“My uncle is right,” she said. “I have caused trouble and anxiety enough to you, and to all about me. Let me cause no more, Marian⁠—let Sir Percival decide.”

I remonstrated warmly, but nothing that I could say moved her.

“I am held to my engagement,” she replied; “I have broken with my old life. The evil day will not come the less surely because I put it off. No, Marian! once again my uncle is right. I have caused trouble enough and anxiety enough, and I will cause no more.”

She used to be pliability itself, but she was now inflexibly passive in her resignation⁠—I might almost say in her despair. Dearly as I love her, I should have been less pained if she had been violently agitated⁠—it was so shockingly unlike her natural character to see her as cold and insensible as I saw her now.