Lucy's eyes were fixed upon the low grey house before her. The weeds, which grew between its rough slates, were dead; the feathery grasses, that found congenial crannies in the walls, drooped; the garden--a narrow patch between the door and the beck--was already seared by the hand of autumn. But that which Lucy's eyes beheld was not the Greystones of to-day, gilded by the westering sun, but the Greystones of the days to come, swept by the rain, beaten by winds, or wreathed round and round by the whirling white sheets of a snow-storm. In a few weeks' time winter would be here; long, wild nights would follow short, wild days; the sun would be blotted out, or rise above the mountain rampart for a few hours, roll across the dale like a red wheel, and plunge down behind another mountain rampart amid lurid mists, or smoky clouds. Her mind dwelt upon this picture with dread. She told herself that she could not pass another winter at Greystones, cooped up with the fearsome old woman, her great-grandmother. She would lose her wits if she did, or die; at any rate, lose her youth. Youth was not so much a matter of a few years as of happiness--the happy were always young, the sad old long before their time. As Lucy sat on the bridge this fair autumn evening, herself as fair as a little rosy cloud floating overhead, although she was outwardly calm and unoccupied, she was listening, not with the best of grace, to two voices talking in her own soul. One had been trying to make itself heard for days, nay, weeks; but she would pay no heed to it. Now it refused to be stifled any longer. "You are doing wrong," said this better self, but the other part of her vehemently protested innocence. Ever since Peter Fleming had returned to High Fold Lucy's attitude towards life had changed. She had not been happier, but she had been less willing to suffer with resignation. She had looked facts in the face. She considered Joel's departure and the possibility of his ever returning; would she not be grey-haired by then? Fortunes were not made in a day. She weighed her own chances of escape from a life that she detested. There was only one. So she made up her mind that sorrow should not fall upon her like a blighting sickness, take the roses out of her cheeks, the light from her eyes, the hope from her heart. She refused to be thrust into darkness. If happiness was not bestowed upon her as a gift, she would go out and seek it. Yet she was ill at ease--beset by fears, troubled by conscience. She rose from her seat upon the bridge and looked down the dale to Forest Hall. Her eyes had lost their sweetness and were hard, her lips were compressed.