Next morning at breakfast she told Lucia what she had done, saying simply that she preferred writing to Maurice, to leaving him to find out the truth by more indirect means; and added that she intended going at once to Mr. Leigh's and making him her first confidant in Cacouna. Lucia could only assent. Somebody must be the first to hear the story, and who so fit as their old and dear friend?
"If Maurice were but here!" she said, with a sigh, "he would be such a comfort, I know, for nothing would make any change in him."
Mrs. Costello echoed the sigh, but not the wish.
"If he will but stay away!" she thought, and said nothing.
She put on her bonnet as soon as breakfast was over, and walked slowly up the lane to the farmhouse. Lucia watched her anxiously, and many times during the next two hours went to the windows to see if she were returning, but it was after twelve before she came, and then she looked pale and exhausted from the morning's excitement.
She lay down, however, at Lucia's entreaty, and by-and-by began to tell her what had passed.
In the first place Mr. Leigh had been utterly astonished. Through all the years of their acquaintance the secret had been so well kept that he had never had the smallest suspicion of it. Like all the rest of her neighbours he had supposed Mrs. Costello a widow, whose married life had been too unhappy for her to care to speak of it. The idea that this dead husband was a Spaniard had arisen in the first place from Lucia's dark complexion and black hair and eyes, as well as from the name her mother had assumed; it had been, in fact, simply a fancy of the Cacouna people, and no part of Mrs. Costello's original plan of concealment. It had come, however, to be as firmly believed as if it had been ever so strongly asserted, and had no doubt helped to save much questioning and many remarks.
All these ideas, firmly rooted in Mr. Leigh's mind, had taken some little time to weed out; but when he heard and understood the truth, it never occurred to him to question for a moment the wisdom or propriety of her flight from her husband or of the means she had taken to remain safe from him. He thought the part of a friend was to sympathize and help, not to criticize, and after a few minutes' consideration as to how help could best be offered, he asked whether she intended that very day to claim her rightful post as Christian's nurse.
"I did intend to do so," she answered, "but for two or three reasons I think I had perhaps better wait until to-morrow. Mr. Strafford may possibly be here then."
"You will be glad to have him with you," Mr. Leigh answered, "but it seems to me that an old neighbour who has seen you every day for years, might not be out of place there too. Will you let me go with you to the jail?"