"I--I scarcely like to," answered Lucy, after a pause, her delicate cheek faintly flushing, for she was conscious that she had not dared to talk much on any score with Theresa lately, lest Theresa might allude to the subject of the Maze. Fearing that she avoided her when she could, so as to give no opportunity for private conversation. "She is so much older and wiser than I am--" "Wiser!" interrupted Karl. "I think not. In all things, save one, you have ten times the good plain sense that she has. That one thing, Lucy, I shall never be able to understand, or account for, to my dying day." "And, moreover, I was going to add," continued Lucy, flushing deeper at the allusion, "I am quite sure that Theresa would not heed me, whatever I might say." "Well, I don't know what is to be done. People are mocking at St. Jerome's and its frequenters' folly more than I care to hear, and blame me for allowing it to go on. I should not like to be written to by the Bishop of the Diocese." "_You_ written to!" cried Lucy in surprise. "It is within the range of possibility. The place is on the Andinnian land." "I think, were I you, I would speak to Mr. Cattacomb." Karl made a wry face. He did not like the man. Moreover he fancied--as did Lucy in regard to Miss Blake--that whatever he might say would make no impression. But for this he had spoken to him before. But, now that another was come and the folly was being doubled, it lay in his duty to remonstrate. The whole village gossiped and laughed; Sir Adam was furious. Ann Hopley carried the gossip home to her master--which of course lost nothing in the transit--and he abused Karl for not interfering. They went to church together, Karl and his wife. It was a thinner congregation than ordinary. Being a grand field-day at St. Jerome's with procession and banners, some of them had gone off thither as to a show. Kneeling by her husband's side in their pew, Lucy felt the influence of the holy place, and peace seemed to steal down upon her. Margaret Sumnor was opposite, looking at her: and in Margaret's face there was a strange, pitying compassion, for she saw that that other face was becoming sadder day by day. It was a plain, good sermon: Mr. Sumnor's sermons always were: its subject the blessings promised for the next world; its text, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." The tears rose to Lucy's eyes as she listened. Karl listened too, wrapt in the words. Just for the quarter of an hour it lasted--the sermons were always short the first Sunday in the month--both of them seemed to have passed beyond their cares into Heaven. It almost seemed to matter little what the trouble of this short span on earth might be, with that glorious fruition to come hereafter. "I am going to stay," whispered Lucy, as the service ended. A hint to him that he might depart without her.