"A pretty sort of fellow she must think me, after all," he said to himself.
"I suppose she'd be afraid to trust Lucia to me now.

However, if she thinks I mean to be beaten that way, she'll find that she is mistaken." He was walking up and down his room, and working himself up into a greater ill-humour with every turn he made.
"If I could only get to Lucia herself," he went on thinking, "I should see if I could not end the matter at once, one way or the other--that fellow is clear out of the way now, and I believe I should have a chance; but as for Mrs.Costello, she seems to think nothing at all of throwing me over whenever it suits her." Poor Maurice! he sat down to write to his father in a miserable mood--Mr.Beresford had become suddenly and decidedly worse.

The doctors said positively that he was dying, and that a few days at the utmost would bring the end.

Maurice had stolen away while he slept, but his angry meditation on Mrs.Costello's desertion had taken up so much of his time, that Mr.Leigh's note was short and hurried.

Ill-humour prevailed also to the point of the note being finished without any message (he had no time to write separately) to the Cottage.
His packet despatched, he returned to his grandfather's room.