"If it is he," she said--and it seemed that they both shrank from any
plainer expression of their thoughts than these vague phrases--"if it is
he our hardest task is before us. How will you bear, Lucia, to meet
them all again?"

"Mother, I cannot! Surely you do not think of it. How can _we_"--she
shuddered as she spoke--"how can we go again among any innocent people?"

"My child, we _must_. More than that, we must keep our secret, if we
can, still."

"But Bella? Mother, how can I look at her--a widow--and know who I am,
and who has done it?"

"Listen to me, Lucia. My poor child, your burden has been heavy lately;
do not make it heavier than it need be. The crime and the horror are bad
enough, but we have no share in them. No; think of it reasonably. The
wife and child of a criminal, even where there has been daily
association between them, are not condemned, but rather pitied. No mind,
but one cruelly prejudiced, would brand them with his guilt. Do not
punish yourself, then, where others would acquit you. But, indeed, I
need not tell you how our very separation is a safeguard to us--to you
especially. Think of these things; and do not suffer yourself to imagine
that there is a bar between you and Bella just now, when I know you
love her more than ever."

Lucia's head lay upon her mother's knee. Mrs. Costello's touch on the
soft hair, her tone of gentle reproof, and the thoughts her words called
up, brought tears, fast and thick, to her child's eyes. Lucia had shed