"No," Miss Hilary replied, absently. Yet she continued to walk up and
down the whole length of the street; then passed out into the dreary,
deserted looking Crescent, where the trees were already beginning to
fade; not, however, into the bright autumn tint of country woods, but
into a premature withering, ugly and sad to behold.

"I am glad he is not here--glad, glad!" thought Hilary, as she
realized the unutterable dreariness of those years when Robert Lyon
lived and studied in his garret from month's end to month's
end--these few dusty trees being the sole memento of the green
country life in which he had been brought up, and which she knew he
so passionately loved. Now she could understand, that "calenture"
which he had sometimes jestingly alluded to, as coming upon him at
times, when he felt literally sick for the sight of a green field or
a hedge full of birds. She wondered whether the same feeling would
ever come upon her in this strange desert of London, the vastness of
which grew upon her every hour.

She was glad he was away; yes, heart glad! And yet, if this minute
she could only have seen him coming round the Crescent, have met his
smile, and the firm, warm clasp of his hand--

For an instant there rose up in her one of those wild, rebellious
outcries against fate, when to have to waste years of this brief life
of ours, in the sort of semi-existence that living is, apart from the
treasure of the heart and delight of the eyes, seems so cruelly,
cruelly hard!

"Miss Hilary."