vain to stop the tongues of her acquaintance. She could not do it; and
what she feared most, soon happened. Lucia came, in some way, to be
aware of what was going on, and this last pain, though so much lighter
than those she had already borne, seemed to break down all her pride at
once. In her own room that night she sat, hour after hour, in forlorn
wretchedness--her own familiar friends, the companions of her whole
life, were making her misery the subject of their careless gossip. They
knew nothing of the real wound which she had suffered, but they were
quite ready to inflict another; and the feeling of loneliness and
desertion which filled her heart at the thought was more bitter than all
that had gone before. She remembered Maurice, and wondered drearily
whether he too would have misjudged her; but for the moment even her
faith in him was shaken, and she turned from her thoughts of him without
comfort.

But this mood was too unnatural to last long. Before morning her courage
had returned, and her strong impulse and desire was to show how little
she felt the very sting which was really torturing her. She stood long
before her glass that morning. The face which had grown hateful to
herself was still beautiful to others. She studied it in every line. She
wanted to see what there could be in it to give people the idea of
love-sickness. She wanted to force back into it the old light and
gaiety. Impossible! With a shudder she covered it with her hands. Never
again could she be a child. She had passed through the storm, and must
bear its traces henceforward. But, at least, it had been the thunderbolt
of heaven, and not the hand of man, which had wounded her. Her very
sorrow was sacred. She lifted up her head again, and saw that there was
a calm upon her face, which was better than pride. Instinctively she
knew that none but idiots could look at her with contempt, or the pity
which is so near it; and she went out into her little world again, sad