"I expected to have found him here, as he did not come in for lunch." "Has he not been with you then?
He left me at the door, and said he would come back this evening." "He has not been with me, certainly, though he promised to be.

I thought you were answerable for his absence." Lucia did not reply.

Her heart beat fast, and the last words kept ringing in her ears, "you were answerable for his absence." Was she answerable for _any_ doings of Maurice's?
Had that morning's meeting, so strange and sudden for her, disturbed him too?
She could only be silent and feel as if she had been accused, justly accused--but of what?
Meanwhile, her silence, which was not that of indifference, seemed to prove that the conjectures of the other two were right.

They even ventured to exchange glances of intelligence, but Mrs.Costello hastened to fill up the break in the conversation.
"Is it true," she inquired of her visitor, "that you talk of going home next week ?" "Yes; we only came for a fortnight at the longest; and as the affair which brought us over seems to be happily progressing, there is no reason for delay." "Oh! I am sorry," Lucia said impulsively.

"Maurice goes with you, does not he ?" "_Cela depend_--he is not obliged to go just then, I suppose ?" "But surely he ought.