"So you walked too far this morning?" she said. "I think it was a little too bad when you knew I was coming to see you to-day."

"I did not think I should be so tired," Lucia answered, and the friendly dusk hid her blush at her own disingenuousness.

"Are you quite rested, my child?" Mrs. Costello asked anxiously.

"Yes, mamma. My head aches a little still, but it will soon be better, I dare say. I am ashamed of being so lazy."

"Where is Maurice?" said Lady Dighton. "I expected to have found him here, as he did not come in for lunch."

"Has he not been with you then? He left me at the door, and said he would come back this evening."

"He has not been with me, certainly, though he promised to be. I thought you were answerable for his absence."

Lucia did not reply. Her heart beat fast, and the last words kept ringing in her ears, "you were answerable for his absence." Was she answerable for _any_ doings of Maurice's? Had that morning's meeting, so strange and sudden for her, disturbed him too? She could only be silent and feel as if she had been accused, justly accused--but of what?

Meanwhile, her silence, which was not that of indifference, seemed to prove that the conjectures of the other two were right. They even ventured to exchange glances of intelligence, but Mrs. Costello hastened to fill up the break in the conversation.

"Is it true," she inquired of her visitor, "that you talk of going home next week?"

"Yes; we only came for a fortnight at the longest; and as the affair which brought us over seems to be happily progressing, there is no reason for delay."

"Oh! I am sorry," Lucia said impulsively. "Maurice goes with you, does not he?"

"_Cela depend_--he is not obliged to go just then, I suppose?"

"But surely he ought. We must make him go."

"And yet you would be sorry to lose him?"

"Of course; only--"

Another of those unexplained pauses! It was certainly a tantalizing state of affairs, though, in fact, this last one did but mean, "only he must be neglecting his affairs while he stops here." Lucia merely broke off because she felt as if Lady Dighton might think the words an impertinence.

Soon after this they parted. Something was said about to-morrow, but they finally left all arrangements to be made when Maurice should appear, which it was supposed he would do at dinner to the Dightons, and after it to the Costellos.

Dinner had been long over in the little apartment in the Champs Elysees when Maurice arrived there. The mother and daughter were sitting together as usual, but in unusual silence--Lucia absorbed in thought, Mrs. Costello watching and wondering, but still refraining from asking questions. Maurice came in, looking pale and tired. Lucia got up, and drew a chair for him near her mother. It was done with a double object; she wanted to express her grateful affection, and she wanted to manage so as to be herself out of his sight. He neither resisted her man[oe]uvre nor even saw it, but sat down wearily and began to reply to her mother's questions.

"I have been out of town. I had seen nothing of the country round Paris, so I thought I would make an excursion."

"An excursion all alone?"

"Yes; I have been to St. Denis."

"How did you go?"

"By rail. I started to come back by an omnibus I saw out there, but I did not much care about that mode of conveyance, so I got out and walked."

"Have you seen Lady Dighton?"

"I have seen no one. I am but just come back."

"Maurice! Have you not dined, then?"

"No. Never mind that. I will have some tea with you, please, by-and-by."

But Lucia had received a glance from her mother, and was gone already to try what Claudine's resources could produce. Mrs. Costello leaned forward, and laid her hand entreatingly on Maurice's arm,

"Tell me what all this means?" she said.

He tried to smile as he returned her look, but his eyes fell before the earnestness of hers.

"What what means?" he asked.

"Both you and Lucia know something I don't know," she answered. "I would rather question you than her. Has she troubled you?"

"Not in the way you think," he answered quickly. "I have partly changed my plans. I shall be obliged to go back to England with my cousin. Don't question Lucia, dear Mrs. Costello, let her be in peace for awhile."

"In peace? But she has been in peace--happy as the day was long, lately."

"She is disturbed now--yes, it is my fault--and I will do penance for it. You understand I do not give up my hopes--I only defer them."

"But, Maurice, I _don't_ understand. You are neither changeable, nor likely to give Lucia any excuse for being foolish. Why should you go away? She exclaimed how sorry she was when your cousin spoke of it."

"Did she? But I am only a brother to her yet. Don't try to win more just now for me, lest she should give me less."

"Well, of course, you know your own affairs best. But it is totally incomprehensible to me."

Maurice leaned his head upon his hands. He had had a miserable day, and was feeling broken down and wretched. He spoke hopefully, but in his heart he doubted whether it would not be better to give Lucia up at once and altogether, only he had a strong suspicion that to give her up was not a thing within the power of his will.

CHAPTER XV.

The evening passed in constraint and embarrassment. Mrs. Costello was both puzzled and annoyed; Maurice, worn out in mind and body, and only resolute to shield Lucia at his own expense; Lucia herself more thoroughly uncomfortable than she had ever been in her life. She partly understood Maurice's conduct, but doubted its motives. Sometimes she thought he was influenced by his old dislike to Percy, and that even his kindness to herself was mixed with disapproval or contempt. Sometimes a suspicion of the truth, so faint and so unreasonable in her own eyes, that she would not acknowledge it for a moment, flashed across her mind; and this suspicion had its keenly humiliating as well as its comforting side. Besides the confusion of thoughts regarding these things, her mind was burdened with an entirely new trouble--the sense that she was concealing something from her mother; and this alone would have been quite sufficient to disturb and distress her.

So the three who had been so happy for the last few weeks sat together, with all their content destroyed. Maurice thought bitterly of the old Canadian days, which had been happy, too, and to which Percy's coming had brought trouble.

"It is the same thing over again," he said to himself; "but why such a fellow as that should be allowed to do so much mischief is a problem _I_ can't solve. A tall idiot, who could not even care for her like a man!"

But he would not allow himself any hard thoughts of Lucia. Perhaps he had had some during his solitary day, but he had no real cause for them, and he was too loyal to find any consolation in blaming her. And it never would have come into his head to solace himself with the "having known _me_." He valued his own honest, unaltering love at a reasonable but not an excessive, price--himself at a very low one; and as Lucia understood nothing of the one, he did not wonder that she should slight the other. And yet he was very miserable.

Ten o'clock came at last, and he went away. After he was gone, Lucia came to her mother's knee, and sat down, resting her aching head against the arm of the chair. The old attitude, and the soft clinging touch, completely thawed the slight displeasure in Mrs. Costello's heart.

"Something is wrong, darling," she said. "If you do not want to tell me, or think you ought not, remember I do not ask any questions; but you have never had a secret from me."

Lucia raised her mother's hand, and laid it on her forehead.