"I own I've done wrong," he said with manly sincerity. "I was mad. Life has made me mad. It has frustrated all my hopes; it has put all its bad eggs into my basket. I lost my head in a weak moment. But that's over now. I shall not stumble again. If you've any heart to understand a man, you'll let me go now and ask no more."

His appeal touched Mistress Lynn to the quick. She wiped her brow, and hid her trembling old mouth with the edge of the sheet.

That ancient love which could not go out, though it might suffer an eclipse, began to shine again, and slowly illuminated her features, like an inner light. A cry that came from the soul had power to stir her.

Deep called unto deep.

The door opened and Barbara entered. She had heard the voices, and come down to learn the meaning of them. A shepherd's plaid of black and white check was thrown over her shoulders, and her hair hung in a glistening ma.s.s. The clearness of her face was like the coming of moonlight out of clouds. She stood on the threshold, looking from Joel to the old woman, then closing the door, moved to the four-poster.

"Dost need me, great-granny?" she asked.

Barbara's sudden entrance into that intense atmosphere caused a change to work among the elements, just as a wind rising on a sultry day, may mean the coming of storm, or the freshening of the weather.

Joel was not sure whether to be glad or sorry. He looked at her in awe as a benighted traveller might look at a snow peak, which the rising moon all at once revealed towering overhead. He felt himself to be little better than a clod of earth in her presence.

To her great-grandmother Barbara's coming was a relief. The old woman had received a blow, and however bravely she might hide the wound, she could not stanch its inward bleeding. For once she was glad to shift responsibility from her own to younger shoulders.

"Sit thee down, Barbara," she said, "Joel's in sore trouble, and he has come to me. Very right and proper of him! For who else should he come to but his grandfather's old friend? Yet I don't ken what to do. Tell thy tale, my lad, but tell no more than a young la.s.s's ears may hear."

She shot a warning look at him under her s.h.a.ggy brows, and he understood that she meant to keep to herself the knowledge of his unworthy intentions. He thanked her by a grip of the hand, overwhelmed by the forbearance she showed, which was as unexpected as it was gracious in so masterful a soul. The meaning lay much deeper than he could probe. It lay in the foundations of her nature--foundations of goodness and love, although nearly a hundred years of building had raised over them a superstructure, grim and narrow.

He told his story. It was a story of adverse circ.u.mstances acting upon a mind too indolent to do battle with them. Barbara listened with interest and sympathy. Her life upon the mountains, her isolation,--for her character was little understood by those nearest and dearest to her--had made her a student of other people. She read their reasons and acts with a clearness of vision unusual in one of little worldly experience. But experience is not always knowledge. It was her own heart, with its possibilities for good and evil, her own nature, curbed on every side, that gave her insight into and understanding of life. Meditation had taught her to know herself, and so given her a key with which to open the secret doors of other souls.

She read Joel's mind. It lay before her like an open book. Written upon it was a tale of right desires and intentions, that had come to nought for lack of a will to guide them. He did not speak of his love for her sister, but she found it interwoven with the tale. She thought of Lucy as she had seen her but a little while ago, lying asleep, with her hair unbound, and her white arms thrown over the quilt, as pure a soul as breathed. Then she glanced at Joel, and recollected that the door of the wool-barn stood open, which she had shut before going to bed. Though she could not follow that clue through all its phases, she read enough to waken suspicions. This man, with the fine face and form, the dark, well-shapen eyes, but the irresolute mouth had won her sister's affection. And what did he propose to do with it? The protecting instinct was strong in Barbara; it rose up like that of a lioness to stand between its young one and danger. Though she was only a year older than Lucy, in power to endure she was as a beech tree to the wind-flower at its foot.

She pitied Joel, she had a warm place in her heart for him; she had seen him do many a kind action; his generosity and improvidence had largely added to his present desperate condition; but her sympathy was tempered with severity. There is no severity colder and more relentless than that of the young.

"You must go away, Joel," she said, for she knew that there was not any hope for him unless he could cut himself adrift from his companions--those young men who wasted their substance with riotous living.

"Go away?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, away, abroad, out into the world, where chances and plenty wait for men, great chances. Life will lie before you there, Joel, and you can make it something better than you've made it here."

"Away!" he repeated in astonishment. Was this girl proposing to settle his plans for him? He glanced at her haughtily. He had never thought of going away, and he would not think of it now, unless something good appeared to be in store. Hitherto his world had been bounded by Forest Hall and Lucy Lynn, and that which lay beyond was uncoloured by his imagination. He did not desire a wider sphere of action.

"You've got your feet in a bog, Joel," continued Barbara, "and you'll go down till your soo'red in it, unless you walk another way. Great-granny, give him money and send him abroad--to America--where the bulls and rams go, and men make their fortunes...." She paused for a moment, then fixed her large blue eyes full upon his face--"and get strength to feed themselves on."

