ort."

"You need not. Mamma approves of what I say. Indeed, I cannot bear any
more. Let me go. Good-bye."

She was growing of a more deathly paleness every moment, and the hand
she offered him was cold as ice.

"Good-bye, then," he replied. "I am to consider all the past as a
pleasant dream, am I?"

She raised her heavy, aching eyes to his face. His reproaches, if he had
any to make, died away before that look, which betrayed endurance, taxed
to the utmost--a burden on her own heart far heavier than that she laid
on his. 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. He thought Mrs. Bellairs might help him in solving the
question. He knew quite well that she was not particularly pleased with
his attentions to Lucia, but she was both sensible and kind-hearted,
and, when she knew how far matters had gone, he did not doubt that she
would do what she could to save them both from a painful
misunderstanding. But no sooner had he quickened his steps with the idea
of immediately seeking her advice, than he began to reflect that Lucia
had said she her