questions, and only think I am very dilatory and changeable. No one else
is likely to think of us at all for a day or two to come."

They were silent again for a little while. Lucia's thoughts, relieved
from the first heavy pressure on them by the very fact of having spoken,
began to turn from the criminal to the victim; from their own share in
the horror to that of others. One thing seemed to stand out clear and
plain from the confusion which still enveloped all else. She, the
daughter of the murderer, could never again meet the wife of the
murdered man as a friend. If the punishment of the father descended to
the children, did not their guilt descend too? Already she seemed to
feel the stain of blood upon her hand, and to shrink from herself, as
all innocent persons ought to do, henceforward. And Bella, her old
companion and friend, must shrink from her most of all; the very spirit
of the dead would surely rise up to forbid all intercourse between them.

Lucia had not boasted of her self-command without reason. A mind
naturally strong, and supported both by pride and affection, had enabled
her to meet with courage the bitterness and misery of the past weeks.
But she was only a girl still, and had not learned to rule her thoughts
as well as her looks and words. So if they grew morbid, and her dreary
imagination sometimes tortured her uselessly and cruelly, it was no
great wonder. She could suffer and be silent; but she had not yet learnt
so to rule her spirit as to save herself needless suffering.

Thus the very intensity of her sympathy for Bella only reacted in
loathing and horror of herself; and she had begun to try to devise means
for carrying out that avoidance of all most nearly connected with the
dead, which seemed to her an imperative duty, when she was startled by
her mother's voice.