The candles, in their tall iron sconces, filled the kitchen with a mellow light. The colour had vanished from the fells, but the stars glittered, and the wide snowfields gave a moonlight glimmer to the landscape. Lucy stood at the window for a moment, before putting up the shutters, thinking about her great-grandmother's words. Glancing at Thundergay, she thought how far and cold it looked against the star-fringed edges of the sky. There was her sister's throne, there on the highest peak with an outlook wide but wild, where she breathed an air too clear and sharp for common mortals. She turned to the warm kitchen, recognising, with a glow of comfort, that such was her fitting place. She did not desire a large perspective--her eyes could not have taken it in. She did not crave for communion with nature, she did not want to dip herself into the mysterious pools that lay about the path of life. A common round, enclosed within four walls, satisfied her needs. Yet she knew that her husband's mind would sometimes escape from the warm nest that she would make for him. Now and again he would leave her to climb such high places as Barbara knew. There she would not be able to follow him. Yet she would not murmur. She would make his home such that he would always return to it for rest and sympathy. Ah, yes, if she were but a vessel full of beck-water, as her great-grandmother had said, she would be able to quench his human thirst. Barbara might stir and exalt as wine did, but hers would be the more womanly office of attending to common needs. Peter had gone to the mill-house, Barbara was in the byre, Jess's shrill voice could be heard in the yard, and the hinds were out. Mistress Lynn seemed inclined to sleep, so Lucy returned to her seat, and stared into the fire, looking like a child making pictures there. She was, in fact, seeing again the witch-lights and Girdlestone Pass. The place had been so impressed upon her mind, that it returned with startling vividness to haunt her, whenever her mind was unoccupied. In the warmest corner of the chimney-nook it would make her shiver; in the brightest flood of fire and candlelight she would see the rolling darkness about her feet, and then the will-o'-the-wisp gleam with its alluring, fitful flame. The horror of that time would remain with her all her life. It had killed anything that was left of her love for Joel, made her appreciate her position as Peter's wife, filled her with gratitude towards him, for he had forgiven her with the utmost gentleness. Had Joel stood before her now she would have turned from him without a tremor save that of shame.