When Mrs.Costello had approved of it, she wrote a few words more.
"I want to ask you to forgive me.

I don't deserve it, but I am so unhappy.
"Yours affectionately, "LUCIA." She hesitated a little how to sign herself, but finally wrote just what she had been accustomed to put to all her little notes written to Maurice during his absences from Cacouna in the old days.
When the letter had been sealed and sent off by Madame Everaert's servant to the post-office, they began to feel that all they could do for the present was done.

Mrs.Costello lay still on her sofa, without having strength or energy to talk, and Lucia took her never-finished crochet, and sat in her old place by the window.
But very soon it grew too dark to work.

The Place was lighted, and alive with people passing to and fro.

The windows of the guard house opposite were brilliant, and from those of a cafe on the same side as Madame Everaert's there shone out, half across the square, a broad line of light.