Dinner was waiting when Lady Andinnian entered, and the first person she saw was her husband. He met her in the hall with outstretched hand, his face clear and open, showing no signs of shame or guilt.

"Did you think I was lost, Lucy?"

She suffered her hand to touch his; for Hewitt and the tall footman, Giles, were standing in the hall, looking on. Sir Karl saw how red her eyes were.

"I meant to have returned by an earlier train; but as I had the day before me I took the opportunity of seeing after a few things I wished to purchase--and the time slipped on," said Karl. "How have you been, Lucy?"

"Oh, quite well, thank you."

"Whom do you think I travelled down with, Lucy? My old friend, Lamprey. He had to come to Basham on some matter of business: so I have brought him here to dinner. Make haste," he added, as she turned to the staircase: "I think it must be ready."

"I will be down directly," she answered.

Aglaé was waiting; and in five minutes Lucy came down again, dressed. Captain Lamprey was introduced to her--for it happened that they had not been personally acquainted when at Winchester---and gave her his arm into the dining-room. Miss Blake fell to Karl.

But in Lucy\'s heart-sickness, she could scarcely be cheerful. Her tell-tale eyes were heavy; there arose ever and anon one of those rising sobs of the breath that speak most unmistakably of hidden grief: and altogether Captain Lamprey felt somewhat disappointed in Lady Andinnian. He remembered how beautiful Lucy Cleeve used to be: he had heard of the renewed gaiety of heart her marriage with Karl brought her: but he saw only a sad woman, who was evidently not too happy, and whose beauty was marred by sadness and paleness. Karl was more cheerful than usual; and Miss Blake seemed not to tire of inquiring after Winchester and its people. But in the midst of all his observations, Captain Lamprey never suspected that there was anything but perfect cordiality between Sir Karl and his wife. And the dinner came to an end.

After coffee, Captain Lamprey set off to walk to Basham. Karl went out with him, to put him in the right road and accompany him part of it. Miss Blake had gone to Vespers. Lucy was alone.

It seemed to her to be dull everywhere; especially dull indoors, and she stepped out to the lawn: turning back almost immediately to get a shawl for her shoulders, in obedience to an injunction of her husband\'s. On the Sunday evening, when he found her sitting out of doors without one, he had fetched one at once, and begged her not to be imprudent or to forget her ague-fever of the previous year. She remembered this now and went back for the shawl. Some wives, living in estrangement from their husbands, might have studiously set his commands at naught, and have risked ague, or what not, rather than obey them. Not so Lucy Andinnian. She was meek and gentle by nature. Moreover, in spite of the ill-feeling he had caused to rise up between them, in spite of her sense of wrong and insult, she loved him in her heart, and could not help it, as truly as ever. Visions would steal over her in unguarded moments, of the present trouble being hushed to rest; of all that was amiss being done away with, and she and he reconciled and at peace again. Unhappily for the demands of pride, of self-assertion, Lucy was by no means one of your high-spirited and strong-minded heroines, who rashly overlook all interests to indulge in reprisals and revenge.

She folded the shawl about her--one of substantial white silk
crape--as carefully as Karl could have folded it; and she stayed, she knew not how long, in the open air. Pacing the lawn; sitting amidst the flowers; standing under the shade of the trees; always in deep thought. The nightingale sang, and the tears gathered in her eyes as she listened to the strain. "What a sweet place this would be to live in," thought Lucy, "if only we could but have peace with it!"

But the nightingale\'s song and the oppressive thoughts, together with the falling dusk, brought back all her low spirits again. "There will never be any more happiness for me in this world, never, never," she sighed, and the tears were dropping as she went up to her own room.

By and by Sir Karl returned. Not seeing his wife downstairs, he went up and knocked at the door of her little sitting-room. He had not had an opportunity of speaking a private word to her since his return. There came no answer, and he entered. The room was empty; but as he stood for a moment in the deep silence of twilight, the sound of sobs in Lucy\'s bedchamber smote his ear. He knocked at it.

"Lucy!"

She had indeed once more given way to all the abandonment of grief. Which was very foolish: but perhaps its indulgence brought a kind of relief, and indeed her spirit was very sore. The knock startled her: but she had not heard the call.

"Who\'s there?" she asked, stepping to the door and stifling her sobs as she best could.

"I want to speak to you, Lucy."

She dried her eyes, and unlocked the door, and made believe to be calmly indifferent, as she stepped into the sitting-room.

"I beg your pardon, Sir Karl. I was busy, and did not hear you."

"You are looking very ill, Lucy," he said, with grieved concern. "I thought so when I first saw you this afternoon. Then, as now, your eyes were red with weeping."

She strove for calmness; she prayed for it. Her determination had been taken to bury in haughty silence all she had learnt of the London journey, its despicable deceit, and insult to her. She could not have spoken of it; no, not even to reproach him and to bring his shame home to him: it would have inflicted too much humiliation on her sensitive spirit. Besides, he must know what she suffered as well as she did.

"I have had rather a tiring day," she answered, leaning sideways against the open window. "There was the elaborate luncheon with General and Mrs. Lloyd, and the flower-show afterwards. The weather was very warm and oppressive."

"That may account for your being tired and not looking well: but not for the weeping, Lucy. As I stood here waiting for you to answer my knock, I heard your sobs."

"Yes," she said, rather faintly, feeling how useless it would be to deny that there had been some weeping. "I get a little low-spirited sometimes in the evening."

"But why? wherefore?"

"Is life so pleasant with us just now that I can always be gay, think you!" she retorted, after a pause, and her voice took a tone of resentment.

"But the unpleasantness is of your making; not mine. You know it, Lucy."

"Then--then it is right that I should be the one to suffer," was her impatient answer--for his words were trying her almost beyond endurance. "Let it go so: I do not wish to speak of it further."

Karl was standing at the opposite corner of the window, facing her, his arms folded. On his part he was beginning to be a little out of patience too, with what he deemed her unreasonable caprice. For a few moments there was silence.

"What I want to tell you is this, Lucy. My visit to London was connected with that wish which you seem to have so much at
heart--though I cannot exactly understand why----"

"I have no wish at heart," she resentfully interrupted.

"Nay, but hear me. The wish you expressed to me I think you must have at heart, since on its fulfilment you say depends our reconciliation. I speak of the removal of--of the tenants of the Maze," he added, half breaking down, in his sensitive hesitation. "Since my conversation with you on Saturday, during which, if you remember, this stipulation of yours was made, there occurred, by what I should call, a singular chance, only that I do not believe anything is chance that affects our vital interests in this life--there occurred to me a slight circumstance by which I thought I saw a possibility of carrying out your wish----"

"You said then that it was your wish also," again interrupted Lucy. "Or affected to say it."

"Your wish for it cannot be as hearty as mine," he impulsively answered. "I pray for it night and day."

And Lucy could not well mistake the emotional earnestness. She believed him there.

"Well, I thought I saw a chance of it," he resumed, "and I went to get some information, that I fancied might help me, from Plunkett and Plunkett--"

"Is it fitting that you should give these details to me?" she haughtily interposed.

"I wish you to understand that I am doing my best. Plunkett and Plunkett could not give me the information: but they directed me to some people where I might obtain it. To enable me to see one of these people, I had to stay in town all night; and that was the reason of my not getting home."

Lucy had taken a spray of jessamine from her waistband, and stood pulling it to pieces, listening with an air of indifference.

"I do not really know more than I did before I went to town, as to whether or not the Maze can be left empty," he went on. "But I h............