She had no objection whatever to this; on the contrary, she had enough romance in her disposition to admire all generous and chivalric qualities, and her cousin's patriotism only made her like him the better; but in spite of his frankness in most things, she had no idea that this affection for his native country was linked to and deepened by another kind of love. Lucia's name had never passed his lips, and she had no means of guessing how daily and hourly thoughts of one fair young Canadian girl were inseparably joined to the very roots of every good quality he possessed. This ignorance did not at all arise from want of interest. Her feminine imagination, naturally fertile on such subjects, soon began to occupy itself with speculations in which every eligible young lady in the country figured in turn. It was not to be supposed that the heir of Hunsdon would find much difficulty in obtaining a wife; the really embarrassing task for his mentors was to see that he looked in the proper direction. And in this matter Mr. Beresford was not wholly to be trusted. So, as it happened, Lady Dighton began to take a great deal of perfectly useless thought and care for Maurice's benefit, at the very time when he, all unconscious of her schemes, was beginning to consider it possible that he might confide to her the secret of his anxious and preoccupied thoughts.

It happened that Mr. Leigh, unaware of the deep interest his son took in the movements of Mr. Percy, only mentioned him in describing Bella Latour's wedding, and omitted to say a word about his leaving Cacouna.

Thus it was not until three weeks after his arrival in England that a chance expression informed Maurice that his dangerous rival was gone away, without giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he had been dismissed and was not likely to return. The same mail which brought this half intelligence, brought also a letter from Mrs. Costello, which spoke of her own and Lucia's removal as a thing quite settled, though not immediate, and left the place of their destination altogether uncertain. These letters threw Maurice into a condition of discomfort and impatience, which he found hard to bear. He was extremely uneasy at the idea of his father being left without companion or nurse. This uneasiness formed, as it were, the background of his thoughts, while a variety of less reasonable, but more vivid, anxieties held a complete revel in the foreground. He had not even his old refuge against troublesome fancies; for work, real absorbing work, of any kind was out of the question now. His attendance on his grandfather, though often fatiguing enough, was no occupation for his masculine brain. If he had been a woman, he would have had a far better chance of imprisoning his mind as well as his body, in that sober, undisturbed, sick room; but though he could be almost as tender as a woman, he could not school himself into that strange kind of feminine patience, which even Lucia, spoiled child as she was, instinctively practised and grew strong in, while she tended his father.

He found himself perpetually losing the thread of some relation or dissertation which was intended for his benefit, and that of Hunsdon under his rule; he ran serious risk of displeasing Mr. Beresford, and finally he became so weary of thinking incessantly of one subject, but never speaking of it, that he made up his mind to take his cousin to some degree into his confidence. To some degree only--it could be a very small degree indeed, according to his ideas, for he could not tell her all, even of the little he knew, about the Costellos, and he had no intention of speaking much about Lucia, only mentioning her as an old playfellow of his sister's; quite forgetting that he would have either to change his own nature, or to dull Lady Dighton's ears and eyes, before he could talk of _her_, and not betray himself.

But a good opportunity for this confidence seemed hard to find, and whenever one did really occur Maurice let it slip, so that time passed on, and nothing was said; until at last, a new trouble came, so heavy and incomprehensible as entirely to eclipse the former ones.

One morning, about six weeks after his arrival at Hunsdon, there arrived for Maurice two Canadian letters and a newspaper; the letters from his father and Mrs. Costello, the newspaper addressed by Harry Scott.

Maurice dutifully opened Mr. Leigh's letter first; he meant just to see that all was well, and then to read the other; but the news upon which his eye fell, put everything else for the moment out of his head. He glanced half incredulously over what his father said, and then tore open the newspaper to seek for its confirmation. He had not far to seek. Two columns of the thin provincial sheet were scored with black crosses, and bore the ominous heading, "Dreadful Murder!" in the largest capitals. He read the whole terrible story through, and thought, as well as he could, over it, before he remembered the second and still unopened letter.

