"Heaven help me, Barbara," he said, standing bare-headed, "some day I'll come back for Lucy."
CHAPTER VIII
Joel Goes Away
Lucy lay upon the fellside, face down in the grass, hidden by the bracken fronds. The sun was setting, and the mountains were suffused with a rosy haze. Over the roof of Forest Hall, on the other side of the dale, rooks were flying home.
About the recumbent figure pee-weeps wheeled, making a piteous calling, and the hill-pastures were tremulous with the bleating of sheep, for the flocks had just been shorn. But Lucy heeded neither sound nor sunset; the world about her seemed to be as silent and dark as her own soul.
Joel had bidden her good-bye. To-morrow he was going away—and so far away: to America. Once she had not been able to think of parting without despair, but now she knew how willingly she would bear it, if they might only part as lovers. Joel stood firm. Her entreaties and tears had no effect; he was kind; he was also self-righteous. He had never meant to tie her to him, he said; he had no right to ask for her love, when he could not marry her; he had done her a great wrong; further wrong he would not do.
"When you've made your fortune, you'll come back, Joel?" she had whispered.
Then had descended upon him a sullen cloud. The exaltation, which he had felt in Barbara's presence, vanished; he no longer breathed the clear, invigorating air that had roused him to the strong resolve—"Heaven help me! I'll return for Lucy." He felt angry, because his hand had been forced, because his plans had miscarried, because he had put himself in the power of two women; and, looking at the drooping form of the girl whom he loved, though she was innocent, he felt glad that he had the power to hurt her.
"Back!" he had said, "back! Few that go away come back."