“Yes,” he said hesitatingly.  “They went a week ago.”

“By New York?”

“Yes.”

“In the ‘Atalanta’ for Havre?”

“Yes.  How did you know?”

“I did not know.  I only guessed.  Where are they gone?”

“I do not know.  Mrs. Costello said their plans were so uncertain that she could not tell me.”

“Yet I should have thought, sir, that so old a friend as you might have had a right to be told what her plans were?”

“She told no one—­except that they would not stay long in any one place at present.”

Maurice walked to the window and sighed impatiently.

“A pleasant prospect!” he said, “They may be at the other end of Europe before I can get back.”

He stood for a minute looking out, and tapping impatiently with his fingers on the window-sill, while Mr. Leigh watched him, troubled, and a little inclined to be angry.  When he turned round again he had made up his mind that it was no use to get out of temper, a pretty sure proof that he was so already, and that the first thing to do was to find out exactly what his father and everybody else knew about the Costellos.  He sat down, accordingly, with a sort of desperate impatient patience, and began a cross-examination.

“Did they leave no message for me?”

“Nothing in particular.  All sorts of kind remembrances; Lucia said you would be sure to meet some day.”

“Did they never speak of seeing you in England?”

“Never.  On the contrary, my impression is that they had no intention of going to England.”

“That is strange; yet if they had they would scarcely have gone by Havre, unless to avoid all chance of meeting me.”

“Why should they do that?”

Maurice said nothing, he only changed his position and looked at his father.  Mr. Leigh had asked the question suddenly, with the first dawn of a new idea in his mind, but at his son’s silent answer he shrank back in his chair breathless with dismay.  So after all he had been a traitor!  With his mistaken fancies about change and absence, he had been doing all he could to destroy the very scheme that was dearest to him, and which he now saw was dearest to Maurice also.  And he knew now that there had been something in Mrs. Costello’s manner lately less friendly to Maurice than was usual.  He had done mischief which might be irreparable.  Guilty and miserable, he naturally began to defend himself.

“If you had only told me!” he said feebly.

“I had nothing to tell, sir.  I went away, as you remember, almost at a moment’s notice, to please you and my grandfather.  I could not speak to Lucia then, because—­for various reasons; but I know that Mrs. Costello was my friend.  Afterwards she wrote to me when poor Morton was killed, and told me some story I could not very well make out, but which of course made no difference to me.  Then came another letter with all the truth about her marriage, which she seemed to think conclusive, and which wound up by saying that she meant to take Lucia away—­hide her from me in fact.  My grandfather was very ill then, and I had no time to write to her, but my message just after his death was plain enough, I thought—­what did she say to it?”