"I suppose I do," Mrs. Costello answered slowly. "You mean that when we take him back, we should not seem to be ashamed of him?"
Lucia hid her face against her mother's dress.
"Oh! mamma, is it wrong to talk so? He is my father after all, and it seems so dreadful; but indeed I shall try to behave like a daughter to him."
Yet even as she spoke, an irrepressible shudder crept over her with the sudden recollection of the only time she had seen the prodigal.
"My poor child!" and her mother's arm was passed tenderly round her, "it is just that I wish to spare you."
Lucia looked up steadily.
"But ought I to be spared, mother? It seems to me that my duty is just as plain as yours. Do not ask me to go away."
"I am half distracted, darling, between trying to think for you and for him. And perhaps all my thought for him may be useless."
"At least, think only of him for the present."
"If he should die before the trial?"