He held her hand for a moment.
"I don't understand," he repeated; "but I can't give you up so readily.
Think over all this again, and if you find that you have decided too hastily, send me one line to say so; but it must be to-day.

If I hear nothing from you, I shall leave Cacouna to-morrow." "Yes," she answered passively.

"Good-bye." "Good-bye." She stood without moving until the sound of the gate assured her that he was gone; then she sank down on the floor, not fainting nor weeping, but utterly exhausted.

There her mother found her in a strange, heavy stupor, beyond tears or thought, and lifted her up, and made her lie down on her bed, where she fell into a heavy sleep, and woke in a new world, where everything seemed cold and dark, because hope and love had left her when she entered it.
Mr.Percy went back to Cacouna in greater perplexity than he had left it; nay, not merely in perplexity, but in real pain and mortification.
If he had not seen plainly that Lucia was suffering bitterly, he would have been much more angry and less sorry; but, as it was, the whole thing was a mystery.

Somehow he was very slow to believe that disgrace--any disgrace he could comprehend--really attached to her; his first idea, that she was making a great matter out of some trifle or mistake, had not yet left him, and he wished heartily that he could get at the truth, and see whether it was the insuperable obstacle she fancied it.