the half-conscious old man, who lay so still and seemed so
shut out from human feelings or sympathies, and to feel all the while
that any one of those hours of vigil might be the one that stole from
him his heart's desire. Yet there was no alternative. His grandfather,
who had received and adopted him, was suffering and solitary, dependent
wholly on him for what small gratification he could still enjoy.
Gratitude, therefore, and duty kept him here. But _there_, meanwhile, so
far out of his reach, what might be going on? He lived a perfectly
double life. Lucia was in trouble--some inexplicable shadow of disgrace
was threatening her--something so grave that even her mother, who knew
him so well, thought it an unsurmountable barrier between
them--something which looked the more awful from its vagueness and
mystery. It is true that he was only troubled--not discouraged by the
appearance of this phantom. He was as ready to fight for his Una as ever
was Redcross Knight--but then would his Una wait for him? To be forcibly
held back from the combat must have been much worse to a true champion
than any wounds he could receive in fair fight. So at least it seemed to
Maurice, secretly chafing, and then bitterly reproaching himself for his
impatience; yet the next moment growing as impatient as before.

To him in this mood came Mrs. Costello's last letter. Now at last the
mystery was cleared up, and its impalpable shape reduced to a positive
and ugly reality. Like his father, Maurice found no small difficulty in
understanding and believing the story told to him. That Mrs. Costello,
calm, gentle, and just touched with a quiet stateliness, as he had
always known her, could ever have been an impulsive, romantic girl, so
swayed by passion or by flattery as to have left her father's house and
all the protecting restraints of her English life to follow the fortunes
of an Indian, was an idea so startling that he could not at once accept
it for truth. In Lucia the incongruity struck him less. Her beauty, dark
and magnificent, her fearless nature, her slender erect shape, her free
and graceful movements--all the charms which he had by heart, suited an
Indian origin. He could readily imagine her the daughter of a chief and
a hero. But this was not what he was required to believe. He had read
lately the description of a brutal, half-imbecile savage, who had
committed a peculiarly frightful and revolting murder, and he was told
to recognize in