doing
so."

"Oh, dear, that old idea still! It is quite useless, mamma. You shall
not send me away from you."

Lucia knelt by her mother's side, and looked up into her face with eyes
full of mingled entreaty and resolution. Mrs. Costello drew her close
within her arm.

"No, my darling. I have given up that idea altogether. Indeed, there is
no longer any need for it, and I should grudge losing you out of my
sight for a single day now. But, don't you understand that a time may be
coming when we shall have to part, whether we will or no?"

"Ah! not yet. There is plenty of time to think of that."

"Perhaps. But I doubt it. At any rate I have less reason than most
people to count on long life."

Again Lucia looked up. A cold, unspeakable terror filled her heart, and
she tried to read the secret which her mother's calm face hid from her.
Mrs. Costello delayed no longer to tell her all the truth.

"Many months ago," she said, "I was convinced that the disease of which
my mother died, had attacked me. I suppose there might be some
hereditary predisposition towards it, and too much thought and care
brought it on. I determined not to allow myself any fancies on the
subject. I sent for Doctor Hardy, and contrived to see him several times
during the autumn without letting you suspect anything. He could only
acknowledge that I was right, and tell me to avoid excitement and
fatigue. You know how possible _that_ was. And so this mischief has been
going on fast, and the end may be nearer than even I think it is."

Her voice faltered at the last words, and Lucia, who had listened to
every one with the feeling that so many knives were being plunged
through and through her heart, slipped down from her resting-place, and
crouched on the floor, hiding her face and stifling the sobs that shook
her whole body. She longed to cry out, to clasp her arms round her
mother, to struggle, with all the force of her great love, against this
fate; and yet, so well had she understood, so clearly she remembered,
even through her agony, the need for quietness, that she kept a force
upon herself like iron, trying to steady the pulses that throbbed so
wildly, with one thought, or rather one impulse, "I must not trouble
_her_."

Mrs. Costello looked at her child for a moment in silence. Even she did
not yet fully understand the force of that quality which Lucia herself
had once ascribed to her Indian blood, but which, in truth, had little
affinity