"Great-granny has been very generous—for her," said Lucy, as she bade Joel good-night in the copse below the house. "Fancy her giving you a whole sovereign! Doesn't it make you feel rich? I wish she'd give me one!"

"All in good time, Lucy, all in good time," he replied, mimicking the old woman's voice.

"She was sharp, wasn't she, when we hinted we'd like to have some of her money to spend now? But you're not as badly off as you say, eh, Joel?"

"I told you my luck was changing," he answered somewhat irritably, but he would not meet her eyes, for although it was too dark for them to see each other clearly, he fancied that she might be able to read his mind.

"I'm so glad, Joel, and—and great-granny's very old!" She was half afraid to utter words which implied a wish that she dared not express.

"She'll be older still before she dies," said he, then added as a second thought, "I shouldn't wonder if she buried us first. Death seems to forget the old folk sometimes, and to take the young instead."

Lucy turned away; tears rushed to her eyes; she forced them back.

What was wrong with Joel to-night? She had not seen him for a week, and had been longing to hear him say that he had missed her desperately. But he seemed to be preoccupied and answered her enquiries after his health in on off-hand manner; his bearing was no longer gay, but distant. Saying good-night she went back to Greystones.

Joel let her go with the customary embrace, but she felt no warmth in it. She was hurt at his indifference, and paused, when she reached the garden, to compose her features before meeting the eyes of her great-grandmother, who believed that she was in the dairy turning cheeses. She thought of his handsome face and form, and then her resentment sank. She dared not lose him; she could not contemplate a quarrel; if she entered the house now and shut the door upon her present feelings, she would be also shutting up sorrow in her heart. She wondered whether she were to blame: whether she had failed in sympathy and understanding. Perhaps she had been cold, and he was hurt as well as she.

Lucy plucked a half-opened rose and returned, meaning to run after him if he had gone home. But he was still standing in their meeting place, hidden by the trees.

"I couldn't leave you so, Joel," she murmured, twining her fingers in his. "I shouldn't sleep to-night if I thought you had any cause to be angry with me. Have I done aught amiss?"

He put his arms round her, roused to a show of affection by her voice. He cared for her deeply, but there were times when he found her love exacting, when he could not reach the heights whereon she stood. The fault lay in himself. It lay in his heart, which was so weighted by anxiety, that he often had not the energy to climb up beside her.

"Yes," he said with a return to his usual manner, "you've done one thing amiss—you've grown so deucedly pretty that you've left me neither a calm heart nor a clear head to manage my worldly affairs."

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 manoeuvres 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!"

He did not reply; endeavoured to meet her glance with one as lofty; failed miserably, and moved to the door, putting into his action a boldness which he did not feel.

"Sit down, lad," she said. "Come in, Joel. Thee needn't fear the old woman; she wunna bite."

Mistress Lynn smiled, but bitterly.

"I'm going," he replied, "good-night."

"Nay, nay, let's have a crack, Joel. Shut the door."

Her voice held him. He glanced at her, but could make nothing of that grim, inscrutable face. He did not know what to do. If he went away he would still have to give an explanation of this untimely visit; it seemed better to stay and face the difficulty now; invent a likely motive—if he could.

"It's late," he said, "hadn't we better wait for a more seasonable opportunity to have a crack?"

"What didst say?" she asked, putting her hand behind her ear. "I's getting deaf, lad, breaking up, losing my sight, and my hearing, and my wits, too, it seems. I's an old woman, Joel. How old art thou? Twenty-five! It's good to be twenty-five! It's a wise, pleasant age to be!"

Her voice was growing scornful.

"An age for sowing wild oats, and gathering apples off other folks trees, eh? Haven't you a word to say?" she continued. "Haven't you a reason to give for coming to see me? Lost thy tongue, hasta? Well, well, I's pleased and proud it's me you've come to see; me, the great-grandmother, and not one of the lasses upstairs. Step hither to the bedside, lad, till I see thee better."

Unable to understand the old woman's words, but hoping that his purpose might escape undetected, Joel did as she bade him, swaggering somewhat, and curtaining his real feelings with a smile.

She gripped him with her skinny hands.

"Oh, thee's a fine make of a man," she said, her voice changing; "thee's a man indeed, a handsome, pleasant-spoken young man and a virtuous one."

She shook him with her rising passion.

"Didst think to find me asleep?" she asked. "Didst think to pluck the bonny golden apples out o' my hand? I never sleep, lad, leastways, not at night. And this night—wouldst like to know where I've been—eh?"

She paused to give point to her words.

"I've been with your grandfather. And you're blood of his blood and bone of his bone! Ah! he should have married me, though I was but a statesman's lass, and not heiress to a fine house. I'd have given him children worthy of him—lads that would have held their heads high, and walked with honest folk, and just folk, and proud folk—too proud to soil their souls with their hands. It's your lady grandmother that's polluted you, Joel, so you can't help it. Poor lad, poor lad—the spring was poisoned before you were born!"

Her voice softened, and she looked at him more kindly.

"You might have trusted me, Joel," she said. "You should have been straight with me, asked in the name of your grandfather, I'd have listened for his sake."

