He continued to send her, once a week, a sheet full of persuasions and arguments which the moment they were written seemed unanswerable, and the moment they were despatched appeared puerile and worthless.

Still they came, with no other effect than that of making the recipient more and more unhappy, as she perceived how her own mistake had helped to increase Maurice's hopes, and to darken his life by their destruction.
One of these letters arrived on the very evening of Mrs.Costello's visit to the jail.

It was shorter and more hurried than usual, and spoke of Mr.Beresford being worse--so much worse that his granddaughter had been sent for hastily, and, as every one supposed, for the last time; but it was just as peremptory as any former one, in declaring that nothing could or should prevent the writer from seeking for, and finding Lucia wherever she might be, the moment he was free to leave England.
Mrs.Costello read this note with some uneasiness.

She saw that on the question which of two declining lives should waste fastest, much of the future now depended.

If death came first to the rich and well-born Englishman, in his stately house, Maurice would be set at liberty, and by his presence at Cacouna would add to her difficulties; if, to the miserable prisoner who had been for so many years her terror and disgrace, and was now thrown upon her care and pity, she should yet be able to fly with Lucia and hide herself, not now indeed from an enemy, but from too faithful a friend.
In the meantime, however, since she had decided to make her marriage known to all the little world of Cacouna, she began to feel that the Leighs, both father and son, had a right to have the truth simply and immediately from herself.