She had done all in her power to make their parting final.

How could she undo it now?
She did not dare even to speak to her mother of him, for she knew that on that one subject alone there had never been sympathy between them.

And she said to herself, too, deep in her own heart, that it must be a great love indeed which would be willing to take her--a poor, simple, half-Indian girl--and brave the world, and, above all, that terrible old earl and his pride, for her sake.
Still she dreamed and hoped, and set herself, meanwhile, all the more vigorously because of that hope, to "improve her mind." She picked up French wonderfully fast, having a tolerable foundation to go upon and a very quick ear, and she read and practised daily; beside learning various secrets of housekeeping, and attending her mother with the tenderest care.

But it was very lonely.

Lucia had never known what loneliness meant until those days when she sat by the window in the Champs Elysees and watched the busy perpetual stream of passers up and down--the movements of a world which was close round about, yet with which she had no one link of acquaintance or affection.