He drank greedily, and his knees were firmer on the saddle-flaps when they rode on. "I'll fight the pair of them, God rot them," he mumbled, slipping clumsily to ground as they gained the door of Wildwater.
Janet, hearing them ride under her chamber window, woke from a troubled sleep and ran to open the casement. All day her grandfather had worn the air of grim gaiety which she had learned to fear, and the lateness of his home-coming told her which way his errand had lain.
"They have made a night-attack," she murmured, fumbling blindly with the window-fastening. "And what of Shameless Wayne? If—if aught has chanced to him——"
She wrenched the window open and peered down into the courtyard. The moon, dropping toward the high land that stretched from Wildwater to the four corners of the sky, gave light enough to show her Nicholas and close behind him Red Ratcliffe with the bridle of a riderless horse in his right hand. These were her folk; but the girl's heart leaped at sight of the empty saddle, at the slowness of the Lean Man's movements, for these things told her that defeat had ridden home across the moor with them.
Nicholas, hearing the creak of the casement above, glanced sharply up. "Is't thou, Janet?" he called.
"Ay, grandfather. Have ye—have ye been a-hunting again?"
He fetched a hollow laugh. "Ay, down by Marsh; but the fox slipped cover before we were aware."
She found her courage then, and answered crisply, following the old metaphor. At all hazards she must make them think that her hatred against Wayne of Marsh was equal to their own. "The trickiest fox breaks cover once too oft; ye'll catch him yet," she laughed—"whose saddle goes empty of a rider?"
"Thy Uncle Robert's. Get thee to bed, lass, and use thy woman's trick of prayer."
"To what end shall I use it, sir?" she asked softly. It was easy to play her part of Ratcliffe, now that she knew how things had gone at Marsh.