But Wayne would not listen. "How the time crawls!" he muttered, as he pushed his plate away and rose impatiently. "Surely they are here by now. Hark! was not that the courtyard-gate? I left it unbarred against their coming. Didst hear it opened?"
"Ay, I heard it opened—and there's a footstep on the paving-stones."
"Bairn, help me to buckle my sword-belt on again. I know there's luck goes where thy hand has rested."
She helped him eagerly. "It is not all disaster that I bring, then? Thanks for that word, Ned; I needed it," she murmured, chafing her baby fingers against the stiff buckle.
She was still striving with it, and Ned was stooping to help her, when the main door opened, and Janet Ratcliffe stood slender on the threshold, not laughing, but with an odd merriment lurking in her eyes and about her resolute mouth.
"I have come to our dearest enemy. Make me your captive, Wayne of Marsh," she said.
He sprang back as if she had been less warmly flesh and blood; but Mistress Wayne smiled in her pleased child's fashion as she crept out of sight among the shadows at the far end of the hall.
"You have chosen your time well, Mistress, if a jest is in your mind," said Wayne.
"Nothing further, sir. Your sister is in dire peril; would less have brought me to one who has spurned my warnings oft aforetime?"
He waited, frowning, till she should tell him more.