There was no tree ! There was no bridge of any kind over the brook ! Here was a predicament ! But before Lucinda could do more than despairingly ask herself what was to be done now , Romney answered -- not in words , but in deeds . He coolly picked Lucinda up in his arms , as if she had been a child instead of a full grown woman of no mean avoirdupois , and began to wade with her through the water . Lucinda gasped helplessly . She could not forbid him and she was so choked with rage over his presumption that she could not have spoken in any case . Then came the catastrophe . Romney 's foot slipped on a treacherous round stone -- there was a tremendous splash -- and Romney and Lucinda Penhallow were sitting down in the middle of Peter Penhallow 's brook . Lucinda was the first to regain her feet . About her clung in heart-breaking limpness the ruined voile . The remembrance of all her wrongs that night rushed over her soul , and her eyes blazed in the moonlight . Lucinda Penhallow had never been so angry in her life . `` YOU D -- D IDIOT ! '' she said , in a voice that literally shook with rage . Romney meekly scrambled up the bank after her . `` I 'm awfully sorry , Lucinda , '' he said , striving with uncertain success to keep a suspicious quiver of laughter out of his tone . `` It was wretchedly clumsy of me , but that pebble turned right under my foot . Please forgive me -- for that -- and for other things . '' Lucinda deigned no answer .
She stood XXXXX a flat stone and wrung the water from the poor green voile .
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