ged to go home."

His words sounded curt and dry, just because he had such difficulty in
making them steady at all, and she looked at him in her surprise, for
the first time.

"Not to-day? Is anything the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter there. I told you I had business in Paris. Well,
it is finished."

"And you are going to-day?"

"I start this evening."

"We shall miss you."

She felt a strange constraint creeping over her. She could not even
express naturally her sorrow and disappointment at his going. She began
again to have the feeling of being guilty, and accused, and being eager
to defend herself without knowing how.

"I shall not be far off, and you will know where to find me. When you
want me, for whatever reason, you have only to write and I will come."

"But I always want you," she answered half pettishly. "You said you
would stay at least till Lady Dighton went away."

Maurice got up and walked to the window.

"I miscalculated," he said, coming back. "We all do sometimes, I
suppose."

He stood in a favourite attitude, leaning with one arm on the
mantelpiece, and watching Lucia with a mixture of love and bitterness.
His last words seemed to her a taunt, and tears of anger filled her
eyes. She remained silent, and he had to speak again.

"Do you care to know," he asked her, "what my business in Paris was?"

"If you wish to tell me!"

"Lucia! do not I wish to tell you everything? Could I have kept a secret
which was always in my thoughts from you, do you suppose?"

Lucia half rose. "That is not generous," she said. "You have no right to
speak so. Yesterday you were kinder."

"Yesterday I only thought of you. To-day I have had time to think a
little of myself."

"No doubt you are right. Only you ought not to have come to Paris--at
least not to us. It would have been better if everything that belonged
to our old life had been lost together."

"Which means that you are quite willing to lose me?"

"Willing? No. But I can understand that it is better."

"Can you? You talk of losses--listen to what I have lost. You know what
my life in Canada used to be--plenty of work, and not much money--but
still reasonable hope of prosperity by-and-by. I used to make plans
then, of having a home of my own, and I was not content that it should
be just like other people's. I thought it would be the brightest,
warmest, happiest home in the world. I _knew_ it would be if I only got
what I wanted. A man can