"I do not know. Mrs. Costello said their plans were so uncertain that she could not tell me."

"Yet I should have thought, sir, that so old a friend as you might have had a right to be told what her plans were?"

"She told no one--except that they would not stay long in any one place at present."

Maurice walked to the window and sighed impatiently.

"A pleasant prospect!" he said, "They may be at the other end of Europe before I can get back."

He stood for a minute looking out, and tapping impatiently with his fingers on the window-sill, while Mr. Leigh watched him, troubled, and a little inclined to be angry. When he turned round again he had made up his mind that it was no use to get out of temper, a pretty sure proof that he was so already, and that the first thing to do was to find out exactly what his father and everybody else knew about the Costellos. He sat down, accordingly, with a sort of desperate impatient patience, and began a cross-examination.

"Did they leave no message for me?"

"Nothing in particular. All sorts of kind remembrances; Lucia said you would be sure to meet some day."

"Did they never speak of seeing you in England?"

"Never. On the contrary, my impression is that they had no intention of going to England."

"That is strange; yet if they had they would scarcely have gone by Havre, unless to avoid all chance of meeting me."

"Why should they do that?"

Maurice said nothing, he only changed his position and looked at his father. Mr. Leigh had asked the question suddenly, with the first dawn of a new idea in his mind, but at his son's silent answer he shrank back in his chair breathless with dismay. So after all he _had_ been a traitor! With his mistaken fancies about change and absence, he had been doing all he could to destroy the very scheme that was dearest to him, and which he now saw was dearest to Maurice also. And he knew now that there had been something in Mrs. Costello's manner lately less friendly to Maurice than was usual. He had done mischief which might be irreparable. Guilty and miserable, he naturally began to defend himself.

"If you had only told me!" he said feebly.

"I had nothing to tell, sir. I went away, as you remember, almost at a moment's notice, to please you and my grandfather. I could not speak to Lucia then, because--for various reasons; but I know that Mrs. Costello was my friend. Afterwards she wrote to me when poor Morton was killed, and told me some story I could not very well make out, but which of course made no difference to me. Then came another letter with all the truth about her marriage, which she seemed to think conclusive, and which wound up by saying that she meant to take Lucia away--hide her from me in fact. My grandfather was very ill then, and I had no time to write to her, but my message just after his death was plain enough, I thought--what did she say to it?"

Mr. Leigh dropped his eyes slowly from his son's face, and put his hand confusedly to his head.

"What was it?" he said. "I can't remember."

"Only two or three words. Just that all she could say did not alter the case, or alter me."

This was rather a free rendering of the original message, but it was near enough and significant enough for Mr. Leigh to be quite sure he had never heard such words before. They would have given him just that key to his son's heart which he had longed for.

"You must be mistaken," he answered. "I never received such a message as that."

"It was a postscript. I had meant to write to her and had not time."

"You must have forgotten. You meant to send it."

"I sent it, I am certain. Have you my letters?"

"Yes. They are in that drawer."

Maurice opened the drawer where all his letters had been lovingly arranged in order. He remembered the look of the one he wanted and picked it out instantly.

"There it is, sir," he said, and held out to his father those two important lines, still unread. Mr. Leigh looked at the paper and then at Maurice.

"I never saw it," he replied. "How could I have missed it?"

"Heaven knows! It is plain enough. And my note, which came in the letter before that; it was never answered. _That_ may have miscarried too?"

"There was no note, Maurice, my dear boy; there was no note. I wondered there was not."

"And yet I wrote one."

Maurice was looking at his father in grievous perplexity and vexation, when he suddenly became aware of the nervous tremor the old man was in.

He went up to him hastily, with a quick impulse of shame and tenderness.

"Forgive me, father," he said. "I forgot myself and you. Only you cannot know the miserable anxiety I have been in lately. Now tell me whether it is true that you are stronger than when I left?"

He sat down by the easy-chair and tried to talk to his father as if Mrs.

Costello and Lucia had no existence; but Mr. Leigh, though he outwardly took courage to enjoy all the gladness of their union, was troubled at heart. It was a grievous disappointment, this coming home of which so much had been said and thought. No one could have guessed that the young man had been out into the world to seek his fortune, and had come back laden with gold, or that the older had just won back again the very light of his eyes.

Anxious as Maurice had been to avoid notice at the moment of his arrival at Cacouna, he had been seen and recognized on the wharf, and the news of his coming carried to Mr. Bellairs before he had been an hour at home. So it happened that while the father and son sat together in the afternoon, and were already discussing the first arrangements for their return to England, a sleigh drove briskly up to the door, and Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs came in full of welcomes and congratulations.

"I knew we might come to-day," Mrs. Bellairs said, still holding her favourite's hand and scanning his face with her bright eyes. "We shall not stay long, but it is pleasant to see you home again, Maurice."

"Don't say too many kind things, Mrs. Bellairs," he answered, "or you will make me want to stay when I ought to be going."

"Going! You are surely not talking of that yet?"

"Indeed I am. We hope to be away in a fortnight."

"Oh! if you _hope_ it, there is no more to be said."

"If you knew how I have hoped to be here, and how disappointed I have been to-day, you would not be so hard on me."

They had both sat down now and were a little apart, for the moment, from the others. Mrs. Bellairs was surprised at Maurice's words, though she understood instantly what he meant. He had never before given her a single hint in words of his love for Lucia, though she had been perfectly aware of it. She guessed now that his grandfather's death had changed his wishes into intentions, and that since he was in a position to offer Lucia a share of his own good fortune, he no longer cared to make any secret of his feelings towards her.

"You did not expect that our friends would be gone," she asked in a tone which expressed the sympathy she felt and yet could not be taken as inquisitive. As for Maurice, he wanted to speak out his trouble to somebody, and was glad of this result of his little impetuous speech.

"I was altogether uncertain," he answered; "I wanted to start from England a week sooner, and if I had done so, it seems, I should have found them here; but I was hindered, and for some reason or other, they chose to keep me in the dark as to their intentions."

"Lucia often talked of you and of her regret at going away just when you were expected."

"She did? Do you know where they are?"

"No; and that is the strangest thing. I believe their plans were not quite fixed; but still Mrs. Costello was not a woman to start away into the world without plans of some kind, and yet no one in Cacouna knows more than that they sailed from New York to Havre."

"It is incomprehensible, except on one supposition. Did you ever hear Mrs. Costello speak of my return?"

"Not particularly. Don't be offended, Maurice, either with her or with me, but I did fancy once or twice that she wished to be away before you came. Only, mind, that is simply my fancy."

"I have no doubt you fancied right; but I have a thousand questions to ask you. Tell me first--"