You think she would marry him?"

"Why not? Yes, I think so."

"And her mother?"

"Ah! I don't know; Mrs. Costello has a will of her own."

CHAPTER VIII.

In the old days there had been a sort of antagonism between Bella Latour
and Maurice Leigh. They had necessarily seen a great deal of each other,
and liked each other after a certain fashion; but Maurice had thought
Bella too flighty, and inclined to fastness; and Bella had been
half-seriously, half-playfully disposed to resent his judgment of her.
But now, either because of the complete change in her character which
the last few months had wrought, or from some other cause, Mrs. Morton
and Maurice fell into a kind of confidential intimacy quite new to their
intercourse. It was only for two days, certainly, but during those two
days, and in spite of Maurice's occupations, they had time for several
long and very interesting conversations.

In the first of these, which had begun upon some indifferent subject,
Bella surprised Maurice by alluding, quite calmly and simply, to the
imprisonment of the unfortunate Indian, Lucia's father. He had naturally
supposed that a subject so closely connected with her own misfortunes
would have been too deeply painful to be a permitted one, and had,
therefore, with care, avoided all allusion to it. In this, however, he
did not do her full justice. The truth was, that in her deep interest in
the Costellos, she had quietly forced herself to think and speak of the
whole train of events which affected them, without dwelling on its
connection with her own story. She never spoke of her husband--her
self-command was not yet strong enough for that--nor of Clarkson; but of
Christian, as the victim of a false accusation, she talked to Maurice
without hesitation.

Up to that time there had been no very vivid idea in his mind either of
Christian himself, or of the way in which he had spent the months of his
imprisonment, and finally died. Indeed, in the constant change and
current of nearer interests, he had thought little, after the first,
about this unknown father of his beloved. He had considered the matter
until it led him just so far as to make up his mind, quite easily and
without evidence, that Clarkson was probably the murderer, and that
Christian, whether innocent or guilty, was not to be allowed to separate
him from Lucia, and then, after that point, he ceased to think of
Christian at all. But now, he received from Bella th