"To tell _me_ something," Lucia said with a little flash of opposition awakened by her mother's anger.

"Yes--I thought so. To tell you something which, to any girl in the world who was not inconceivably blind or inconceivably vain, would have been the best news she ever heard in her life. And you said _nothing_?"

"Mamma, it is over. I can't help it."

"So he says--he, who is not much in the habit of talking nonsense, says this to me. Just listen. 'We have both made the mistake of reasoning about a thing with which reason has nothing to do. I see the error now too late for myself, but not, I hope, too late to leave her in peace.

Pray do not speak to her about it at all.' But it is my duty to speak."

"Mamma, Maurice is right. It is too late."

"It is not too late for him to get some little justice; and it is not too late for you to know what you have lost."

"Oh! I do know," she cried out. "But even if there had been no other reason, how could I have been different? He never told me till to-day."

And she clasped her two hands together on the edge of the table and hid her face on them.

Mrs. Costello leaned a little more forward, and touched her daughter's arm.

"I must speak to you about this, Lucia," she said. "I do not want to be harsh, but you ought to know what you have done. And, good heavens! for what? A stranger, a mere coxcomb comes in your way, and you listen to his fine words, and straight begin to be able to see nothing but him, though the most faithful, generous heart a girl ever had offered to her is in your very hand! _I_ was bad enough--but I had no such love as Maurice's to leave behind me."

Again Lucia moved, without speaking. As she did so, the ring on her hand flashed.

"What is that on your finger?" Mrs. Costello asked.

"Maurice's ring. _He_ was not so hard on me."

"Hard?" Mrs. Costello was pressing her hand more and more tightly to her side. "Child, it is you that have been hard with your unconscious ways."

But Lucia had found power to speak at last.

"After all," she said obstinately, "I neither see why I should be supposed to have done wrong, nor why anybody else should be spoken of so. It is no harm, and no shame," she went on, raising her head, and showing her burning cheeks, "for a girl to like somebody who cares very much for her; and I think she would be a poor creature if she did not go on caring for him as long as she believed he was true to her."

The little spark of pride died out with the last words, and there was a faint quiver in her voice.

"Maurice would say so himself," she ended, triumphantly.

"Of course he would. But I don't see that Maurice would be a fair judge of the case. The question is, what does a girl deserve who has to choose between Maurice and Percy, and chooses Percy?"

Lucia recoiled. She could hardly yet bear to hear the name she had been dreaming over so long spoken in so harsh a way, and still less to hear it coupled in this way with Maurice's.

"Maurice will soon find somebody else," she said. "He is not a poor man, mamma, that he should mind so much."

Mrs. Costello half rose from the sofa. Pain and anger together overpowered her. She stood up for a moment, trying to speak, and then suddenly fell back, fainting.

Lucia sprang from her knees. Was her mother dead? It was possible, she knew. Had they parted for ever in anger? But the idea, from its very horror, did not affect her as a lighter fear might have done. She brought remedies, and called Claudine to help her, in a kind of calm.

They tried all they could think of, and at last there came some feeble return of life. But the agitation and fatigue of the day had been too much for such strength as hers to rally from. One fainting fit succeeded another, with scarcely a moment's interval.

All evening it was the same. A doctor came, and stayed till the attacks ceased; but when he went away, his patient lay, white and almost unconscious even of Lucia's presence. It was terrible sitting there by the bedside, and watching for every slight movement--for the hope of a word or a smile. It was consolation unspeakable when, late at night, Mrs. Costello opened her eyes, free from the bewildered look of suffering, and, seeing her child's pale face beside her, put out her hand, and said softly, "My poor Lucia!"

After that she dropped asleep, and Lucia watched till early morning. It was the first of such watches she had ever kept, and the awful stillness made her tremble. Often she got up from her seat to see if her mother's breathing still really went on; it seemed difficult to believe that there was any stir whatever of life in the room. In those long hours, too, she had time to revert to the doings of the past day--to remember both Maurice's words and her mother's, and to separate, to some degree, the truth from all exaggeration. Her mind seemed to go back also, with singular clearness, to the time of Percy's coming to Cacouna, and even earlier. She began to comprehend the significance of trifles, which had seemed insignificant at the time, and to believe in the truth of what Maurice had told her, that even then he was building all his hopes on the possibility of her loving him. She wondered at herself now, as others had wondered at her; but she still justified herself: "He was my brother--my dearest friend. _He_," and this time she did not mean Maurice, "was the first person who ever put any other ideas into my head. And I have lost them both." But already the true love had so far gained its rights, that it was Maurice, far more than Percy, of whose loss she thought. Once that night, when she had sat quite without moving for a long time, and when her meditations had grown more and more dreary, she suddenly raised her hand, and her ring flashed out in the gloom. By some instinct she put it to her lips; it seemed to her a symbol of regard and protecting care, which comforted her strangely.

When the night was past, and Claudine came early in the morning to take Lucia's place, Mrs. Costello still slept; and the poor child, quite worn out--pale and shivering in the cold dawn--was glad to creep away to bed, and to her heavy but troubled slumber.

