"You don't understand," she cried. "You're so high and mighty you couldn't love a man as I love Joel. If you did you'd find a kindlier name for it than saying it's like something that turns you sick to look at it." Could she have seen her sister's face just then she would have been dumbfounded by the change that passed over it. Throat and cheek and chin became suffused with a passionate glow, and her lips quivered. But in a moment the flood sank back again, leaving her pale and weary-eyed. "We've had a warning set us since we were born," she said. "I mean great-granny. Neither of us would like to grow old in her way." "I never should. But you might, Barbara, for everyone says that you're her living picture. And your heart doesn't come far short of hers for hardness." Barbara winced, and Lucy, ever ready to make amends for her sharp words, grasped her sister's hand. "Don't heed me," she said, "I'm beside myself. There's no fear of either of us following in great-granny's steps." "She let her mind stray where it had no right to," continued Barbara. "And you know what comfort it brought her. She grew to hate her husband, and she cared nothing for her children. But her life was loveless and a blank; still, she had to give her heart to something; so must all men and women. We're made that way and can't alter it. You know where she gave her heart--it's in her money-bags." A picture flashed across Lucy's mind of the sight she had seen when she had looked through the door on the night of the wake long ago. She remembered with curious distinctness the stealthy movements of the thin old hands, as they counted the coins. Another scene rose before her; she saw Cringel Forest, and the dell where she and Joel used to meet. She saw it in summer-time, gay with blue-bells; she saw it again in winter. She thought how she and Joel had met there only a few hours ago. Come spring, come autumn, still she loved and was loved. Back swung her mind to the old woman in the great bed, giving up her soul to the hoarding of money. Could this last scene be the outcome of such an one as that of the morning? She saw herself old and grey--the beauty of life and its warmth fled; and dead her heart to all joy in the sun and the flowers; gone the sympathy of her soul with other souls; hardened into indifference the power of loving and careless of being loved. Could her soul grow like that? like her great-grandmother's? "You're havering," she said. "I'm no more like her than I'm like a corby-crow." Still she was ill at ease. "Won't you go away home now?" said Barbara. Lucy had half a mind to say that she would not go. But her blood had cooled, and her reason began to reassert itself. She was dominated by her sister's will and mortally afraid of the long dark track into Girdlestone Pass. She rose and drew her cloak closer around her.