"But, sir, this is folly! What can he do with a score men waiting here for him?"
"What he did at Dead Lad's Rigg—what he did to-day at the sheep-washing—what he and his cursed hound would do, if ye, and I, and fifty times our numbers, fenced him round with steel."
"Go, cousins. Grandfather is—is faint again. The fit will pass if ye leave him to it," said Janet, jealous always lest they should guess the secret which only she and Nicholas shared.
The younger men glanced meaningly one at the other as they moved off. "Old brains breed maggots," muttered one.
"And so will Wayne before the month is old," answered Red Ratcliffe brutally, turning for a last malicious glance at Janet.
He saw that the girl was following him with fearless, inscrutable eyes. A shadow of doubt crossed his triumph, and he cursed the boastfulness that had led him to tell his plans so openly in hearing of one who was well affected toward Shameless Wayne.
The Lean Man sat on, his head between his hands, his feet working shiftlessly among the last year's leaves that still cumbered the neglected garden. "Not by skill of sword, nor yet by guile," he was saying, over and over. "We must go with the stream now—'tis useless striving—yet, by the Red Heart, I shall turn nightly in my grave if Wayne goes quick above ground after I am dead."
Janet crept softly over the strip of lawn without rousing him, and went through the wicket that opened on the pasture-fields. Nell Wayne was here, then, and in peril—Mistress Nell, who had railed on her as a light woman because she had gained the love of Shameless Wayne, who had flouted her as if she were mud beneath her feet. A savage joy burned in the girl's heart for a moment; but after it there came the memory of Red Ratcliffe's words; and it seemed a poor thing to humble Nell if Wayne were to pay a better price for it. Could she do naught to help him?
She smiled in self-derision. The last time she had sought to help Wayne, she had all but compassed his undoing. Yet how could she rest idle, knowing what was to come? As of old, she turned to the moor for help, and walked the heather feverishly; and not till the sun was lowering fast toward Dead Lad's Rigg did she return to Wildwater.
Nicholas and Red Ratcliffe were in hall together, the younger man full of talk, the other taciturn and hopeless.