To return to Lucy. It grew dusk and more dusk; and she at length went indoors. Karl came in, bringing Mr. Moore, whom he had overtaken near the gate: and almost close upon that, Miss Blake returned. The sight of the doctor, sitting there with Karl and Lucy, brought back all Miss Blake's vexation. It had been at boiling-point for the last hour, and now it bubbled over. The wisest course no doubt would have been to hold her tongue: but her indignation--a perfectly righteous and proper indignation, as she deemed it--forbade that. The ill-doing of the boy, respecting which she had been about to appeal to Mr. Moore, was quite lost sight of in this ill-doing. There could be no fear of risking Jane Shore's sheet of penance in repeating what she had heard. It was her duty to speak: she fully believed that: her duty to open Lucy's obtuse eyes--and who knew but Sir Karl might be brought to his senses through the speaking? The surgeon and Lucy were sitting near the window in the sweet still twilight: Karl stood back by the mantel-piece: and they were deep in some discussion about flowers. Miss Blake sat in silence, gathering her mental forces for the combat, when the present topic should have died away.
"I--I have heard some curious news," she began then in a low, reluctant tone: and in good truth she was reluctant to enter on it. "I heard it from that boy of yours, Mr. Moore. He says there's a baby at the Maze."
"Yes," readily acquiesced Mr. Moore. "A baby boy, born yesterday."
And Miss Blake, rising and standing at angles between the two, saw a motion of startled surprise on the part of Karl Andinnian. Lucy looked up; simply not understanding. After a pause, during which no one spoke, Miss Blake, in language softened to ambiguousness, took upon herself to intimate that, in her opinion, the Maze had no business with a baby.
Mr. Moore laughed pleasantly. "That, I imagine, is Mrs. Grey's concern," he said.
Lucy understood now; she felt startled almost to sickness. "Is it Mrs. Grey who has the baby?" was on the point of her tongue: but she did not speak it.
"Where is Mrs. Grey's husband?" demanded Miss Blake, in her most uncompromising tone.
"In London, I fancy, just now," said the doctor. "Has she one at all, Mr. Moore?"
"Good gracious, yes," cried the hearty-natured surgeon, utterly unconscious that it could be of particular moment to anybody present whether she had or not. "I'd answer for it with my life, nearly. She's as nice a young lady as I'd ever wish to attend; and good too."
"For Lucy's sake, I'll go on; for his sake, standing there in his shame," thought Miss Blake, in her rectitude. "Better things may come of it: otherwise I'd drop the hateful subject for ever."