CHAPTER VII.
When Lucia awoke next morning, her first thought was of Maurice--what should she do without him?
She rose and dressed hastily, fancying that at any moment he might come in, and anxious to lengthen, by every means, the time of their nearness to each other.
Maurice, however, though he looked wishfully at the Cottage as he went about his preparations, had too many things to think of and arrange, to steal a moment for the indulgence of his inclinations until afternoon, and she was obliged to wait with such patience as she could for his coming.

He had told Mrs.Costello that it would be needful for him to spend two or three hours in Cacouna, and asked her to see his father in the meantime.

Thus, in the afternoon, Lucia was for a considerable time quite alone.
Mrs.Costello, meanwhile, with more than friendly sympathy, heard from Mr.Leigh his reasons for urging upon Maurice this hasty departure, and cheered him with anticipations of his speedy return.

They consulted over, and completed together, some last preparations for his voyage; and while they felt almost equally the trial of parting with him, the grief of each was a kind of solace to the other.

For, in fact, whatever they might say, neither regarded this journey as an ordinary one, or thought that the return they spoke of would be what they tried to imagine it.
Mr.Leigh, believing that his strength was really failing more and more, hastened his son's departure, that the voyage might be made before his increasing weakness should set it aside; his parting from Maurice, therefore, he dreaded as a final one.