He muttered something about her hard nature.

"Hard!" she replied. "Aye, I's hard, but iron melts. I'd have melted like a bit of beeswax, if you'd been strong and true and wise enough to come to me with a straight story. It's them crooked ways of folk I can't abide. Why didn't you—eh?"

She pushed him suddenly away.

"You've a bad heart, Joel, though you've the face of your grandfather, and he was the handsomest man in the dales. You've got his name too—Joel Hart! Joel Hart! A young lass once thought it was the sweetest music in the world! Shame on you, shame on you for bringing a stain on it!"

"It was stained before I got it," he replied; he was not one to take his deserts meekly. "His own country shot him for a rebel!"

"That's an ill jibe," she cried, shaking her clenched fist at him, then fell back upon her pillows unable to continue, but glaring like a wounded wild thing.

He felt that some apology, some explanation must be made.

"I'm sorry, Mistress Lynn," he began, "I never meant, I didn't mean——"

"Well," she gasped, "is that all; you didn't mean—what?"

He straightened himself, looked the old woman full in the face. He was not a thief; he had wandered from the straight path; but the crooked way was not to his liking; it abounded in pitfalls, so he forsook it.

"I own I've done wrong," he said with manly sincerity. "I was mad. Life has made me mad. It has frustrated all my hopes; it has put all its bad eggs into my basket. I lost my head in a weak moment. But that's over now. I shall not stumble again. If you've any heart to understand a man, you'll let me go now and ask no more."

His appeal touched Mistress Lynn to the quick. She wiped her brow, and hid her trembling old mouth with the edge of the sheet.

That ancient love which could not go out, though it might suffer an eclipse, began to shine again, and slowly illuminated her features, like an inner light. A cry that came from the soul had power to stir her. Deep called unto deep.

The door opened and Barbara entered. She had heard the voices, and come down to learn the meaning of them. A shepherd's plaid of black and white check was thrown over her shoulders, and her hair hung in a glistening mass. The clearness of her face was like the coming of moonlight out of clouds. She stood on the threshold, looking from Joel to the old woman, then closing the door, moved to the four-poster.

"Dost need me, great-granny?" she asked.

Barbara's sudden entrance into that intense atmosphere caused a change to work among the elements, just as a wind rising on a sultry day, may mean the coming of storm, or the freshening of the weather.

Joel was not sure whether to be glad or sorry. He looked at her in awe as a benighted traveller might look at a snow peak, which the rising moon all at once revealed towering overhead. He felt himself to be little better than a clod of earth in her presence.

To her great-grandmother Barbara's coming was a relief. The old woman had received a blow, and however bravely she might hide the wound, she could not stanch its inward bleeding. For once she was glad to shift responsibility from her own to younger shoulders.

"Sit thee down, Barbara," she said, "Joel's in sore trouble, and he has come to me. Very right and proper of him! For who else should he come to but his grandfather's old friend? Yet I don't ken what to do. Tell thy tale, my lad, but tell no more than a young lass's ears may hear."

She shot a warning look at him under her shaggy brows, and he understood that she meant to keep to herself the knowledge of his unworthy intentions. He thanked her by a grip of the hand, overwhelmed by the forbearance she showed, which was as unexpected as it was gracious in so masterful a soul. The meaning lay much deeper than he could probe. It lay in the foundations of her nature—foundations of goodness and love, although nearly a hundred years of building had raised over them a superstructure, grim and narrow.

He told his story. It was a story of adverse circumstances acting upon a mind too indolent to do battle with them. Barbara listened with interest and sympathy. Her life upon the mountains, her isolation,—for her character was little understood by those nearest and dearest to her—had made her a student of other people. She read their reasons and acts with a clearness of vision unusual in one of little worldly experience. But experience is not always knowledge. It was her own heart, with its possibilities for good and evil, her own nature, curbed on every side, that gave her insight into and understanding of life. Meditation had taught her to know herself, and so given her a key with which to open the secret doors of other souls.

She read Joel's mind. It lay before her like an open book. Written upon it was a tale of right desires and intentions, that had come to nought for lack of a will to guide them. He did not speak of his love for her sister, but she found it interwoven with the tale. She thought of Lucy as she had seen her but a little while ago, lying asleep, with her hair unbound, and her white arms thrown over the quilt, as pure a soul as breathed. Then she glanced at Joel, and recollected that the door of the wool-barn stood open, which she had shut before going to bed. Though she could not follow that clue through all its phases, she read enough to waken suspicions. This man, with the fine face and form, the dark, well-shapen eyes, but the irresolute mouth had won her sister's affection. And what did he propose to do with it? The protecting instinct was strong in Barbara; it rose up like that of a lioness to stand between its young one and danger. Though she was only a year older than Lucy, in power to endure she was as a beech tree to the wind-flower at its foot.

She pitied Joel, she had a warm place in her heart for him; she had seen him do many a kind action; his generosity and improvidence had largely added to his present desperate condition; but her sympathy was tempered with severity. There is no severity colder and more relentless than that of the young.

"You must go away, Joel," she said, for she knew that there was not any hope for him unless he could cut himself adrift from his companions—those young men who wasted their substance with riotous living.

