Lucia had looked for a solution of the mystery, but this letter was none.  Rather it was a new and bewildering problem.  That it was the immediate cause of her mother’s illness was evident enough, but why?  Who was “C.”?  Why did she fear his return?  What could be the fear strong enough to induce such precautions for secrecy?  Her senses seemed utterly confused.  But after the first few minutes, she remembered that Mrs. Costello had probably meant to keep her still ignorant of a mystery to which she had, in all the recollections of her life, no single clue—­she might therefore be still further agitated by knowing that she had read this letter.  “I must put it aside,” she thought, “and not tell her until she is well again.”

She slipped the letter into her pocket, scribbled her note to Mrs. Scott, and returned to the invalid’s room.  The faintness had now quite passed away, and Lucia thought, as she entered, that her mother’s eyes turned to her with a peculiar look of inquiry.  Happily the room was dark, so that the burning colour which rose to her cheeks was not perceptible; for the rest, she contrived to banish all consciousness from her voice, as she said quietly, “I have been writing to Mrs. Scott, to say I cannot leave you to-night.”

“I am sorry, dear; you would have enjoyed yourself, and there is no reason to be anxious about me.”

“I am very glad I was not gone.  Can you go to sleep?”

“Presently.  I think I dropped a letter—­have you seen it?”

Lucia drew it from her pocket.  “It is here, I picked it up.”

Mrs. Costello held out her hand for it.  She looked at it for a moment, as if hesitating—­then slipped it under her pillow.

Both remained silent for some time; Mrs. Costello, exhausted and pale as death, lay trying to gather strength for thought and endurance, longing, yet dreading, to share with her daughter the miserable burden which was pressing out her very life.  Lucia, half hidden by the curtain, sat pondering uselessly over the letter she had read; feeling a vague fear and a livelier curiosity.  But a heart so ignorant of sadness in itself, and so filled at the moment with all that is least in accord with the prosaic troubles of middle life, could not remain long fixed upon a doubtful and uncomprehended misfortune.  Gradually her fancy reverted to brighter images; the sunny life of her short experience, the only life she could believe in with a living faith, had its natural immutability in her thoughts; and she unconsciously turned from the picture which had been forced upon her—­of her mother shrinking terrified from a calamity about to involve them both—­to the brighter one of her own happiness which that dear mother could not help but share.  So strangely apart were the two who were nearest to each other.

Mrs. Costello was the first to rouse herself.

“Light the lamp, dear,” she said, “and let us have tea.  I suppose I must not get up again.”