But no sooner had he opened and read this, than the news which had just before seemed to bring the most fearful realities of life and death so near to him, faded away almost out of his recollection to make way for the really personal interest of this calamity. Mrs. Costello wrote,

"I have done wrong; and I should feel more difficulty, perhaps, in asking you to forgive me, if I did not, with you, have to regret the bitter disappointment of my hopes and wishes. You and Lucia must not meet again, unless, or until, you can do so without any thought of each other except as old playfellows and friends. This sounds cruel, I know, and unreasonable,--all the more so after the confidence there has been between us lately; but you must believe me when I say that I have tried, more than I ought, to keep for myself the consolation of thinking that my darling would some day be safe in your care, and that this consolation has been torn from me. But what can I say to you? My dear boy, only less dear to me than Lucia, I know you will, you _must_, blame me, and yet it is for your sake and for that of my own honour that I separate you from us. You have a right that I should say more, hard as it is. My daughter, whom you have known almost all her innocent life, would, if you married her, bring, through those most nearly and inseparably connected with her, a stain and a blot upon your name; no honourable man can ever make her his wife, and the best prayer that can be made for her is, that she may remain as unconscious of all earthly love as she is now of yours. We are going away, not just yet, but very soon, to try to lose ourselves in the world; very possibly an explanation of much that I have not courage to tell you may soon become so public that even in England you may hear of it, and thank me for what I have written."

The letter broke off abruptly, but there was a postscript reminding him that no one, not even his father, knew more, or, indeed, as much as he did, of her secret, and bidding him not betray her; this postscript, however, remained at first unnoticed: there was enough in the letter itself to bewilder and stupefy its unfortunate reader. He went over it again and again, trying, trying to understand it; to make certain that there was not some strange mistake, some other meaning in it than that which first appeared. But no; it was distinct enough, though the writing was strangely unsteady, as if the writer's hand had trembled at the task. The task of doing what? Only of destroying a hope; and hope is not life, nor even youth, or strength, or sense, or capacity for work, and yet when Maurice rose from his solitary breakfast-table, and carried his letters away to his own room, although he looked and moved, and even spoke to a passing servant just as usual, he felt as if he had been suddenly paralysed, and struck down from vigorous life into the shadow of death. He sat in his room and tried to think, but no thoughts came; only a perpetual reiteration of the words, "You and Lucia must not meet again." Over and over, and over again, the same still incomprehensible sentence kept ringing in his ears. It was much the same thing as if some power had said to him, "You must put away from you, divorce, and utterly forget, all your past life; all your nature, as it has grown up, to this present time; and take a different individuality." The two things might equally well be said, for they were equally impossible. He laughed as this idea struck him. His senses were beginning to come back, and they told him plainly enough that any separation from Lucia, except by her own free choice and will, was as impossible as if they were already vowed to each other "till death us do part." There was so much comfort in this conviction that at last he was able to turn to the latter part of the letter, and to occupy himself with that mysterious yet terrible sentence, which said that Lucia, his purest and loveliest of women, whom all his long intimacy had not been able to bring down from the pedestal of honour and tender reverence on which his love had placed her, would bring a blot upon her husband's name.

In the first place, he simply and entirely refused to believe in the truth of the assertion; it was a fancy, an exaggeration at the least, and in itself, not a thing to be troubled at; but allowing that the idea could not have existed in her mother's mind without some foundation, what could that foundation be? To consider with the most anxious investigation everything he knew of the Costellos, their life, their characters, their history, brought him some comfort, but no enlightenment. He supposed, as all Cacouna did, that Mrs. Costello was the widow of a Spaniard, and that her husband had died when Lucia was an infant, but how to make any of these scanty details bear upon the fact that now, lately, since he himself had left Cacouna, something had happened, either unforeseen, or only partly foreseen by Mrs. Costello, which brought disgrace and misery upon her and her child, he did not in the least understand. Personal disgrace, the shadow of actual ill-doing, resting upon either mother or daughter, was too utterly improbable a thought ever even to enter his mind; but what the trouble could be, or whence it came, he seemed to be less and less capable of imagining, the more he thought and puzzled over the matter. And the hint that by-and-by the mystery might be unravelled, not only to him, but to the whole world, was far from giving him comfort. Rather than have Lucia's name dragged out for vulgar comment, he would have been content to let her secret remain for ever undiscovered; and besides, this unwelcome revelation promised to come too late, when the Cottage was empty and its dearly loved occupants were gone far away out of his very knowledge.

