Lucia said so frankly, though she blushed at the confession; he had not needed to be told, and he had been so good! Mrs.Costello could have groaned aloud.

It needed an effort to keep still, and not express the anger and impatience she felt.

Maurice! Maurice, who was worth fifty Percys! Maurice, who was devoted heart and soul to this girl; who had been content to love her and wait for her, through good and evil fortune, through change and absence and silence, and, after all, she had no feeling for him but this heartless kind of gratitude! Because at the very last, when he had thought her certainly his own, he had endured, out of his great love, to see all his hopes swept away, and her grieving for his rival; therefore he had just so much claim upon her--"He was so good!" There was little more said.

When once Lucia had told her story, and when Mrs.Costello had discovered that Maurice understood all, neither of them cared to talk on the subject.

They went to bed with a cloud between them, after all.