Lucy laughed, and pinned the rose-bud into his coat, reassured at his words. She was happy again, happy as a flower drinking in the dew. The beck sang of tranquillity; the trees were kindly souls, making a bower for him and her; the darkness was a soft green curtain shutting out the world and prying eyes.
They lingered a while without speaking—she thinking only of him, he distracted by his own thoughts. Then she went away.
He saw her go with a feeling of relief. Now he would have quietness in which to measure his intentions and understand himself. When the glimmer of her cotton frock had vanished up the path, he sat down to contemplation. He had not yet made up his mind what to do: he had deferred his decision—so he thought—until this moment, because he wished to face it squarely. He would not have his mind entrapped by some subtle move of the hand of chance. But he was only deceiving himself. In the silence of the copse, with the singing water to take the intensity off a silence which would have distracted him, he found that he had no decision to make. The contest had been fought in his innermost being by manœuvres which he was barely aware of. It had gone on, as it were, under cover of a veil that he had drawn between his consciousness and his nature.
Later on he walked back to Greystones. He still half-heartedly hoped that the door of the wool-barn would be barred, or that the dogs would announce his coming, and so make his projected plan impossible. But no one saw him, the latch lifted lightly—Barbara had not yet locked up for the night.
Waiting was tedious. His head swam with the heat, for he was obliged to hide himself under the fleeces: the blood sang in his ears, and throbbed at his wrists. Barbara passed with a candle, and shot to the bolts; darkness closed down. He flung off the coverings, and sank upon the wool-bales, nursing his chin. His heart began to beat like a hammer; he thought that someone would surely hear it.
The darkness danced. It was alive with threads of light wriggling past him into the corners of the barn. He began to wish that he had not come. To be sure he could unbolt the door, and slip away unseen and unheard. But then he would lose his chance. That which he really desired was some outside power to decide for him, either a voice audibly commanding, or a superhuman hand forcibly withholding him. But nothing of this kind happened. The way was smoothed. It seemed as though the powers above man had planned the enterprise, and were egging him on to fulfil it.
He wished that he had a light. The darkness was disconcerting with those wriggling streaks of fire. He heard the kitchen clock chiming the quarters and the half-hours, and when it struck twelve, he crept into the passage. He listened, but there was no sound within. Then he gently lifted the sneck and entered.
Mistress Lynn was just turning away from lighting a candle. She was sitting up in bed, and looked round at the sound. Their eyes met.
For a moment they stared at each other—the man confused, the old woman astonished, a look which swiftly turned to that expression of suspicion, with which she had regarded him earlier in the evening. Then she clasped her hands on her lap, and leaned back against the pillows.
"I's pleased to see thee, Joel Hart," she said. "Surely it's sommat pressing that's brought thee up to Greystones at this hour!"