As she watched him, she felt suddenly that she was passing through a fire. Her blood tingled, and her bosom heaved as though a wild thing there was struggling to be free.
Putting her mug down she got to her feet, afraid of her own mind. A flood of passionate feeling was surging through her, sweeping away her self-restraint, her common-sense, her respect for goodness, and her fear of wrong-doing.
She fled from the Meet, from Peter, from the seduction of her own desires and turned to Thundergay, because she trusted that its cold wind would beat out the flame, which had begun to burn in her soul. She was assailed by the Harpies, those malignant powers, who would snatch her away, if they could, and make her a slave, as they had snatched away the daughters of Pandaros in the old Greek fable.
But the Harpies were part of her own nature, and raged within her. Her self was warring against herself. She had met a fiend in her own soul, and she feared to do battle with it, where all things were favourable to its victory. But Thundergay was calm, solemn, always steadfast even in the midst of storm. So she sought the mountain solitude for help.
As she climbed up the narrow defile, the ground seemed to reel around her, and fall away from her feet. She stumbled, she was blinded, she was breathless, as though the steep ascent now made too great a demand upon her; but never before had her heart grown faint. Physically and mentally she was demoralised, as many a brave man has been before an unexpected foe.
The thing that had thus startled her was her love for Peter assuming a new and terrible aspect. For it had climbed down from its lofty seat, and gnashed its teeth at circumstance, demanding its rights. Why should it live in icy silence? Why should it not give and receive as others gave and received?
She was full of bitterness and questioning. The everlasting 'why' was written on her life; not only on her life, but on all things; she could not dissociate herself from her world. "Why" ran across the sky in flaring letters; "why" was engraven on rock, fell, and dale. Why was anything?
Life should be full and radiant, not stifled and stunted. It should have room to grow, and develop its manifold beauties. But her life, if she cut her love for Peter out of it, would taste like dust and ashes in her mouth. She wanted Peter; her arms wanted him; her heart wanted him. She desired to cherish the beloved one, who was not cherished by his own wife.
This was the thought which caused her so much bitterness. Lucy did not love Peter; Barbara had learnt, as the years passed, why her sister had married him. Lucy had deliberately taken something which she had soon ceased to value, but no one else had the right to treasure that which she had cast aside.
With clearer air and the silence of the mountain, calmer thoughts came. She strove to hold to the belief that life was worth having, even when it meant the denial of its keenest desires. She scorned the weakness of her own nature, which made her cry so passionately for something that she knew she could never have. She had dallied too long with an importunate master; to-day she must conquer it, and make such an assault impossible again.