’ to escape into a fresh subject, became quite cheerful and communicative.  “Oh, bless you!  He wouldn’t care for my going to him.  He lives in a two-pair back, only one room, ‘which serves him for kitchen and parlor and all:’  dines at a cook shop for nine-pence a day, and makes his own porridge night and morning.  He told me so once, for he isn’t a bit ashamed of it.  But he must be precious hard up sometimes.  However, as he contrives to keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his classes at the University, and carry off the very first honors going there, nobody asks any questions.  That’s the good of London life, Aunt Hilary,” said the young fellow, drawing himself up with great wisdom.  “Only look like a gentleman, behave yourself as such, and nobody asks any questions.”

“Yes,” acquiesced vaguely Aunt Hilary.  And then her mind wandered yearningly to the solitary student in the two-pair back.  He might labor and suffer; he might be ill; he might die, equally solitary, and “nobody would ask any questions.”  This phase of London life let a new light in upon her mind.  The letters to Johanna had been chiefly filled with whatever he thought would interest them.  With his characteristic Scotch reserve, he had said very little about himself, except in the last, wherein he mentioned that he had “done pretty well” at the college this term, and meant to “go in for more work” immediately.

What this work entailed—­how much more toil, how much more poverty—­Hilary knew not.  Perhaps even his successes, which Ascott went on to talk of, had less place in her thoughts than the picture of the face she knew, sharpened with illness, wasted with hard work and solitary care.

“And I can not help him—­I can not help him!” was her bitter cry; until, passing from the dream-land of fancy, the womanly nature asserted itself.  She thought if it had been, or if it were to be, her blessed lot to be chosen by Robert Lyon, how she would take care of him! what an utter slave she would be to him!  How no penury would frighten her, no household care oppress or humble her, if done for him and for his comfort.  To her brave heart no battle of life seemed too long or too sore, if only it were fought for him and at his side.  And as the early falling leaves were blown in gusts across her path, and the misty autumn night began to close in, nature herself seemed to plead in unison with the craving of her heart, which sighed that youth and summer last not always; and that, “be it ever so humble,” as the song says, there is no place so bright and beautiful as the fireside of a loveful home.

While the aunt and nephew were strolling thus, thinking of very different things, their own fire newly lit—­Ascott liked a fire—­was blazing away in solitary glory, for the benefit of all passers-by.  At length one—­a gentleman—­stopped at the gate, and looked in, then took a turn to the end of the terrace, and stood gazing in once more.  The solitude of the room apparently troubled him; twice his hand was on the latch before he opened it and knocked at the front door.