She looked at him with surprise.
"I did not know," she said, "that you had any friends in England except here."
"I have none. What I mean is that I want to go back to Canada for a week or two."
"To Canada! The other side of the world! What do you mean?"
"Nothing very unreasonable. I am very uneasy about my father, who is almost as great an invalid as my grandfather, and has no one but an old housekeeper to take care of him. I should like to go and bring him to England."
It was very well for Maurice to try to speak as coolly as possible, and even to succeed in making his voice sound perfectly innocent and natural, but he was of much too frank a nature to play off this little piece of dissimulation without a tell-tale change of countenance. Lady Dighton's sharp eyes saw quite plainly that there was something untold, but she took no notice of that for the present, and answered as if she saw nothing.
"Have you worse accounts of his health?"
"No; not worse. But he will be quite alone."
"More alone than when you first left him? I do not quite understand."
"Yes; some very near neighbours—old friends of his and my mother's—are going to leave Cacouna. I had no reason to be uneasy about him while they were there. Do you think my grandfather could be persuaded to spare me for six weeks?"