With the feeling that at length she was indeed left alone and helpless,
Mrs. Costello put from her the last fragment of her dream. There was
still, it is true, the want of positive knowledge that Christian was the
criminal, but in her own heart she had already accepted the evidence
against him, and it seemed to her that all which remained to be done
with regard to Maurice was to write and tell him, not all the
truth--there was no need for that, and he might hear it soon enough from
other sources--but that the hopes they had both indulged in had deceived
them, and must be laid aside and forgotten.

And when her long meditation came to an end, she said softly to herself,

"Thank God, _she_ does not know. And I have been ready to complain of
the very unconsciousness which has saved her this!"

Mr. Leigh was surprised, as Lucia had expected, when she went next day,
just as usual, to pay him her morning visit. He was easily satisfied,
however, with the slight reasons she gave him for their delay, and glad
of anything that kept them still at the Cottage.

There was no need for her to ask any questions about the event of
yesterday. All that was known by every one had been told to Mr. Leigh
already by an early visitor, and he, full of horror and sympathy, was
able to tell the terrible story over again to a listener, whose deep and
agonizing interest in it he never suspected.

But to stay, after the certainty she sought for was obtained; to talk
indifferently of other matters; to regulate face and voice so as to show
enough, but not too much, of the tumult at her heart, was a task before
which Lucia's courage almost gave way. Yet it was done. No impatience