Barbara Lynn Part 37

"Well," she inquired at last, "am I like it or have I changed?"

"The same, the same, yet not the same. There's a firmer line about your mouth than you could draw round it in the old days."

"Age should bring wisdom, should it not?" She sighed and then continued.

"But I'm afraid I don't learn and grow wise."

"I know who put that line there," he said sharply.

She looked up, surprised.

"It was Barbara, Barbara, d.a.m.n her, the night she prevented you coming to see me."

She winced and rose to her feet. He saw that he had made a mistake, and drew her gently to his side.

"Oh, Lucy, Lucy," he cried suddenly, "I'm beside myself. I can't live without you any longer. I'm mad I know; but I want you, I want you as a man never wanted a woman before. We were born for each other, you can't deny it. Come away with me. We'll go and make happiness for ourselves in a corner of the earth, where no one will ever seek us."

He put his arms round her, and she only half resisted, though she said:

"But, oh, Joel, you forget that I'm another man's wife."

"I don't forget it. The fact's there; but we'll disregard it. We'll go away, now, at once...."

She tore herself suddenly from him as though his embrace stung her.

"What am I doing? What are you saying? Oh, Joel, we cannot...."

It was not till then that she realised her position. She loved this man, and, though she had married Peter Fleming, his image had floated before her mind through all the years of his absence, and she had often regretted that she had not waited for him. His return had excited her; she liked his admiration and his caresses, and, at their last meeting, she had let her feelings have their way. She had been full of thoughts of that which might have been. But she had never intended being seriously disloyal to her husband. She had come to see Joel, so she told herself, merely to bid him good-bye; to tell him that they must not meet again; and to say that she hoped he would be happy. Now she was aghast at the place where her actions had brought her. Go off with Joel? She could not dream of such a thing! He was an honourable man, only over-wrought by his love for her. He could never really think of taking her away.

"Be brave, Lucy," he said.

"I must leave you. We must part."

"Be true to yourself, Lucy."

"I should loathe myself if I did as you asked."

"You love me, my dear."

"But I'm Peter's wife."

"Peter can get another, and you shall have me for a husband."

"It can't be, Joel. We must say good-bye. I only came to say good-bye."

"We'll both say good-bye--to High Fold and Boar Dale--we'll say it together, and go away."

She drew back to the furthest corner of their retreat, and stared at him.

"Do you know what you are asking me to do?" she said, scarcely above a whisper.

"I've thought it all out; I've planned it."

"But I cannot go away with you."

"You love me," he repeated triumphantly.

"I did once," she cried, "but I'm afraid of you now. Peter would never ask a woman to do what you are asking me, no matter how much he cared for her."

Joel moved to the entrance, and stood with his back to her for a moment.

The clouds were darker, the fellside more stern, the foam of the beck whiter in the waning light. But the outlook was not so wild as the picture which he saw within himself, when he turned the eye of his mind upon it.

Man never grasps the significance of his own thoughts. They cross and recross, and deal with each other often apart from his direct consciousness, and that which he has to accept is their conclusion.

Hope and despair, hate and honour--all these had filled Joel's brain, had joined forces or fought--as the case might be--and now he saw it strewn with the remains of war, where one figure stalked, and its name was hate. Then a faint light glimmered down, and he was aware of the star of love still shining overhead. There was commotion in his mind.

Hate menaced the star but could not put it out.

Turning to Lucy, he said:

"Must it be good-bye?"

Her lips quivered and she nodded.

"It's a little word," he replied, "and very ill to say. I'll not say it.

If you go ... but you'll not go. Think of me, Lucy. Give a thought to the loneliness of my life. Remember how I worked to get rich for your sake. That bit of gold--have you got it?" She made a movement of a.s.sent.

"We'll still have it made into a ring, and you shall wear it. You're mine in heart. Why should you be afraid to trust yourself to me? I'll take care of you, Lucy. You shall be happy, you shall be rich. You shall have everything you want, if you'll only put yourself into my keeping."

"You might give me all these things," she whispered, "but you don't understand, Joel. I should have the mind of a ... I should be like a toad. Barbara said so."

"I knew it was Barbara, who had changed your feelings towards me," he bitterly replied.

"I do think of you," she said, "I know you will be sad and lonely. So shall I be. You do not think of me, Joel."

He looked moodily through the gathering gloom.

"The day is nearly over," he muttered, "and we have made little use of it. For days I've been wanting to see you, wondering how I could bring you to the Girdlestone. Now you bid us part, and forever. Well, let us go. The sooner good-bye is said the better ... if it must be said."

They went down the brae to the stream, which they crossed by a bridge.

The long, withered branches of a wild rose draggled in the rushing water, catching hold of the flotsam that the swift current brought down, and tangling it into a mat of twigs, leaves and sheepswool.

The roar of the beck seemed to give Lucy confidence. She wiped her tears, tried to smile bravely into the gloomy face of the man by her side, and gently touched his arm.

"You'll find someone much handsomer and better than me, Joel, to be your wife."

He shrugged his shoulders, and made no reply.

"I've been like yon briar," she said in an undertone, "letting myself draggle in a torrent, and holding on to all the regrets and disappointments it's brought me. But now I'll shake them off. From to-day, this hour, I'll lift myself up and hope that a green and blooming time will come for you as well as me."