e ever
again be to them what he had been? far less, what she had hoped he might
be?

When Maurice returned, earlier than they expected, from the town, he
found them still together. Mrs. Costello soon rose to return home,
having seen to the last possible arrangement for the traveller's
comfort. He proposed to accompany her, and say good-bye to Lucia, and
they left the house together.

"I want to ask you to do me another kindness yet," he said, as soon as
they had left the house. "My father, I am sure, will not tell me the
truth about himself; he will be terribly lonely, and I am afraid of his
health suffering more than it has done. He thinks it a duty to my
mother, that I should go to England now; but it will certainly be my
duty to him to come back, at all risks, if he feels my being away as
much as I fear he will."

"You may at least depend upon one thing," she answered, "we will do all
we can to take care of him."

"Thank you, that I know. But, Mrs. Costello, I should be so glad if you
would write to me, and so give me the comfort of knowing exactly how he
is."

"Certainly I will. You shall have a regular bulletin every mail if you
like."

"Indeed, I should like it. And you will send me news also of yourself?"

Mrs. Costello sighed.

"I am forgetting," she said, "and making promises I may not be able to
keep. I do not know how long I may be here, or where I may be three
months hence."

Maurice looked at her in surprise. That she, who for twelve years had
never quitted her home for a single night, should speak thus of leaving
it without visible cause or preparation, seemed almost incredible.

She answered his look.

"Yes, I am serious. A dreadful trouble is threatening me, and to save
myself and Lucia, I may have to go away. No one knows anything of it.
Now that you are leaving us, I dare say so much to you."

"This, then, is why you have changed so, lately? Could not you have
trusted me before?"

"It would have been useless; no one can help me."

Her voice seemed changed and broken, and she had grown ashy pale in
alluding to the dreadful subject. Maurice could not bear to leave her in
this uncertainty.

"Dear Mrs. Costello," he said, "if you had a son you would let him share
your anxieties. I have so long been used to think of you almost as a
mother, that I feel as if I had a kind of right to your confidence; and
I cannot imagine any trouble in which you would be better without
friends than with