She saw herself sitting in the school-room, reading these books, feeding her hungry mind upon the feast that they spread for her. But they were all associated with Peter, she had read them in the light of his mind, he had shared them with her. She could not look at them without, at the same time, seeing the face of her dearly-loved master.
Then she saw herself growing old, with haunted eyes, with disappointed heart, longing for that which could never be, and soured by the denial.
Then she saw herself as she meant to be. She was free, because her own soul's master. She was full, because she had renounced; she loved still, but with no desire for recompense, no thought of return, giving out perpetually like the sun, but not receiving.
To attain such a height she must cut off her right hand and pluck out her right eye. She must set her face firmly in the direction she meant to go. It would be a road of toil, loneliness, sacrifice. She must never cast so much as a glance at that other path, with all its alluring lights and gorgeous flowers, which yet smelt of death.
She lifted the books one by one, and laid them on the fire. The white pages grew luminous, the black letters grew blacker, a splash, like blood, blotted them out; they rolled up like a scroll and fell to ashes.
Peter Fleming came to the cave on his way home; for he saw the light. Joel was better, and as Timothy was remaining behind at the Shepherd's Rest with him, there was no reason why he should stay.
Barbara did not hear the shuffle of his feet on the grass; and unknown to her he was a witness to her action of burning her books. He stood for a moment, hesitated whether to speak, then stole away, as though he had been prying into a secret chamber that his eyes had no right to see.
He knew that Barbara would come no more to the night-school. He understood her reasons, and bitterly reproached himself for the sorrow that he had brought upon her. He thought of her fine soul and deplored the narrowing and stifling of her intellect, that must follow this deliberate cutting off of herself from such sources of life.
Yet he felt exalted too. In spite of all, he was lifted up by the knowledge of her strength. She seemed to rise and fill the night with her spreading hair, and wide blue eyes, an embodiment of the power of love, which holds all human hearts in the hollow of its immortal hands.