All that day the house was kept silent and shut up. Mrs. Costello had been much tried, the doctor thought, and needed a complete calm in which to recover herself. With her old habit of self-command she understood this, and remained still, almost without speaking, till some degree of strength should return. Lucia tended her with the most anxious care, and kept her troubled thoughts wholly to herself.

About two o'clock Lady Dighton came. Hearing that Mrs. Costello was ill, she begged to see Lucia, who came to her, looking weary and worn, but longing to hear of Maurice.

It seemed, however, as if she were not to be gratified. Lady Dighton was full of concern and kind offers of assistance, but she said nothing of her cousin until just as she went away. Then she did say, "You know that Maurice left us yesterday evening? I miss him dreadfully; but I dare say he thinks much more of whether other people miss him."

She went, and they were alone again. So alone, as they had never been while Maurice was in Paris, when he might come in at any moment and bring a cheerful breath from the outer world into their narrow and feminine life,--as he would never come again! 'Oh,' Lucia thought, 'why could not he be our friend always--just our own Maurice as he used to be--and not have these miserable fancies? We might have been so happy!'

Towards night Mrs. Costello had greatly revived. She was able to sit up a little, and to talk much as usual. She did not allude at all to her last conversation with her daughter, and Lucia herself dared not renew so exciting a subject. But all anger seemed to have entirely passed away from between them. They were completely restored to their old natural confidence and tenderness; and that was a comfort which Lucia's terror of last night made exquisitely sweet to her.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Two or three days passed before its former tranquillity was restored to the apartment in the Champs Elysees. Its "_former_ tranquillity,"

indeed, did not seem to come back at all. There were new elements of discomfort and disturbance at work, even more than in the days before Maurice came, and when Mrs. Costello both feared and hoped for his coming. He was never mentioned now, except during Lady Dighton's daily visit. She, much mystified, and not sure whether Lucia was to be pitied or blamed, was too kind-hearted not to sympathize with her anxiety for her mother, and she therefore came constantly--first to inquire for, and then to sit with Mrs. Costello, insisting that Lucia should take that opportunity of going out in her carriage.

These drives gave the poor child not only fresh air, but also a short interval each day in which she could be natural, and permit herself the indulgence of the depression which had taken possession of her. She felt certain that her mother, though she treated her with her usual tenderness, still felt surprised and disappointed by her conduct.

Maurice also, who had been always so patient, so indulgent, had gone away in trouble through her; he had reproached her, perhaps justly, and had given up for ever their old intimacy. She was growing more and more miserable. If ever, for a moment, she forgot her burden, some little incident was sure to occur which brought naturally to her lips the words, 'I wish Maurice were here;' and she would turn sick with the thought, 'He never will be here again, and it is my fault.'

So the days went on till the Dightons left Paris. They did so without any clear understanding having reached Lady Dighton's mind of the state of affairs between Maurice and Lucia. All she actually knew was that Maurice had been obliged to go home unexpectedly, and that ever since he went Lucia had looked like a ghost. And as this conjunction of circumstances did not appear unfavourable to her cousin's wishes, and as she had no hint of those wishes having been given up, she was quite disposed to continue to regard Lucia as the future mistress of Hunsdon.

However, she was not sorry to leave Paris. Her visit there, with regard to its principal object, had been rather unsatisfactory; at all events it had had no visible results, and she liked results. She wanted to go home and see how Maurice reigned at Hunsdon, and tell her particular friends about the beautiful girl she hoped some day to have the pleasure of patronizing.

Mrs. Costello had regained nearly her usual health. One day, shortly after the Dightons left, she asked Lucia to bring her desk, saying that she must write to Mr. Wynter, and that it was time they should make some different arrangement, since, as they had long ago agreed, Paris was too expensive for them to stay there all the year.

Lucia remembered what Maurice had said to her about her mother returning to England, but the consciousness of what had really been in his mind at the moment stopped her just as she was about to speak. She brought the desk, and said only,

"Have you thought of any place, mamma?"

"I have thought of two or three, but none please me," Mrs. Costello answered. "We want a cheap place--one within easy reach of England, and one not too much visited by tourists. It is not very easy to find a place with all the requisites."

"No, indeed. But you are not able to travel yet."

"Yes I am. Indeed, it is necessary we should go soon, if not immediately."

Lucia sighed. She would be sorry to leave Paris. Meantime her mother had opened the desk, but before beginning to write she took out a small packet of letters, and handed them to Lucia. "I will give these to you,"

she said, "for you have the greatest concern with them, though they were not meant for your eyes."

Lucia looked at the packet and recognized Maurice's hand.

"Ought I to read them, then?" she said.

"Certainly. Nay, I desire that you will read them carefully. Yes, Lucia," she went on in a softer tone, "I wish you to know all that has been hidden from you. Take those notes and keep them. When you are an old woman you may be glad to remember that they were ever written."