Fortunately for Maurice, Mr. Beresford was later than usual in leaving his room that day, so that he had two hours in which to grow at least a little accustomed to his new perplexities before he had to attend his grandfather in the library. Even when he did so, however, he found it impossible to force his thoughts into any other channel, and his brain worked all day painfully and fruitlessly at schemes for finding out Mrs.

Costello's secret, and demonstrating to her that far from its being a reason for depriving him of Lucia, it was an additional reason for giving her to him.

CHAPTER VIII.

Maurice tried to relieve his impatience by spending the very first half hour when he was not required to sit with his grandfather, in writing to Mrs. Costello. If the Atlantic telegraph had but been in operation she might have been startled by some vehement message coming in immediate protest against her decision; but as it was, the letter which could not, at the very best, reach her in much less than a fortnight, was full of fiery haste and eagerness. As for reason or argument, it made no attempt at either. It began with a simple unqualified declaration that what she had said was, as far as it regarded Maurice himself, of no value or effect whatever, that he remained in exactly the same mind as when he left Canada, and that nothing whatever would alter him, except Lucia's preference for some other person. He went on to say that he could still wait, but that as the strongest purpose of his life would be to give Lucia the choice of accepting or refusing him as soon as he had a home to offer her, it was needless unkindness to try to conceal her from him.

Wherever she might be, he should certainly find her in the end, and he implored her mother to spare him the anxiety and delay of a search.

Finally he wrote, "I cannot understand in the least what you can mean by the reason you give for casting me off, but you seem to have forgotten that if any disgrace (I hate to use the word), either real or imaginary, has fallen upon you, it is the more and not the less needful that you should have all the help and support I can give you. That may not be much, but such as it is I have a right to offer it, and you to accept it."

The letter wound up with the most urgent entreaties that she would answer it at once, and give up entirely the useless attempt to separate him from Lucia; and when it was finished and sent off, quite regardless of the fact that it would have left England just as soon if written two days later, he began to feel a little comforted, and as if he had at any rate put a stop to the worst evil that threatened him.

But the relief lasted only a few hours. By the next day he was tormenting himself with all the ingenuity of which he was capable, and the task of amusing Mr. Beresford was ten thousand times harder than ever. He did it, and did it better than usual, but only because he was so annoyed at his own anxiety and absence of mind that he set himself with a sort of dogged determination to conquer them, or at any rate keep them out of sight. The more, however, that he held his thoughts shut up in his own mind, the more active and troublesome they became, and an idea took possession of him, which he made very few efforts to shake off, though he could not at first see clearly how to carry it into execution.

This idea was that he must return to Canada. He thought that one hour of actual presence would do more for his cause than a hundred letters--nay, he did not despair of persuading Mrs. Costello to bring Lucia to England, where he could keep some watch and guard over them both; but, at any rate, he had a strong fancy that he might at once learn the secret of her distress himself, and help her to keep it from others. He calculated that six weeks' absence from Hunsdon would enable him to do this, and at the same time to make arrangements for his father's comfort more satisfactory than the present ones. The last inducement was, of course, the one he meant to make bear the weight of his sudden anxiety, and after much deliberation, or what he thought was deliberation, he decided that the first thing to be done was to interest his cousin in his plans and try to get her help.

But as it happened, Lady Dighton was just at that moment away from home.

