But as it happened, Lady Dighton was just at that moment away from home.  She and Sir John were staying at a house which, though nearer to Hunsdon than to their own home, was a considerable distance for morning visitors, even in the country.  Still Maurice, who had some acquaintance with the family, thought he might ride over and see her there, and take his chance of being able to get an opportunity of explaining the service he wanted her to do him.  However, a slight increase of illness in Mr. Beresford prevented him from getting away from home, and he was obliged to wait with what patience he could for her next visit to Hunsdon.

Mr. Beresford’s health appeared to return to its usual condition, and grateful for the comfort Maurice’s presence had been to him during his greater suffering, he seemed to be every day more satisfied with and attached to his heir.  The disadvantage of this was that he required more and more of Maurice’s company, and seemed to dislike sparing him a moment except while he slept.  This was not promising for the success of any scheme of absence, but, on the other hand, there was so much of reason and consideration for his grandson, mixed with the invalid’s exactions, that it seemed not hopeless to try to obtain his consent.

After an interval of more than a week, Lady Dighton reappeared at Hunsdon, and Maurice’s opportunity arrived.  It was during their invariable tete-a-tete while Mr. Beresford slept that the wished-for conversation took place, and Lady Dighton unconsciously helped her cousin to begin it by telling him laughing that she had been looking out for a wife for him, and found one that she thought would do exactly.

“You must contrive by some means or other,” she said, “to get away from Hunsdon a little more than you have been doing, and come over to Dighton for a day or two, that I may introduce you.”

“I wish with all my heart,” he answered quickly, “that I could get away from Hunsdon for a little while, but I am afraid I should use my liberty to go much further than Dighton.”

She looked at him with surprise.

“I did not know,” she said, “that you had any friends in England except here.”

“I have none.  What I mean is that I want to go back to Canada for a week or two.”

“To Canada!  The other side of the world!  What do you mean?”

“Nothing very unreasonable.  I am very uneasy about my father, who is almost as great an invalid as my grandfather, and has no one but an old housekeeper to take care of him.  I should like to go and bring him to England.”

It was very well for Maurice to try to speak as coolly as possible, and even to succeed in making his voice sound perfectly innocent and natural, but he was of much too frank a nature to play off this little piece of dissimulation without a tell-tale change of countenance.  Lady Dighton’s sharp eyes saw quite plainly that there was something untold, but she took no notice of that for the present, and answered as if she saw nothing.