e leaned back, and was silent a minute.

"We must keep closely shut up for a little while, till I can decide what
to do. I wish Maurice would come."

Lucia looked up eagerly. It was her own thought, though she had not
dared to say it. Maurice could always find the way out of a difficulty.

"Mamma," she said anxiously, but with some hesitation, "I think this is
need--the kind of need Maurice meant."

"Need, truly. But I do not know--"

"He would be glad to help you. And he knows all about us."

"Yes, I should not have to make long explanations to him."

Just then there was a knock at the door. Both started violently. Absurd
as it was, they both expected to see Bailey himself enter. Instead, they
saw Madame Everaert, her round face flushed with walking and her hands
full of flowers.

"For mademoiselle," she said, laying them down on the table, and nodding
and smiling good humouredly. "I have been to Rosendahl to see my
goddaughter there, and she has a magnificent garden, so I brought a few
flowers for mademoiselle."

Lucia thanked her, and admired the flowers, and she went away without
suspecting the fright her visit had caused.

"Get your desk, Lucia," Mrs. Costello said, gasping for breath, and
almost exhausted by the terrible beating of her heart, "and write a note
for me."

The desk was brought and opened.

"Is it to Maurice?" Lucia asked.

"Yes. Say that we are in great need of a friend."

Lucia began. She found it much more difficult than she had done the
other night, when she wrote those few impetuous lines which had been
afterwards torn up.

"Dear Maurice," she said, "mamma tells me to write to you, and say
that something has happened which has frightened her very much, and
that we are in great need of a friend. Will you keep your promise,
and come to us?"

This was what she showed to her mother. When Mrs. Costello had approved
of it, she wrote a few words more.

"I want to ask you to forgive me. I don't deserve it, but I am so
unhappy.

"Yours affectionately,
"LUCIA."

She hesitated a little how to sign herself, but finally wrote just what
she had been accustomed to put to all her little notes written to
Maurice during his absences from Cacouna in the old days.

When the letter had been sealed and sent off by Madame Everaert's
servant to the post-office, they began to feel that all they