“You do not wish to prevent me from nursing him?”

“Certainly not.  I only think that you can nurse him just as effectually and tenderly without all the world knowing the claim he has upon you.”

“You are quite certain that his memory and power of recognition will not return?”

Mr. Strafford repeated what Dr. Hardy had said.

“I must think,” Mrs. Costello answered.  “Everything has come upon me so quickly and confusingly, that I cannot decide all at once.  Give me a little while to consider.”

She leaned back wearily, and Mr. Strafford, taking a book, went and sat down at the further end of the room.  So they remained till Mrs. Bellairs and Mrs. Morton came in together.

When they did so, Mrs. Costello looked up with a half smile,

“I am something like the old man in the fable,” she said, “every new piece of advice I receive alters my plans.”

“How?” asked Mrs. Bellairs.  “Who has been advising you now?”

“No new adviser, at any rate.  My old and tried friend there, who, I believe, gives quite as much thought to my affairs as if they were his own.”

Mr. Strafford came forward.

“I have been trying to persuade Mrs. Costello,” he said, “that a secret which half-a-dozen people know may yet be a secret.”

“Even when half the half-dozen are women?  I am sure, Mr. Strafford, we are indebted to you, if I guess truly what you mean.”

A look, grave enough, passed between the two, though they spoke lightly.

“I have been thinking over all you say,” Mrs. Costello went on, addressing Mr. Strafford, “and I have decided to follow your advice.  But if at any moment, even the last, there should seem sufficient reason for changing my opinion, remember that I do not promise not to do so.”

Mr. Strafford was fully satisfied with this; he knew, or thought he knew, perfectly, that Christian’s condition was such as to ensure no further change of conduct regarding him; and not long after, he and Mrs. Costello returned together to the prison.

For two or three hours they sat beside the prisoner, and talked at intervals to each other, or to him, with long pauses of thought between.  There was much for both to think of.  The necessity of action seemed to be all over, or at least, to be suspended as long as Christian’s life should last; and in this time of waiting, whether it were hours or days, all that could be done was to build up plans for the future which, when they were built, any one of the various possible changes of circumstances might at once overthrow.

But so entirely had Mrs. Costello identified herself with her daughter in all her habits and thoughts, that that dwelling on the future, which is the special prerogative of youth, seemed as natural to her as though her own life had all lain before, instead of behind her; and she found herself perpetually occupied with the consideration of what was best to be done for that future which had been so often taken, as it were, out of her guidance.