She wondered at herself now, as others had wondered at her; but she still justified herself: "He was my brother--my dearest friend.

_He_," and this time she did not mean Maurice, "was the first person who ever put any other ideas into my head.

And I have lost them both." But already the true love had so far gained its rights, that it was Maurice, far more than Percy, of whose loss she thought.

Once that night, when she had sat quite without moving for a long time, and when her meditations had grown more and more dreary, she suddenly raised her hand, and her ring flashed out in the gloom.

By some instinct she put it to her lips; it seemed to her a symbol of regard and protecting care, which comforted her strangely.
When the night was past, and Claudine came early in the morning to take Lucia's place, Mrs.Costello still slept; and the poor child, quite worn out--pale and shivering in the cold dawn--was glad to creep away to bed, and to her heavy but troubled slumber.
All that day the house was kept silent and shut up.