Maurice had full opportunity for the exercise of patience during the last weeks of his grandfather's life. It was hard to sit there day after day watching the half-conscious old man, who lay so still and seemed so shut out from human feelings or sympathies, and to feel all the while that any one of those hours of vigil might be the one that stole from him his heart's desire. Yet there was no alternative. His grandfather, who had received and adopted him, was suffering and solitary, dependent wholly on him for what small gratification he could still enjoy. Gratitude, therefore, and duty kept him here. But there, meanwhile, so far out of his reach, what might be going on? He lived a perfectly double life. Lucia was in trouble—some inexplicable shadow of disgrace was threatening her—something so grave that even her mother, who knew him so well, thought it an unsurmountable barrier between them—something which looked the more awful from its vagueness and mystery. It is true that he was only troubled—not discouraged by the appearance of this phantom. He was as ready to fight for his Una as ever was Redcross Knight—but then would his Una wait for him? To be forcibly held back from the combat must have been much worse to a true champion than any wounds he could receive in fair fight. So at least it seemed to Maurice, secretly chafing, and then bitterly reproaching himself for his impatience; yet the next moment growing as impatient as before.
To him in this mood came Mrs. Costello's last letter. Now at last the mystery was cleared up, and its impalpable shape reduced to a positive and ugly reality. Like his father, Maurice found no small difficulty in understanding and believing the story told to him. That Mrs. Costello, calm, gentle, and just touched with a quiet stateliness, as he had always known her, could ever have been an impulsive, romantic girl, so swayed by passion or by flattery as to have left her father's house and all the protecting restraints of her English life to follow the fortunes of an Indian, was an idea so startling that he could not at once accept it for truth. In Lucia the incongruity struck him less. Her beauty, dark and magnificent, her fearless nature, her slender erect shape, her free and graceful movements—all the charms which he had by heart, suited an Indian origin. He could readily imagine her the daughter of a chief and a hero. But this was not what he was required to believe. He had read lately the description of a brutal, half-imbecile savage, who had committed a peculiarly frightful and revolting murder, and he was told to recognize in this wretch the father of his darling. But it was just this which saved him. He would believe that Christian was Mrs. Costello's husband and Lucia's father, because Mrs. Costello told him so herself and of her own knowledge—but as for a murder, innocent men were often accused of that; and when a man is once accused by the popular voice of a horrible crime, everybody knows how freely appropriate qualities can be bestowed on him. So the conviction which remained at the bottom of Maurice's mind, though he never drew it up and looked steadily at it, was just the truth—that Christian, by some train of circumstances or other, had been made to bear the weight of another person's guilt. As to the other question of his giving up Lucia, Maurice never troubled himself to think about it. He was, it must be confessed, of a singularly obstinate disposition, and in spite of his legal training not particularly inclined to listen to reason. Knowing therefore perfectly well, that he had made up his mind to marry Lucia, provided she did not deliberately prefer somebody else, he felt it useless to complicate his already confused ideas any further, by taking into consideration the expediency of such a connection. There was quite enough to worry him without that; and by some inconceivable stupidity it never entered his head that, while he was really so completely incapable of altering his mind, other people should seriously think he was doing it.
Yet as he read Mrs. Costello's letter over a second time, he began to perceive something in its tone which seemed to say clearly—"Don't flatter yourself that the matter rests at all with you. I have decided. I am no longer your ally, but your opponent." At this a new element came into play—anger.
He had been rather unreasonable before—now he became utterly so. "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. Lady Dighton, now staying in the house, sat and watched by the bedside; and by-and-by leaving her post, she joined Maurice by the window and began to talk to him in a low voice. There was no fear of disturbing the invalid; his sleep continued, deep and lethargic, the near forerunner of death.
"Maurice," Lady Dighton said, "I wish you would go out for an hour. You are not really wanted here, and you look worn out."
"Thank you, I am all right. My grandfather might wake and miss me."