But Maria Clara was not thinking of that mother's sorrow, she was thinking of her own.

With her head hanging down over her breast and her hands resting on the floor she made the picture of a lily bent by the storm.

A future dreamed of and cherished for years, whose illusions, born in infancy and grown strong throughout youth, had given form to the very fibers of her being, to be wiped away now from her mind and heart by a single word! It was enough to stop the beating of one and to deprive the other of reason.
Maria Clara was a loving daughter as well as a good and pious Christian, so it was not the excommunication alone that terrified her, but the command and the ominous calmness of her father demanding the sacrifice of her love.

Now she felt the whole force of that affection which until this moment she had hardly suspected.

It had been like a river gliding along peacefully with its banks carpeted by fragrant flowers and its bed covered with fine sand, so that the wind hardly ruffled its current as it moved along, seeming hardly to flow at all; but suddenly its bed becomes narrower, sharp stones block the way, hoary logs fall across it forming a barrier--then the stream rises and roars with its waves boiling and scattering clouds of foam, it beats against the rocks and rushes into the abyss! She wanted to pray, but who in despair can pray?
Prayers are for the hours of hope, and when in the absence of this we turn to God it is only with complaints.