"Go away?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, away, abroad, out into the world, where chances and plenty wait for men, great chances. Life will lie before you there, Joel, and you can make it something better than you've made it here."

"Away!" he repeated in astonishment. Was this girl proposing to settle his plans for him? He glanced at her haughtily. He had never thought of going away, and he would not think of it now, unless something good appeared to be in store. Hitherto his world had been bounded by Forest Hall and Lucy Lynn, and that which lay beyond was uncoloured by his imagination. He did not desire a wider sphere of action.

"You've got your feet in a bog, Joel," continued Barbara, "and you'll go down till your soo'red in it, unless you walk another way. Great-granny, give him money and send him abroad—to America—where the bulls and rams go, and men make their fortunes...." She paused for a moment, then fixed her large blue eyes full upon his face—"and get strength to feed themselves on."

The old woman nodded her head. The idea pleased her. For his grandfather's sake she would do this thing, would part with some of her money, and give Joel a chance of making an honourable future for himself. Then he could come back, pay his debts, and live in a manner fitting the master of Forest Hall.

Joel looked at the faces of the two women confronting him. Their likeness to each other just now was marked. But upon the face of the great-grandmother he saw the ghost of a smile—a sad one it is true—but Barbara, young and glorious in her strength, was as inexorable as a judge. His heart sank. These two women held his future in their hands. He was forced to recognise as much. From no one else could he get help save from them, and they would bestow it as they thought fit. If he refused to accept it, then he must go and—drown.

They were like priestesses, demanding a sacrifice if he would be saved. On the fells above High Fold rose a circle of upright stones surrounding a huge slab, which popular tradition said was a Druid's altar. Barbara and her aged kinswoman might be a reincarnation of that dark faith which demanded blood, human blood to appease its gods. He had sinned, they asked for his life as a recompense: and they meant to have it. If he went away, cut himself off from Forest Hall, Lucy and his friends, it would be like tearing out his heart.

"You must go, Joel," said Barbara.

Must he? He thought of the great roads of the world leading into the Unknown. He thought of them with distaste. He did not want adventure: he wanted money. He felt no thrill at the idea of fighting his way up to success; he was a gentleman, and all that he desired was the means to live as such. If he went it would be because he had no other hope.

That which he had before wished was now coming to pass. By the irony of fate he was being forced in a direction which he had no inclination to travel. He thought of Lucy sleeping in the room over the rafters—of her dusky hair, red lips, closed eyes—eyes so bright that he had often called them his guiding stars; must he leave them, leave all those charms that belonged to him, which she gave him freely and without stint?

"I'll go," he said suddenly, "I'll go, but I'll take Lucy with me."

"Lucy'll stay where she is," replied the old woman sharply.

Barbara strode forward, with a steady fire burning in her eyes, and an august lift of her head. She laid a firm hand on the young man's shoulder and made him look at her.

"Joel Hart," she said, "is your love a true love?"

"Before God, it is," he said solemnly.

"And you seek her happiness?"

"Above everything."

"Above your own, Joel?"

He did not answer for a moment. Barbara's glance, which never turned away from a sight until it had revealed all that she wanted to see, held him in a kind of mesmerism. Then he dropped his eyes; he could not lie in her face.

"I meant her no harm, I meant no wrong," he said bitterly. "But she's all I've got in the world to love me."

He would like to have spoken openly about his feelings, of his sense of Lucy's goodness and purity, of his readiness to die for her, of the glow she had shed upon his cold life. But he was tongue-tied, for Barbara had stripped his heart naked, and his own eyes condemned it.

He longed to get away from this stern judge. There seemed to be nothing more left for him to do but go away.

"You're both very kind," he said hoarsely. "You mustn't be hurt that I can't thank you as I ought to-night. Perhaps I shall some day. I see it's better that I should leave the dale; for Lucy's sake, if not for mine. She's safe for me, Barbara. I'll leave her free, and never ask for word or token unless I can marry her."

Barbara unbarred the door, and he passed out. It was a clear night, the summer stars were shining but faintly, as the dawn was not far off.

The girl was deeply moved. She could not know, it is true, that by forcing Joel to act in this way she was setting the seal to the tragedy of her own life. But she realised that the man was suffering, and that his sacrifice was a sacrifice indeed. Tears filled her eyes.

"Joel," she whispered, "this is your chance; hold fast to it, set your feet firm."

The night air cooled the heated brow of the man, and the dusk was a welcome curtain to his feelings. As he looked at Barbara, before going down the path to the gate, it seemed to him that her face was no longer that of the inexorable judge, but the face of a saint. He had been on the point of hating her—he would have hated her had his passion not been spent, and left him too exhausted to feel any more. Now he again realised the greatness of her heart. He knew that come what might come to Barbara Lynn—the thorny crown and the roughest road—she would walk with just such an expression in her eyes as she had now. Her look met his and poured into him the fresh spirit of the mountains. He felt lifted up and renewed at the centre of his being.

"Heaven help me, Barbara," he said, standing bare-headed, "some day I'll come back for Lucy."