g 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