When Lucy had run away from him, he had been so overtaken by surprise, that for a few seconds he had not been able to grasp the reality of the fact. Then passion had swept away his senses, and he had rushed hither and thither like a mad man, calling, cursing, but seeing nothing, so swiftly had her grey-cloaked figure been swept up into the gathering darkness. His wild scheme of carrying her off defeated, and knowing that his desires and hopes could never now be realized, he had so far recovered himself as to lay hold of a shred of reason, and stifle his anger. He had taken the horse back to the inn, and then had sat down in his corner by the fire, silent and sullen, heedless of the dame's chatter, and only wishful to be left alone. He had demanded wine, and had tried to drown his wrath and bitter sense of failure. But he could not endure the good-wife's tongue, and at length had got up and gone out. He had told himself that he would go back to Forest Hall to-morrow, settle his affairs with all speed and never set foot in Boar Dale again. He was sick of the Shepherd's Rest, and would not have stayed so long only the place had been convenient for his purpose. There he had hoped to decoy Lucy and take her away. In the light of their last meeting, he had felt sure that she would go with him. And now, having walked aimlessly along the pack-horse track, the mist chilling him to the bone, he would have returned again to the inn, but that he was afraid of the inquisitive eyes of the woman there, who looked at him as though she were suspicious that some wild adventure was in the air. He was not able to lash himself into his former fury, his heart seemed to be dead. The hand of the woman he loved had killed it. Even the thought of Peter did not rouse him. Hate, for the time being, was burning low. In this mood he had come again to the spot where Lucy had fled from him. He had begun to wonder in which direction she had really gone. How was it that she had eluded him so quickly? He looked round him. Then there had been light enough to distinguish the nearer objects--a stunted thorn, the flash of the beck, the overhanging crags, but now all was undefined, and bleak. A little glitter, just beyond the left bank of the road, had caught his eye, and held him spell-bound. He had stared with growing understanding. On that side lay marshy ground, stretching away to the opposite fells, and yonder was Quaking Hag, shunned by all travellers, and forsaken of God. He had sunk on a stone, sobered by that which he saw, for the glittering mark was followed by another and yet another, until the misty nature of the night prevented further sight. They were the froth o' the marsh, a kind of putrified earth, which, when it has been trodden upon, shines like fire in the darkness. He had just realised what the _igneum lutum_ meant, when Barbara had come along the pass and he had accosted her.