"Why of course it is past, Lucy. What can you mean?" "Oh, you know, you know. Never mind. We must go on again as we have been going on." "No, Lucy." "YES, Sir Karl. As long as those people remain in the Maze, tacitly to insult me, I will never be more to you than I am now." It was a strangely harsh decision; and one he could not account for. He asked for her reasons in detail, but she would not give any. All she said further was, that if he felt dissatisfied, she could--and should--seek the protection of her father and declare the truth. So they parted again as they had parted before. Hemmed in on all sides, afraid to move an inch to the left or the right, Karl could only submit; he could do nothing. "I was charged by Miss Blake to tell you that tea is ready," he said, turning on his heel to quit the room. "Ask her to send me a cup by Aglaé, please. I shall stay here to rest my ankle." And as Karl closed the door upon her, poor Lucy burst into a flood of tears, and sobbed as though her heart would break. Underlying all else in her mind was a keen sense of insult, of slight, of humiliation: and she asked herself whether she ought to bear it. Pacing the gravel path round the trees of the Maze after dark had fallen--as much dark as a summer's night ever gives us--were Karl Andinnian and Mrs. Grey. She, expecting him, went to wait for him just within the gate: as she did the evening Miss Blake had the satisfaction of watching and seeing. It was a still, hot night, and Mrs. Grey proposed that they should walk round the outer circle once, before going in: for she had things to say to him. "Why have you 'kept away these last few days, Karl?" she asked, taking the arm he offered her. "Adam has been so vexed and impatient over it: but I should not have ventured to write to you for only that--I hope you were not angry with me." He told her he was not angry. He told her why he had kept away--that an instinct warned him it might be imprudent to come in too often. It seemed to him, he added, that the very hedges had eyes to watch him. She shivered a little, as though some chill of damp had struck her; and proceeded to relate what she had to say. By a somewhat singular coincidence, a copy of the same newspaper that contained the mysterious paragraph had been bought at the little newsvendor's in Foxwood by Ann Hopley, who was fond of reading the news when her day's work was over. She saw the paragraph, took alarm, and showed it to her master and mistress. "It has nearly frightened me to death, Karl," said Mrs. Grey. "The paper was a week old when Ann bought it: and I am glad it was, or I should have been living upon thorns longer than I have been." He told her that he had seen it. And he did what he could to reassure her, saying it was probably but an unmeaning assertion, put in from dearth of news. "That is just what Mr. Smith says," she replied. "He thinks it is from the brain of some poor penny-a-liner."