sighed and were silent. My father was thinking of my mother; I was thinking of Lucy. Here was an idea, a dream, a fancy, a madness exactly the opposite in nature and effect of that which had clouded the life of my dear girl. Just as the curse that had taken possession of the mind of Lucy's grandfather had overshadowed his life, and carried its darkness onward to the lives of his son and his granddaughter, so had the blessing that had germinated in the weakness, perhaps, of my mother's failing mind brightened the end of her days, and brought some afterglow, some shadow as of sweet flame into my own existence. Now, if I could oppose the one superstition against the other! If I could only believe what my mother had believed, as Lucy believed what her grandfather had believed! If imagination could bring about the fate it feared, why could it not also bring about the fortune for which it hoped?
My father slept that night in my bed, and I made shift with the couch in my study. The sound of his measured breathing came to me through the door between, during the long hours in which I lay awake.
XI.
Full of a new thought, I was eager to get back to Cumberland; and ten or twelve days after my father's arrival in England I parted from him with certain obvious excuses, and took train for Cleator.
“Don't be too long sending me that telegram, and I'll be after you like quick sticks,” said he at Euston.
Sir George Chute was with him, and I had sworn our old friend to silence.
“Good by,” said he loudly, and then putting his head in at the carriage window, “Do nothing rash,” he added in significant tones.
I nodded my head for reassurance and assent, and the train started on its way. It was the same night mail by which I had traveled on the occasion of my first journey. Again I changed at Penrith, and changed a second time at the little junction in the mountains. It was now several weeks later, and early spring had begun to breathe over the widening year. The morning was still very young, but the day had dawned, and over the hills to the east were the first pink rays from the unrisen sun. In the waiting room of the little wooden station I found the same group of miners, smoking their clay pipes over the crackling sticks of a newly kindled fire. They remembered me, and with easy good manners recalled the name of Lucy. It was common talk by this time that she intended to go into a convent.
“We allus knew it would come to that,” said one. “She's a vast ower good for the world, is Lucy Clous'al.”
It was Sunday morning, and I was at breakfast in the Wheatsheaf when the bells began to ring. I thought it probable that Lucy would be at church, and I was not disappointed. From my seat at the back I saw her in the pew under the pulpit, which on my former visit had been empty, and decorated with ivy and holly and flowering gorse. She was dressed in a black that was almost like crape, and it made her pale face still more pale and spiritual. I do not think she saw me. With head bent she knelt through a great part of the service, and when it was over I did not attempt to speak to her. Some secret voice seemed to tell me that it should not be there, it should not be then, that I should launch upon her what I had come to say. From a few paces back I saw her pass out with reverent step, and my whole heart yearned for her, but I let her go.
Next day, Monday, with the sun shining, the birds singing, the butterflies tossing in the air, and all the world turning to love and song, I went up to Clousedale Hall and asked for Mrs. Hill. The faithful old servant had a nervous and worn out look, as of sleepless hours and bitter sorrow. I asked if I might see Lucy.
“Youdale, from the mines, is with her now,” she said, “and I know that Cockbain, the solicitor, is to come again in the afternoon.”
Her wrinkled face quivered as she used these names, for she saw that I recognized their significance as indicating the preparations toward that change in life which was meant to be so near.
“Then I'll invite myself to dinner—you dine at six,” I said, and with that I shook the trembling hand again. I thought there was a kind of half despairing appeal expressed in the good old face as it looked into mine at the door, but nothing was said, and I passed out of the house.
We were quiet and almost constrained that night at dinner. Lucy spoke very little, but she looked at me from time to time. She seemed to be saying farewell to me with her eyes.
I did what I could to be calm, and even to talk cheerfully, but my whole heart was in rebellion. As I glanced across the table at my dear one, with her pale face and large, liquid eyes, I was seeing her in a nun's dress, living within chill and sunless
