Barbara knelt down by the distracted girl, and put her arms round her.
"What is wrong with Joel?" she asked softly.
"He's dying, oh God, he's dying, and I'm not there to bid him good-bye."
Then, amid sobs, she told her sister all that she knew, about the way Joel and Peter had wrestled, and how Joel had strained himself and broken a blood-vessel. He was now lying at the Shepherd's Rest, attended by Timothy Hadwin and her husband. Peter had sent her word that he could not get home that night.
"I'll never forgive Peter," wept Lucy. "He oughtn't to have wrestled. He knows I hate wrestling. I've always hated it. Perhaps I knew at the back of my mind it would some day bring trouble to me."
"This is childish, Lucy," said Barbara, with a note of revolt in her voice. She scorned her sister for preferring Joel to Peter. Joel had nothing to recommend him save his physical perfection, and his old name. His claim to sympathy, his affectionate nature, had never touched her, so she failed to realise their effect on Lucy. If Peter had been her husband, she would have found a glory in loving where duty pointed. Alas, duty bade her pluck out her love and cast it from her.
Barbara had known for a long time that her sister was not happy. There was less simplicity in her manners than of old, less desire to please, and much less concern about her fine clothes and good looks. That she was nursing vain regrets Barbara needed no telling to know, and she had hoped often that Joel would not return. Providence had willed it otherwise. For the stricken creature nothing remained but to turn its face from temptation, and follow the straight and narrow way, with grace if possible, at all costs with determination. But Lucy had no intention of keeping to so strict a path.
"Come," she said.
Barbara rose slowly from her knees. She knew that Lucy must not go. She went to the doorway, and stood for a moment looking out. The night was dark with clouds, and wind came shuffling over the grass at fitful intervals. Now and again she heard the tinkle of waves breaking on the shores of Swirtle Tarn; near at hand a sheep called, and was answered by another and yet another, till the mournful bleat of the most distant member of the flock died upon her ear.
Lucy stared at her sister's back. She did not get off her stool for, impulsive and excited as she was, stubborn too at times, she read something in Barbara's pose that kept her silent. The firelight lit up the shining hair pleated round the fine large head; one lock had become loose and hung down upon her shoulder. She looked like a tower of strength to the fearful heart, but to the antagonist she was a fortress that no assault could take.