Where was Ned? He lay beside the boundary-stone, those evil folk from Wildwater had told her. Yet there was no blood upon the ground, nor the least sign to tell her that a man had been done to death here. Nell, too, was gone, completely as if the road had yielded, bog-like, to her tread and closed about her. Only the sad cries of moor-birds broke the stillness—these, and the far-off echo of horse-hoofs pounding over a stony track.
Mistress Wayne sat her down at the roadside, among the budding heather. A great faintness stole over her; she felt her new-found hold on life slipping from her grasp. What had chanced to Wayne? Where was Nell? Was this some fresh delusion, nursed by the sun-heat and her hurried walk? She could not tell—only, she knew that the grey line of road was circling round her, that the sky seemed closing in.
"I—brought—disaster," she murmured, and let her head fall back among the heather.
CHAPTER XXI
WHAT CHANCED AT WILDWATER
The Lean Man was sunning himself in the garden at Wildwater, and Janet, sitting beside him, wondered afresh to see the dumb air he had, as of one who had crept from the trampling life of men and had no thought to return to it.
"The old trouble has left you, sir, to-day. Is it not so?" she said gently, chafing his cold hands in hers.
"Ay, it has left me, girl, for a little while. But the sun has no warmth in it, and the bees' hum sounds dead and hollow. Look ye, Janet, this is not summer at all; 'tis like an old man stammering love-vows and wondering why they sound so cold.—Are our folk hunting to-day?"
"Some of them have gone to wash the sheep. They said they would be home betimes, but the afternoon wears on."
"If I were young again, lass! Sorrow of women, if only I were young again!" broke in the Lean Man. "To hunt the fox, and see the sheep come white and bleating from the pool, and feel the old gladness in it all." He fell back moodily into his seat. "A man has his day," he muttered, "and mine is over."