She said nothing to Lucia that evening on this subject, but after going to her room for the night, she sat down and wrote a very brief but clear explanation of her secret, for Maurice; adding only a few words of affectionate farewell, 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.