Since Joel went away life had dragged for her. Drudgery had become her lot, unlightened by any pleasant experience, or made bearable by hope. She ate her bread with tears. She was glad when each day dawned, and thankful when each day died. She longed for change, any change that would break the monotony of her existence. She was weary of living, although so young. Yet she did not desire death. All that she wanted was to fall asleep, and waken up with the thread of her old life cut, and the possibility of a new life before her. To go on and on, year after year, always following the same humdrum path was a contingency, which she could not contemplate without despair. She had striven to put Joel's image out of her mind. He had written once, but his letter was superficial, and she believed that he had ceased to care for her. Regret that the past was past drove her to spend many a night in weeping. If she could, willingly she would have forgotten him; but she was unable to forget.
Some days later as Lucy was walking through Cringel Forest she saw Peter sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree near the school-house. He did not hear her approach, and she had been watching him with gradually brightening eyes for a few moments before he felt their influence. Then he rose with a laugh; but it was not as spontaneous and merry as it used to be.
"You're welcome back, Peter," said Lucy. "The dale is very dull without you."
"Is that so?" he replied, taking her hand, and looking affectionately into her face.
"Even great-granny smiled when she heard you were back. 'Tell him to come to Greystones,' she said, 'and bring his dancing bear with him. I want waking up.'"
"Well," he answered, with a faint note of sarcasm in his voice, "it's some compensation for giving up your heart's desire to fill the role of merry-andrew with satisfaction."
"Didn't you want to come back, Peter?"
"I was just thinking when I saw you, how duty, and affection and inclination get mixed up and twisted into a knot in a man's soul."
"In a woman's too," she replied.
He looked at her. There was a pensiveness in her face that attracted him. It had lost the inconsequence of childhood, and taken on the maturity of the woman. She was less vivacious, but there was a sympathetic glow in her sweet eyes. He saw all this at a glance; she was not like Barbara, who hid her feelings under a placid brow. Lucy lived and suffered in the eyes of the world. Peter had heard rumours of an attachment between her and Joel Hart, but as Joel had neither substance, nor—to a man's eyes—much character, he had paid little heed to them in the past. Now he wondered if Joel had treated her badly. Poor Lucy! she was far too good for him.