Barbara never dealt in vague reasonings, or tried to veil the face of denial to make it look less stern. She had called her own feelings of the morning by no condoning name, and she now turned to Lucy with firm lips and eyes.
"You must go home, Lucy," she said, "back to the mill-house, and wait there for Peter. He is kind, and will not keep you long in suspense, wondering whether Joel is alive or dead. If he lives you can have no place in his life; if he dies you can't help him on his way."
"I'll at least bid him good-bye. Don't waste any more breath on me. Barbara. I've made up my mind to go."
"Then you will blacken both your souls, and such stains won't wash out."
"What do you mean?" asked Lucy, turning her face away.
"You know what I mean. You're letting your mind run after a man that's not your husband. The Bible calls it by a black name, in thought as well as deed." Barbara lifted her sister's face between her hands, and looked at it for a moment. "Lucy," she continued, "you've always been proud of your fair skin and your white body, but that sort of mind, the mind you're letting yourself get, is ugly—ugly as a toad."
Lucy twisted herself away with repulsion.
"You've a bonny way of putting things," she replied haughtily, but her lips quivered. She abhorred toads. From being a child, the sight of them had filled her with loathing; they seemed too ugly to have been created. And now Barbara said her mind was becoming like one.
"You don't understand," she cried. "You're so high and mighty you couldn't love a man as I love Joel. If you did you'd find a kindlier name for it than saying it's like something that turns you sick to look at it."
Could she have seen her sister's face just then she would have been dumbfounded by the change that passed over it. Throat and cheek and chin became suffused with a passionate glow, and her lips quivered. But in a moment the flood sank back again, leaving her pale and weary-eyed.