r small fingers and
fall glittering upon the black dress she wore. He moved uneasily--he had
been surely very harsh. Another tear fell--tear of bitter humiliation,
good for her to shed--then a third. He could not endure it. She might
not love him, but that was no reason why he should turn her sisterly
affection into hate. So he went to her, and laid his hand softly on one
of hers, trying to draw it away. She let him do so after a moment, but
her face remained just as much hidden.

"Lucia!" he said, full of distress, "Lucia! speak to me."

She could not--all her efforts were needed to keep down the painful
swelling in her throat. She was fighting for power to say humbly, "Try
to forgive me," but he did not give her time.

"If you would only say good-bye--only one word;" and he almost knelt
beside her, raising her cold hand half-unconsciously to his lips.

She drew it away suddenly. His tenderness was the worst reproach of all.
Her sobs burst out without control. She rose. "No; rather forgive me,"
she tried to say, but her voice was choked and hardly audible; and she
fled from the room, hurrying into her own, and fell down on the floor at
the bedside.

Maurice waited for awhile, thinking she might come back. He sat down
near where her chair stood, and leaning both elbows on the table, tried
to calm himself after the terrible excitement. Lucia's tears and her
silence had utterly disarmed him--he called himself a brute for having
distressed her. But as time went on, and she did not return, he
remembered that he could not just then meet Mrs. Costello, and he got up
and began to walk about the room uneasily. Still, time went on, and
there was no sign of Lucia. He wished to knock at her door, but dared
not. He must go then without one good-bye!

"That is my own fault at any rate," he said, and went away softly,
without even seeing Claudine.

But, as it happened, Mrs. Costello was long coming back. Lady Dighton
had confided to her Maurice's wish to see Lucia alone, and the two
ladies, very happy and confidential over their schemes, both supposing
that nothing but good could come of a long talk between the young
people--prolonged their absence till more than two hours after Maurice
had returned to the hotel. So that his preparations for leaving Paris
were almost completed by the time that Lucia, hearing her mother's
entrance, came out of the solitude where she had hidden her tears and
her repentance.

CHAPTER XVI