They walked a considerable distance, and Maurice had not yet found courage for what he wanted to say.  Lucia began to think of her mother’s loneliness, and proposed to return; he would have tempted her further, but a strange shyness and embarrassment seemed to have taken possession of him.  They had actually turned round and begun to walk towards home before he had found a reason for not doing it.

“Lucia,” he said abruptly, after one of the pauses which had been growing more and more frequent, “don’t you wish to go over to England?”

“Of course I do,” she answered with some surprise; “I wish we could go.  You know I always used to wish it.”

“Why don’t you try now you are so near?”

“Surely, Maurice, you know mamma cannot go.”

“I remember hearing something about your grandfather having wished her not to do so.  Forgive me if it is a painful subject; but do not you see that things are quite changed now?”

“Do you think she could, then?  But I don’t see.”

“Her father, I suppose, wished to avoid the chance of her marriage being gossipped about.  His idea of her going back to England was naturally that she would go among her own relations and old acquaintance who knew the story.  Now, I believe that she might go to any other part of the island—­say Norfolk, for instance—­and obey his wishes just as much as by staying in Paris.”

“To Norfolk?  Why, then, we should be near you?  Oh! do try to persuade her.”

“I must have you decidedly on my side then.  I must be enabled to offer her a great inducement.  If, for instance, I could tell her that you had made up your mind to come and live in Norfolk, she might say yes.”

“Ah! but she would have to make up her mind first.  See Maurice,” she broke in abruptly, “what is that little building on the other side the road?  There are some people who look like English going in.”

“Don’t mind that now, I want to talk to you.”

“We have been talking.  Only tell me what it is?”

“It is a chapel built on the place where the Duke of Orleans was killed some years ago.”

“I remember now somebody told me about it; his monument is there.”

“Very likely.  I know nothing about it.”

“Oh, Maurice! to speak in that tone, when it was such a sad thing.”

“There are so many sad things—­one cannot pity everybody.”

“You are cross this morning.  What is the matter?”

“Nothing.  What do you want me to do?”

“Just now I want you to take me in there.  I see it is open.”