Very grave he was; not rough now, nor uncivil, but sad with the sadness that old hatreds, formed before his birth, had woven for him.
"Who should it be but thou, Janet? I told myself in that one moment how well I loved thee—and I was glad. And then some strange thing warded death from me—and, see, the feud stands gaunt as ever between us two."
The reaction from her late dread was stealing over Janet fast, and with it there came the memory of how she had brought him into this desperate hazard, from which a miracle alone had saved him.
"Ned," she cried, "who bade the Lean Man take three of his folk against thee, think'st thou? Who told them thou would'st ride to Bents Farm to-day?"
"Red Ratcliffe, at a venture."
"Nay, it was I. Thinking to keep thee safe, I said thou would'st go to Bents to-day instead of yestermorn. So thy wound, Ned, was all of my giving, and—why dost not hate me for it?" she finished, with a passion that ended in a storm of tears.
Wayne set both arms about her then, and strove to comfort her; angry he had seen her, and scornful, but this sudden grief, so little like her, and so unexpected, loosed all the harshness that he was wont to set between them as a barrier when they met.
"Nay, Janet, never cry because of what might have chanced and did not," he whispered. "'Twas no fault of thine, lass, that I went to Bents to-day."
A sour face showed over the wall that bounded the left hand of the highway, and presently a pair of wide shoulders followed as Hiram Hey began to climb over into the road.
"What in the Dog's name art doing here, Hiram?" cried his Master, starting guiltily away from Mistress Janet.