"Save him, Nell!" wailed Mistress Wayne, like a child repeating a lesson learned by rote.
"Save him? See—see—he strikes—drive home, Rolf!—A brave stroke!"
Wayne of Marsh was righted now, and his kinsman wiped his blade at leisure on his coat-sleeve. Nell came to him and drew down his rough head and kissed him on the mouth; the little wisp of a woman knelt by her lover's side, and tried to stop the blood with a dainty cambric kerchief, and talked to Ratcliffe of Wildwater as if her word were greater than God's own, to bring a dead man back to life.
A deep voice broke in upon them. "Remember was the word thou said'st, Nell," cried Shameless Wayne. "Christ knows there will be no forgetfulness for me."
Nell Wayne looked at her brother for awhile, not knowing what her thoughts were toward him. And then she shrank from him with plain disgust. Up in the belfry yonder she had pleaded excuses for Shameless Wayne when another talked his good name away; but she had no pity for him now.
"Thou com'st in a late hour, Ned," she said coldly.
"I come in a late hour, lass," he answered, still in the same deep voice that was older than his years; "and they will noise it up and down that Wayne's son of Marsh sat drinking with clowns in a wayside tavern while another robbed him of the feud. Well, the long years lie behind, and neither thou nor I can better them."
A shaft of pity touched the girl. "I loved thee once, Ned—why could'st not—nay, 'tis behind thee, as thou say'st, and—and thou'lt never be aught but Shameless Wayne henceforth."
The frail woman looked up from handling her lover's body, and there was witless curiosity in her face. "Who is't stands there, and who has robbed him?" she asked. Then with a little laugh, "Why, 'tis Ned—to think I should not know my own step-son.—Ned, come hither! Your sister is cruel, and she has well-nigh killed me with those slender hands of hers—but you will be kinder, Ned, and I want you to staunch the bleeding—see how the vault-stone reddens—hurry, dear, for if the blood once drips into the vault, the stain can never be washed out—never, never be washed out."
"You are right, Mistress," said Shameless Wayne, smiling queerly at her from across the stone. "Though one kills every other Ratcliffe that fouls the air, the stain will never be washed clean."