But I'm talking nonsense, and frightening you."
A scared look came into her eyes. The afternoon was darkening, and it was high time that she should be getting home, if she did not want to be benighted upon the fells. She might lose her way unless she reached the Robber's Rake before dusk.
"Good-bye, Joel," she said, her voice trembling, not only with the emotion that the words called up—for she knew that whatever more was said, good-bye must be the last word uttered between them—but she was startled by the fierce face turned upon her.
"I told you we could not say it," he muttered.
"But we must: we can't do anything else."
"Speak the truth, Lucy, do you love Peter or me best?" He took her by the shoulders, so that she must face him. "I loved you first," he cried, "long before he did. You promised yourself to me. He has no right to you."
Joel's pent up hatred burst forth. It flowed from his lips like a venomous flood upon the shrinking head of the woman. Deeper than his love for her, so it seemed, ran his hate.
"Let me go," said Lucy, "you don't know what you are saying."
"Which of us do you love best?" he continued, taking no notice of her attempts to free herself. "If you say Peter, I'll throw you into the beck—its deep enough to drown you. But you love me best. I know it, I've always known it. Be brave, be strong, Lucy. I've got a horse waiting just beyond the dip in the road to take us away. We'll go away now, and before anyone can follow us we shall be on the seas."
He drew her along the pack-horse track in the direction that he indicated.