its her."

Poor Maurice! he sat down to write to his father in a miserable
mood--Mr. Beresford had become suddenly and decidedly worse. The doctors
said positively that he was dying, and that a few days at the utmost
would bring the end. Maurice had stolen away while he slept, but his
angry meditation on Mrs. Costello's desertion had taken up so much of
his time, that Mr. Leigh's note was short and hurried. Ill-humour
prevailed also to the point of the note being finished without any
message (he had no time to write separately) to the Cottage.

His packet despatched, he returned to his grandfather's room. Lady
Dighton, now staying in the house, sat and watched by the bedside; and
by-and-by leaving her post, she joined Maurice by the window and began
to talk to him in a low voice. There was no fear of disturbing the
invalid; his sleep continued, deep and lethargic, the near forerunner of
death.

"Maurice," Lady Dighton said, "I wish you would go out for an hour. You
are not really wanted here, and you look worn out."

"Thank you, I am all right. My grandfather might wake and miss me."

"Go for a little while. Half an hour's gallop would do you good."

Maurice laughed impatiently.

"Why should I want doing good to? It is you, I should think, who ought
to go out."

"I was out yesterday. Are you still anxious about your father and
Canada?"

Lady Dighton's straightforward question meant to be answered.

"Yes," Maurice said rather crossly. "I am anxious and worried."

"You can do no good by writing?"

"I seem to do harm. Don't talk to me about it, Louisa. Nothing but my
being there could have done any good, and now it is most likely too
late."

She saw plainly enough the fight that was going on--impatience,
eagerness, selfishness of a kind, on one side--duty and compassion on
the other. She had no scruple about seeing just as much of her cousin's
humour as his looks and manner could tell her, and she perceived that at
the moment it was anything but a good or heroic one. She thought it
possible that it would have been a relief to him to have struck, or
shaken, or even kicked something or somebody; and yet she was not at all
tempted to think the worse of him. She did not understand, of course,
the late aggravations of his trouble; but she knew that he loved loyally
and thought his love in danger, and she gave him plenty of sympathy,
whatever that might be worth. She had obtained a considerable amount of
influen