"I did once," she cried, "but I'm afraid of you now. Peter would never ask a woman to do what you are asking me, no matter how much he cared for her."
Joel moved to the entrance, and stood with his back to her for a moment. The clouds were darker, the fellside more stern, the foam of the beck whiter in the waning light. But the outlook was not so wild as the picture which he saw within himself, when he turned the eye of his mind upon it.
Man never grasps the significance of his own thoughts. They cross and recross, and deal with each other often apart from his direct consciousness, and that which he has to accept is their conclusion.
Hope and despair, hate and honour—all these had filled Joel's brain, had joined forces or fought—as the case might be—and now he saw it strewn with the remains of war, where one figure stalked, and its name was hate. Then a faint light glimmered down, and he was aware of the star of love still shining overhead. There was commotion in his mind. Hate menaced the star but could not put it out.
Turning to Lucy, he said:
"Must it be good-bye?"
Her lips quivered and she nodded.
"It's a little word," he replied, "and very ill to say. I'll not say it. If you go ... but you'll not go. Think of me, Lucy. Give a thought to the loneliness of my life. Remember how I worked to get rich for your sake. That bit of gold—have you got it?" She made a movement of assent. "We'll still have it made into a ring, and you shall wear it. You're mine in heart. Why should you be afraid to trust yourself to me? I'll take care of you, Lucy. You shall be happy, you shall be rich. You shall have everything you want, if you'll only put yourself into my keeping."
"You might give me all these things," she whispered, "but you don't understand, Joel. I should have the mind of a ... I should be like a toad. Barbara said so."
"I knew it was Barbara, who had changed your feelings towards me," he bitterly replied.