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 dépend—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.