Again Wayne glanced at her. "There's rosemary on thy breast, lass, and thy shape is like a maid's," he said, after a deep silence,—"but, Christ, I sorrow for thy goodman, if thou com'st to thy very bridal with such thoughts."
"Wilt never understand?" she cried impatiently. "Wilt never learn that I wedded the feud, long months ago, when father staggered to the gate and died with his head upon my knees? Sometimes, Ned, it seems I care for naught—naught, I tell thee—save to see the Ratcliffes stricken one by one. And thou could'st have slain their leader, the worst of all of them, and didst not!"
"Nor would do, if I had my chance again," he answered, meeting her eye to eye.
"Ah, God, that I had been born a man-child of the Waynes! That was like thee, Ned, just like thee. Reckless, stubborn, hot for battle—and then, all in a moment, the devil apes helplessness and touches thee to woman's pity. Father was the same, and died for it; he would not kill the last remnant of the Ratcliffes when the chance offered."
"If thou hadst made a comrade of the sword, and learned what it teaches a man's heart," said Wayne quietly, "thou would'st know why father left killing—ay, and why I let the Lean Man go in safety."
She was silent until they had turned the bend of Marchcotes street and saw the kirk-gates standing open for them, with the knot of village folk clustered round about the tavern. And then she glanced at him—once, with the passion frozen in her eyes.
"Had Mistress Janet naught to do with that?" she asked. "Or was it a thought of her that weakened thy heart at the eleventh hour?"
Wayne jerked his bridle and started at the trot. "Thou lov'st me, lass," was all he said. "Well, thou hast a queer way of showing it.—See, our folk wait for thee just within the gates; and there is Rolf, with as soft a bridegroom's look as ever I saw. For shame's sake, Nell, return him something of the love he's giving thee."
"Love!" she murmured, as they dismounted at the gates. "Well-away, I've naught to do with it, methinks; 'twas hate that cradled me—and if God gives me bairns, I'll rear them to take on the feud where thou hast failed."
It seemed the folk were right when they named the day unchancy; for Nell's hand was cold in her lover's as he led her up the graveyard path, and her mind, disdaining all that waited for her in the present, was wholly set upon that late-winter afternoon when she had watched her father breathe his last. Nor could she shake the memory off when she stood within the kirk and listened to the droning Parson's voice. Till death do us part—what meaning had the words? Death walked over noisily abroad in Marshcotes parish to render the vow a hard one either to make or keep; and man and wife need look for such parting every day so long as there were Ratcliffes left to foul the moor.