"Lucy!" she heard Aunt Comstock exclaim.
Mr. Laud had no words. He looked truly pitiful as his long, rather dirty fingers sought the tablecloth. Then he laughed.
"Why, Lucy, dear," he said. "What do you mean?"
"I mean just what I've said," she answered. "We mustn't marry. It would be wicked, because I don't love you. I knew from the first that I didn't, but I had had no experience. I thought you must all know better. I don't love you, and I never, never will."
"Lucy!" Aunt Comstock had risen. Lucy had the odd feeling that her aunt had known that this moment would come, and had been waiting with eager anticipation for it. "Do you know what you've said? But you can't know. You're out of your mind, you wicked girl. Here's Mr. Laud come all the way from Yorkshire, by night too, just to be with you for a day or two, and you receive him like this. Why, it was only last night that you told me that you wished he would come—and now! You must be out of your mind!"
"I'm not out of my mind," said Lucy, "and I'm sure Simon wouldn't wish me to marry him if I didn't love him."
"Did she really say that last night, Mrs. Comstock?" said Mr. Laud.
"Indeed she did."
"Only last night?"
"Only last night."