"It is of no use to ask me, Lucy. Sir Karl does not explain his motives to me. This funeral perhaps kept him," added Miss Blake, sarcastically, unconscious how very near she was to the truth. "After you left he seemed almost to live at the Maze. Last week he was there, as I believe, for a whole day and a whole night. I _must_ speak, Lucy. Out of regard to decency that girl ought to quit the Maze, or you quit Foxwood." "Drive on," cried Lucy to the coachman, in a tone as though the world and all things in it were grating on her. And the man did not dare to disobey the sharp command. But Miss Blake preferred to get out; and did so. She had said what she did say from good motives: and she took credit for not making worse of the account--as she might have done. Not a word would she say about his being called up in the night--and she knew now that it was to the Maze he was summoned. With her whole heart she pitied Lucy. "May I be forgiven if my duty ought to lie in silence!" she muttered as she joined the Miss St. Henrys and others in the crowd. "Lucy seems to have no friend about her in the World but me." The interment was over. The procession--what was left of it--went its way back again, Hewitt and Ann Hopley side by side in the coach. Sir Karl strolled away over the fields, and presently found himself joined by Mr. Smith. "So your mission at Foxwood is over," he sadly cried to the latter. "I have no more need to make believe I want an agent now." "Ay, it's over, Sir Karl. Better for him almost that he had fallen in the fray off Weymouth; that I had never saved him; than have lived to what his life has since been." "Better for him had he never come to the Maze," rejoined Sir Karl. "It was none of my doing. As you know, sir." "No: but you opposed his leaving it." "As he was here, I did. I had but his interest at heart, Sir Karl: although I know you have thought the contrary. The chances were that he could not have got away in safety. In his own person he dared not have risked it; and a decrepid figure like Old Hopley's must have attracted attention. But for that detective's pitching upon Foxwood to make a hunting place of, I believe Sir Adam would have been most secure here." "Well, it is over, with all its risks and chances," sighed Karl. "He did not forget you when he was dying. His wish was that you should enjoy a moderate annuity during your life: which I have undertaken to pay." The agent's thanks, and they appeared very heartfelt and genuine, were cut short by the approach of Mr. Moore. He joined them as they walked along; and the conversation fell on the illness of the deceased. "There was no real hope from the beginning, once the disease had set fairly in," cried the surgeon. "There never is. In Sir Adam's case, the terrible anxiety he endured day and night brought it on, and caused it to develop with unusual rapidity: there was not a shadow of chance for him." "You did not tell me that," said Karl.