Lucia looked at her mother anxiously. She knew this sleep was good for the invalid, and yet it might last an hour, and how could she wait all that time for the thousand things she wanted to hear from Maurice? The door of their tiny salle à manger stood a little open.
"Come in here, then," she said, "we shall be able to see when she wakes—and I must talk to you."
Maurice followed obediently—this was better than his hopes, to have Lucia all to himself for the first half hour. She made him sit down in such a manner that he could not be seen by Mrs. Costello, while she herself could see through the open door and watch for her mother's waking.
"And now tell me," she asked, "have you been back to Canada?"
"I started the moment I could leave England after my grandfather's death, but when I reached Cacouna you were gone."
"Dear old home! I suppose all looked just as usual?"
"Nothing looked as usual to me. As I came up the river I saw that the cottage was deserted, and that changed all the rest. But indeed I had had a tolerable certainty before that you were gone."
"How?"
"Do you remember meeting a Cunard steamer two days out at sea?"
"You were on board? How I strained my eyes to see if I could distinguish you!"