l, and an intimation that
it was better for all direct communication between them to cease with
this letter.

Next morning at breakfast she told Lucia what she had done, saying
simply that she preferred writing to Maurice, to leaving him to find out
the truth by more indirect means; and added that she intended going at
once to Mr. Leigh's and making him her first confidant in Cacouna. Lucia
could only assent. _Somebody_ must be the first to hear the story, and
who so fit as their old and dear friend?

"If Maurice were but here!" she said, with a sigh, "he would be such a
comfort, I know, for nothing would make any change in him."

Mrs. Costello echoed the sigh, but not the wish.

"If he will but stay away!" she thought, and said nothing.

She put on her bonnet as soon as breakfast was over, and walked slowly
up the lane to the farmhouse. Lucia watched her anxiously, and many
times during the next two hours went to the windows to see if she were
returning, but it was after twelve before she came, and then she looked
pale and exhausted from the morning's excitement.

She lay down, however, at Lucia's entreaty, and by-and-by began to tell
her what had passed.

In the first place Mr. Leigh had been utterly astonished. Through all
the years of their acquaintance the secret had been so well kept that
he had never had the smallest suspicion of it. Like all the rest of her
neighbours he had supposed Mrs. Costello a widow, whose married life had
been too unhappy for her to care to speak of it. The idea that this dead
husband was a Spaniard had arisen in the first place from Lucia's dark
complexion and black hair and eyes, as well as from the name her mother
had assumed; it had been, in fact, simply a fancy of the Cacouna people,
and no part of Mrs. Costello's original plan of concealment. It had
come, however, to be as firmly believed as if it had been ever so
strongly asserted, and had no doubt helped to save much questioning and
many remarks.

All these ideas, firmly rooted in Mr. Leigh's mind, had taken some
little time to weed out; but when he heard and understood the truth, it
never occurred to him to question for a moment the wisdom or propriety
of her flight from her husband or of the means she had taken to remain
safe from him. He thought the part of a friend was to sympathize and
help, not to criticize, and after a few minutes' consideration as to how
help could best be offered, he asked whether she intended th