“And now tell me,” she asked, “have you been back to Canada?”

“I started the moment I could leave England after my grandfather’s death, but when I reached Cacouna you were gone.”

“Dear old home!  I suppose all looked just as usual?”

“Nothing looked as usual to me.  As I came up the river I saw that the cottage was deserted, and that changed all the rest.  But indeed I had had a tolerable certainty before that you were gone.”

“How?”

“Do you remember meeting a Cunard steamer two days out at sea?”

“You were on board?  How I strained my eyes to see if I could distinguish you!”

“Did you?  And I too.  But though I could not see you, I felt that you were on board the ship we met.”

“I was sitting on deck, longing for a telescope.  Well, it is all right now.  Did you bring Mr. Leigh home?”

“Yes; he is at Hunsdon, safe and well.”

“Hunsdon is your house now, is not it?  Tell me what it is like?”

“A great square place, with a huge white portico in front—­very ugly, to tell the truth; but you would like the park, Lucia, and the trees.”

“It must be very grand.  Does it feel very nice to be rich?”

“That depends on circumstances.  But now do you think you are to ask all the questions and answer none?”

“No, indeed.  There is one answer.”

“Do you like Paris?”

“Well enough.  It is very lonely here without anybody.”

“Are you going to stay here?”

“For a month or two, I think.”

“You will not be quite so lonely then in future—­at least if I may come to see you.”

“May come?  That is a new idea.  But are you going to stay in Paris, too?”

“I must stay for a few weeks.  And I expect my cousin Lady Dighton over soon, and she wants to know you.”

“To know us?  Oh, Maurice! you forget what a little country girl I am, and mamma, poor mamma is not well enough to go out at all, scarcely.”

“Is she such an invalid, really?  Have you had advice for her?”

“It is disease of the heart,” Lucia said in a very low sorrowful tone, all her gaiety disappearing before the terrible idea—­“the only thing that is good for her is to be quiet and happy—­and the last few months have been so dreadful, she has suffered so.”

“And you?  But I have heard all.  Lucia, I would have given all I am worth in the world to have been able to help you.”

“I often wished for you, especially when I used to fear that our old friends would desert us.  I never thought you would.”

“There is some comfort in that.  Promise that whatever may come, you will always trust me.”

He held out his hand, and Lucia put hers frankly in it.

Just at that moment there was a stir, and Mrs. Costello called “Lucia.”

CHAPTER XI.