He drew his breath again, and laughed, and, "Tell me again, dear lass," he said, "that it is fancy—naught but fancy."
"It is altogether fancy," she answered.
"Art tricking me?" he said with sudden suspicion. "Let me see thy fingers, lass—the fingers that touched my throat."
She held her hand out to him. "There's no stain on them, sir. Have I not told you?" she cried, striving to keep the terror from her voice as best she could.
"Why, no," he whispered; "no stain at all. And yet——"
And after that they spoke no word until Wildwater gates showed dark in front of them.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FEUD-WIND FRESHENS
It was high summer now on Marshcotes Moor. Everywhere the farm-folk were full of the busy idleness which comes when ploughing and sowing are over and the crops are not yet ready for the scythe or sickle. The lads found time to go a-courting in shaded lanes or up by the grey old kirk-stone; their elders did much leaning over three-barred gates, with snuff between a thumb and forefinger, while they talked of hay-harvest, of the swelling of corn-husks in the ear, of the feud which had been so hot in the spring and which now seemed like to die for want of fuel.
For a strange thing had chanced at Wildwater. The Lean Man, once dauntless, had grown full of some unnamed terror; and, though his arm seemed strong as ever and his body full of vigour, his brain was sapless and inert. His folk came to him with fresh plans for slaying Wayne of Marsh; and he turned a haunted eye on them, and said that naught could kill the lad. The cloud which had hung over Marsh House had settled now on Wildwater, and even the hot youngsters were chilled by a sense of doom. If the Lean Man had given up hope, they said, what chance had they of snaring Shameless Wayne?