"Oh, Lucy, Lucy," he cried suddenly, "I'm beside myself. I can't live without you any longer. I'm mad I know; but I want you, I want you as a man never wanted a woman before. We were born for each other, you can't deny it. Come away with me. We'll go and make happiness for ourselves in a corner of the earth, where no one will ever seek us." He put his arms round her, and she only half resisted, though she said: "But, oh, Joel, you forget that I'm another man's wife." "I don't forget it. The fact's there; but we'll disregard it. We'll go away, now, at once...." She tore herself suddenly from him as though his embrace stung her. "What am I doing? What are you saying? Oh, Joel, we cannot...." * * * * * It was not till then that she realised her position. She loved this man, and, though she had married Peter Fleming, his image had floated before her mind through all the years of his absence, and she had often regretted that she had not waited for him. His return had excited her; she liked his admiration and his caresses, and, at their last meeting, she had let her feelings have their way. She had been full of thoughts of that which might have been. But she had never intended being seriously disloyal to her husband. She had come to see Joel, so she told herself, merely to bid him good-bye; to tell him that they must not meet again; and to say that she hoped he would be happy. Now she was aghast at the place where her actions had brought her. Go off with Joel? She could not dream of such a thing! He was an honourable man, only over-wrought by his love for her. He could never really think of taking her away. "Be brave, Lucy," he said. "I must leave you. We must part." "Be true to yourself, Lucy." "I should loathe myself if I did as you asked." "You love me, my dear." "But I'm Peter's wife." "Peter can get another, and you shall have me for a husband." "It can't be, Joel. We must say good-bye. I only came to say good-bye." "We'll both say good-bye--to High Fold and Boar Dale--we'll say it together, and go away." She drew back to the furthest corner of their retreat, and stared at him. "Do you know what you are asking me to do?" she said, scarcely above a whisper. "I've thought it all out; I've planned it." "But I cannot go away with you." "You love me," he repeated triumphantly. "I did once," she cried, "but I'm afraid of you now. Peter would never ask a woman to do what you are asking me, no matter how much he cared for her." Joel moved to the entrance, and stood with his back to her for a moment. The clouds were darker, the fellside more stern, the foam of the beck whiter in the waning light. But the outlook was not so wild as the picture which he saw within himself, when he turned the eye of his mind upon it.