its
issue, and through all her sympathy with Lucia, she had secretly
rejoiced at his dismissal; she had felt no scruples in hearing from
Maurice, at the very moment when his prospects had suddenly changed and
brightened, the assurance of his attachment, and she had received his
note that very day with a joy which almost resembled that which a girl
feels who hears from his own lips that her absent lover is faithful to
her. To this mother, cut off from every tie but that of motherhood, her
child was the one only absorbing interest; she had loved Maurice, but
she knew now that she had loved him chiefly as the representative of
Lucia's future safety and happiness. It had never occurred to her that
her own strange marriage, that the race or the character of her husband,
which had been recognized by both mother and daughter as insuperable
obstacles in Percy's case, would estrange the nobler and truer nature.
The whole miserable story would have to be told, she had thought, when
the time came, but she had neither feared its effect on Maurice nor felt
any compunction at the idea of his carrying into an honourable family a
wife whose parentage was her terror and disgrace.

But now that the disgrace had grown immeasurably darker, now that her
story might have to be told, not privately and with extenuation, but in
coarse hard words, and to the whole of the little world that knew her;
now that every one who would, might be able to point at her as the
daughter of a murderer,--how would it be?

With the feeling that at length she was indeed left alone and helpless,
Mrs. Costello put from her the last fragment of her dream. There was
still, it is true, the want of positive knowledge that Christian was the
criminal, but in her own heart she had already accepted the evidence
against him, and it seemed to her that all which remained to be done
with regard to Maurice was to write and tell him, not all the
truth--there was no need for that, and he might hear it soon enough from
other sources--but that the hopes they had both indulged in had deceived
them, and must be laid aside and forgotten.

And when her long meditation came to an end, she said softly to herself,

"Thank God, _she_ does not know. And I have been ready to complain of
the very unconsciousness which has saved her this!"

Mr. Leigh was surprised, as Lucia had expected, when she went next day,
just as usual, to pay him her morning visit. He was easily satisfied,
however