The old woman nodded her head. The idea pleased her. For his grandfather's sake she would do this thing, would part with some of her money, and give Joel a chance of making an honourable future for himself. Then he could come back, pay his debts, and live in a manner fitting the master of Forest Hall.

Joel looked at the faces of the two women confronting him. Their likeness to each other just now was marked. But upon the face of the great-grandmother he saw the ghost of a smile--a sad one it is true--but Barbara, young and glorious in her strength, was as inexorable as a judge. His heart sank. These two women held his future in their hands.

He was forced to recognise as much. From no one else could he get help save from them, and they would bestow it as they thought fit. If he refused to accept it, then he must go and--drown.

They were like priestesses, demanding a sacrifice if he would be saved.

On the fells above High Fold rose a circle of upright stones surrounding a huge slab, which popular tradition said was a Druid's altar. Barbara and her aged kinswoman might be a reincarnation of that dark faith which demanded blood, human blood to appease its G.o.ds. He had sinned, they asked for his life as a recompense: and they meant to have it. If he went away, cut himself off from Forest Hall, Lucy and his friends, it would be like tearing out his heart.

"You must go, Joel," said Barbara.

Must he? He thought of the great roads of the world leading into the Unknown. He thought of them with distaste. He did not want adventure: he wanted money. He felt no thrill at the idea of fighting his way up to success; he was a gentleman, and all that he desired was the means to live as such. If he went it would be because he had no other hope.

That which he had before wished was now coming to pa.s.s. By the irony of fate he was being forced in a direction which he had no inclination to travel. He thought of Lucy sleeping in the room over the rafters--of her dusky hair, red lips, closed eyes--eyes so bright that he had often called them his guiding stars; must he leave them, leave all those charms that belonged to him, which she gave him freely and without stint?

"I'll go," he said suddenly, "I'll go, but I'll take Lucy with me."

"Lucy'll stay where she is," replied the old woman sharply.

Barbara strode forward, with a steady fire burning in her eyes, and an august lift of her head. She laid a firm hand on the young man's shoulder and made him look at her.

"Joel Hart," she said, "is your love a true love?"

"Before G.o.d, it is," he said solemnly.

"And you seek her happiness?"

"Above everything."

"Above your own, Joel?"

He did not answer for a moment. Barbara's glance, which never turned away from a sight until it had revealed all that she wanted to see, held him in a kind of mesmerism. Then he dropped his eyes; he could not lie in her face.

"I meant her no harm, I meant no wrong," he said bitterly. "But she's all I've got in the world to love me."

He would like to have spoken openly about his feelings, of his sense of Lucy's goodness and purity, of his readiness to die for her, of the glow she had shed upon his cold life. But he was tongue-tied, for Barbara had stripped his heart naked, and his own eyes condemned it.

He longed to get away from this stern judge. There seemed to be nothing more left for him to do but go away.

"You're both very kind," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "You mustn't be hurt that I can't thank you as I ought to-night. Perhaps I shall some day. I see it's better that I should leave the dale; for Lucy's sake, if not for mine. She's safe for me, Barbara. I'll leave her free, and never ask for word or token unless I can marry her."

Barbara unbarred the door, and he pa.s.sed out. It was a clear night, the summer stars were shining but faintly, as the dawn was not far off.

The girl was deeply moved. She could not know, it is true, that by forcing Joel to act in this way she was setting the seal to the tragedy of her own life. But she realised that the man was suffering, and that his sacrifice was a sacrifice indeed. Tears filled her eyes.

"Joel," she whispered, "this is your chance; hold fast to it, set your feet firm."

The night air cooled the heated brow of the man, and the dusk was a welcome curtain to his feelings. As he looked at Barbara, before going down the path to the gate, it seemed to him that her face was no longer that of the inexorable judge, but the face of a saint. He had been on the point of hating her--he would have hated her had his pa.s.sion not been spent, and left him too exhausted to feel any more. Now he again realised the greatness of her heart. He knew that come what might come to Barbara Lynn--the th.o.r.n.y crown and the roughest road--she would walk with just such an expression in her eyes as she had now. Her look met his and poured into him the fresh spirit of the mountains. He felt lifted up and renewed at the centre of his being.

"Heaven help me, Barbara," he said, standing bare-headed, "some day I'll come back for Lucy."

CHAPTER VIII

JOEL GOES AWAY

Lucy lay upon the fellside, face down in the gra.s.s, hidden by the bracken fronds. The sun was setting, and the mountains were suffused with a rosy haze. Over the roof of Forest Hall, on the other side of the dale, rooks were flying home.

About the rec.u.mbent figure pee-weeps wheeled, making a piteous calling, and the hill-pastures were tremulous with the bleating of sheep, for the flocks had just been shorn. But Lucy heeded neither sound nor sunset; the world about her seemed to be as silent and dark as her own soul.