He continued to send her, once a week, a sheet full of persuasions and arguments which the moment they were written seemed unanswerable, and the moment they were despatched appeared puerile and worthless.  Still they came, with no other effect than that of making the recipient more and more unhappy, as she perceived how her own mistake had helped to increase Maurice’s hopes, and to darken his life by their destruction.

One of these letters arrived on the very evening of Mrs. Costello’s visit to the jail.  It was shorter and more hurried than usual, and spoke of Mr. Beresford being worse—­so much worse that his granddaughter had been sent for hastily, and, as every one supposed, for the last time; but it was just as peremptory as any former one, in declaring that nothing could or should prevent the writer from seeking for, and finding Lucia wherever she might be, the moment he was free to leave England.

Mrs. Costello read this note with some uneasiness.  She saw that on the question which of two declining lives should waste fastest, much of the future now depended.  If death came first to the rich and well-born Englishman, in his stately house, Maurice would be set at liberty, and by his presence at Cacouna would add to her difficulties; if, to the miserable prisoner who had been for so many years her terror and disgrace, and was now thrown upon her care and pity, she should yet be able to fly with Lucia and hide herself, not now indeed from an enemy, but from too faithful a friend.

In the meantime, however, since she had decided to make her marriage known to all the little world of Cacouna, she began to feel that the Leighs, both father and son, had a right to have the truth simply and immediately from herself.  She said nothing to Lucia that evening on this subject, but after going to her room for the night, she sat down and wrote a very brief but clear explanation of her secret, for Maurice; adding only a few words of affectionate farewell, and an intimation that it was better for all direct communication between them to cease with this letter.

Next morning at breakfast she told Lucia what she had done, saying simply that she preferred writing to Maurice, to leaving him to find out the truth by more indirect means; and added that she intended going at once to Mr. Leigh’s and making him her first confidant in Cacouna.  Lucia could only assent. Somebody must be the first to hear the story, and who so fit as their old and dear friend?

“If Maurice were but here!” she said, with a sigh, “he would be such a comfort, I know, for nothing would make any change in him.”

Mrs. Costello echoed the sigh, but not the wish.

“If he will but stay away!” she thought, and said nothing.

She put on her bonnet as soon as breakfast was over, and walked slowly up the lane to the farmhouse.  Lucia watched her anxiously, and many times during the next two hours went to the windows to see if she were returning, but it was after twelve before she came, and then she looked pale and exhausted from the morning’s excitement.