He sat for a time pondering over the past, his eyes darkened with regrets and timid with new fears. Many changes might have taken place in the dale since he bade it farewell. A letter took months to come. His letter, if he wrote now, would not reach her till the summer was in full blow. Perhaps the great-grandmother was dead--swept away by the breath of the past winter. Lucy might be dead! Death as often took the young as the old. The silence gripped him like a nightmare. He wanted to break the suspense. So intense were his feelings, that he felt he could roll up the space which divided them, roll it up like a scroll, and see her face to face. But he could not get his hands on the impalpable, restless curtain, that shut them off from each other. If he had been able to roll it up, he could only have seen that which would have robbed him of his energy and hope, for Lucy was in the midst of preparations for her marriage with Peter Fleming. While he was thus pondering upon the best way to begin his letter, his eyes wandered round the store. Two flaring lamps lit it up, and added the smell of rancid oil to the strange odour of tan, hides, furs, and woods with which it was redolent. He looked at the shelves of blankets, the canoe paddles, the canisters of shot, all things alien to his experience. He felt himself to be adrift in the Unknown, going he knew not whither. He craved for a familiar sound or sight. He wanted Lucy as he had never wanted her before. He began to write and tell her so. Then a man entered, the leader of the expedition which was going out in a few days to look for gold. He was tall and sinewy, wearing a buffalo cloak, and a hunting belt embroidered with the quills of the porcupine. He inspired confidence. He knew the Unknown, and had conquered it. "What ho!" he said to Joel, "writing to your sweetheart? That's right. Tell her you're going to seek your fortune, and will keep the first bit of gold you find to make the wedding ring." "That's a good idea," replied Joel with a laugh. * * * * * He wrote his letter. He poured out himself. He hid nothing from her, neither his weaknesses, nor his selfishness, nor the despair which he had felt, at times, when he thought of her so far away, and wondered if he would ever see her again. Perhaps he made more of this latter statement than the facts warranted, but on the whole his letter was that of an honest man who did sincerely love the woman to whom he was writing. He did not implore her to wait, but he said that if heaven sent him fortune, he would come to her--however late in the day it might be--and ask her to share it. He ended by telling her that he would keep the first bit of gold he found for the wedding ring. PART II CHAPTER XIV BARBARA AND PETER