"Over her kinsfolk's bodies? Ay, it may be so," said Wayne bitterly.
They both fell silent then, and by and by Wayne looked down and saw that her eyes were closed and her breath came soft and measured. He let her lie so for a while, then took her gently in his arms.
"Poor bairn!" he said. "She's sadly overwrought; I'll take her to her room again before she wakes."
He came down again presently to hall, and threw fresh peats on the fire, and settled himself beside the hearth; for Mistress Wayne had given him fresh food for thought, and sleep was far from him. This little woman, half witless and altogether weak, had echoed Nell's words of the morning—that, weary of it or no, he must take on the feud. He recalled Nell's look, the quiet and settled hatred that had seemed so ill in keeping with her bridal-morn; and he understood, with the clearness that comes to a man at lonely night-time, how deep the memory of her father's death had gone. He had been revelling when the blow was struck on that stormy winter's afternoon, and it had been to him no more than a disastrous tale re-told; but she had seen the blow, had looked into Wayne's dying face, had watched the life ebb out to nothingness. Ay, there was scant wonder that she could not loose her hold upon the quarrel.
And then his mind revolted from such thoughts, and a clear picture came to him of Janet—Janet, as she had stood yonder in the window-niche and named him master. Dead Wayne of Marsh had his claims, and he had looked well to them; but had the living no claims likewise? He had pledged his word to Janet, no less than to his father; and if a chance offered, he would cry peace with the Ratcliffes and be glad. A deep, pitying tenderness for the girl swept over him; he would be good to her—God knew he would be good to her.
He was roused by a sharp call from without, a call that was thrice repeated before he got to his feet and opened the main door.
"Gate, ye Marsh folk, gate!" came a thin, high voice from the far side of the courtyard.
Wayne looked across the moonlit yard and saw Nicholas Ratcliffe, whom he thought to be dying, seated astride his big bay horse and lifting his hand to beat afresh upon the gate. Too startled to feel anger, if anger had been possible after the plight in which he had left his foe at their last meeting, Wayne crossed the yard.
"Your errand?" he asked.
"To drink the wine I spilled on my last visit here," said the Lean Man.