She and Sir John were staying at a house which, though nearer to Hunsdon than to their own home, was a considerable distance for morning visitors, even in the country. Still Maurice, who had some acquaintance with the family, thought he might ride over and see her there, and take his chance of being able to get an opportunity of explaining the service he wanted her to do him. However, a slight increase of illness in Mr.

Beresford prevented him from getting away from home, and he was obliged to wait with what patience he could for her next visit to Hunsdon.

Mr. Beresford's health appeared to return to its usual condition, and grateful for the comfort Maurice's presence had been to him during his greater suffering, he seemed to be every day more satisfied with and attached to his heir. The disadvantage of this was that he required more and more of Maurice's company, and seemed to dislike sparing him a moment except while he slept. This was not promising for the success of any scheme of absence, but, on the other hand, there was so much of reason and consideration for his grandson, mixed with the invalid's exactions, that it seemed not hopeless to try to obtain his consent.

After an interval of more than a week, Lady Dighton reappeared at Hunsdon, and Maurice's opportunity arrived. It was during their invariable _tete-a-tete_ while Mr. Beresford slept that the wished-for conversation took place, and Lady Dighton unconsciously helped her cousin to begin it by telling him laughing that she had been looking out for a wife for him, and found one that she thought would do exactly.

"You must contrive by some means or other," she said, "to get away from Hunsdon a little more than you have been doing, and come over to Dighton for a day or two, that I may introduce you."

"I wish with all my heart," he answered quickly, "that I could get away from Hunsdon for a little while, but I am afraid I should use my liberty to go much further than Dighton."

She looked at him with surprise.

"I did not know," she said, "that you had any friends in England except here."

"I have none. What I mean is that I want to go back to Canada for a week or two."

"To Canada! The other side of the world! What do you mean?"

"Nothing very unreasonable. I am very uneasy about my father, who is almost as great an invalid as my grandfather, and has no one but an old housekeeper to take care of him. I should like to go and bring him to England."

It was very well for Maurice to try to speak as coolly as possible, and even to succeed in making his voice sound perfectly innocent and natural, but he was of much too frank a nature to play off this little piece of dissimulation without a tell-tale change of countenance. Lady Dighton's sharp eyes saw quite plainly that there was something untold, but she took no notice of that for the present, and answered as if she saw nothing.

"Have you worse accounts of his health?"

"No; not worse. But he will be quite alone."

"More alone than when you first left him? I do not quite understand."

"Yes; some very near neighbours--old friends of his and my mother's--are going to leave Cacouna. I had no reason to be uneasy about him while they were there. Do you think my grandfather could be persuaded to spare me for six weeks?"

"Not willingly, I think. Could not my uncle come home without your going?"

Maurice felt as if he were caught in his own trap, but he recollected himself in a moment.

"There would be many things to do," he said. "Affairs to settle, the farm to sell or let, and the household, small as it is, to break up."

Lady Dighton laughed outright.

"And you imagine that you could do all that, and carry your father off besides, in the space of a fortnight, which is the very utmost you could possibly have out of your six weeks! Really, Maurice, I gave you credit for more reasonableness."

"I have no doubt I could do it," he said, a little vexed, "and of course I should try to get back as quickly as possible."

"Well, let me see if I cannot suggest something a little more practicable. Is there no person who would undertake the management of the mere business part of the arrangements?"

"Yes," Maurice answered a little reluctantly. "I dare say there is."

"As for the breaking up of the household, I should think my uncle would like to give the directions himself, and I do not see what more you could do; and for anything regarding his comfort, could not you trust to those old friends you spoke of?"

Maurice shook his head impatiently.

"They are going away--for anything I know, they may be gone now. No, Louisa, your schemes are very good, but they will not do. I must go myself; that is, if I can."

"And the fact of the matter is that you want me to help you to persuade grandpapa that he can spare you."

"Will you help me? I know it will be hard. I would not ask him if I were not half wild with anxiety."

Lady Dighton looked at her cousin's face, which was indeed full of excitement.