Mr. Leigh looked at her doubtfully.

“It will be a surprise, no doubt,” he said, “as it was to me, and he will be heartily sorry not to be here now to show you both how little change such a discovery makes.  But do you know, Mrs. Costello, it has struck me lately that there was something wrong either with you and Maurice, or with Lucia and Maurice?”

“There is nothing wrong with either, I assure you.  You know yourself,” she answered with a smile, “that Maurice never forgets to send us a note by every mail.”

“That is true; but it does not altogether convince me; Maurice is worried and unhappy about something, and yet I cannot make out that there is anything in England to trouble him.”

“On the contrary,” Mrs. Costello said, as she rose, “except for Mr. Beresford’s illness I think he has everything he can reasonably wish for—­and more.”

She held out her hand to say good-bye, feeling a strong desire to get away, and escape from a conversation which was becoming embarrassing.  Mr. Leigh took it and for one second held it, as if he wished to say something more, but the feeling that he had really no ground but his own surmises for judging of Maurice’s relations with either Lucia or her mother, checked him.

Mrs. Costello hurried home.  She knew as well as if he had said so, that her old friend guessed his son’s attachment and was ready to sanction it; she could easily understand the generous impulse which would have urged him to offer to her and her child all the support and comfort which an engagement between the two young people could be made to afford; but she would not even trust herself to consider for a moment the possibility of accepting a consolation which would cost the giver so dear.  Maurice, she felt, ought to marry an English-woman, his mother’s equal; and no doubt if he and Lucia could be kept completely apart for two or three years, he would do so without reluctance; only nothing must be said about the matter either by Mr. Leigh or to Lucia.  As for her daughter, the very circumstance which had formerly seemed most unfavourable to her wishes was now her great comfort; she rejoiced in the certainty that Lucia had never suspected the true nature or degree of Maurice’s regard.  It was in this respect not to be much regretted that Lucia still thought faithfully of Percy—­not at all as of one who might yet have any renewed connection with her life, but as of one dead.  The poor child, in spite of her premature womanliness, was full of romantic fancies; while Percy was near her she had made him a hero; now since his disappearance, she had found it natural enough to build him a temple and put in it the statue of a god.  And it was better that she should mourn over a dead love, than that she should a second time be tormented by useless hopes and fears.