to bring down from the pedestal
of honour and tender reverence on which his love had placed her, would
bring a blot upon her husband's name.

In the first place, he simply and entirely refused to believe in the
truth of the assertion; it was a fancy, an exaggeration at the least,
and in itself, not a thing to be troubled at; but allowing that the idea
could not have existed in her mother's mind without some foundation,
what could that foundation be? To consider with the most anxious
investigation everything he knew of the Costellos, their life, their
characters, their history, brought him some comfort, but no
enlightenment. He supposed, as all Cacouna did, that Mrs. Costello was
the widow of a Spaniard, and that her husband had died when Lucia was an
infant, but how to make any of these scanty details bear upon the fact
that now, lately, since he himself had left Cacouna, something had
happened, either unforeseen, or only partly foreseen by Mrs. Costello,
which brought disgrace and misery upon her and her child, he did not in
the least understand. Personal disgrace, the shadow of actual ill-doing,
resting upon either mother or daughter, was too utterly improbable a
thought ever even to enter his mind; but what the trouble could be, or
whence it came, he seemed to be less and less capable of imagining, the
more he thought and puzzled over the matter. And the hint that
by-and-by the mystery might be unravelled, not only to him, but to the
whole world, was far from giving him comfort. Rather than have Lucia's
name dragged out for vulgar comment, he would have been content to let
her secret remain for ever undiscovered; and besides, this unwelcome
revelation promised to come too late, when the Cottage was empty and its
dearly loved occupants were gone far away out of his very knowledge.

Fortunately for Maurice, Mr. Beresford was later than usual in leaving
his room that day, so that he had two hours in which to grow at least a
little accustomed to his new perplexities before he had to attend his
grandfather in the library. Even when he did so, however, he found it
impossible to force his thoughts into any other channel, and his brain
worked all day painfully and fruitlessly at schemes for finding out Mrs.
Costello's secret, and demonstrating to her that far from its being a
reason for depriving him of Lucia, it was an additional reason for
giving her to him.

CHAPTER VIII.

Maurice tried to relieve his impatien