"God willing, Nell—and one day thou wilt love her near as much as I."
"Nay, I have done with loving. Ride on, Ned, and if they tell thee I have cared for thee—why, say they lie."
He touched his horse and rode slowly out; and all the way to Marsh his thoughts were busy with this sister's love that would fain have kept him close in prison. It was not the feud only then, that warped her nature. I have done with loving, she had said; and dimly he understood that even her husband had no place beside him in her heart.
"Od's life, these women! Who framed them at the start?" he muttered, as he gained the steep down-hill that led to Marsh.
And then he remembered little Mistress Wayne, and wondered if she had rid her of the needless fears which had driven him out this morning in search of Janet.
But his step-mother had left Marsh House and was already nearing the lane-top that took her to the moors. All morning she had wandered from room to room, from house to courtyard, to see if Ned were coming home. Why had she listened to her dreams, she asked herself? Why told him how Janet had stood on the verge of Wildwater Pool, entreating help? Visions might play her false and had done as much a score of times. Yet—what of Barguest? He at least was real; he at least—
She put her hands against the gate to steady herself, and looked up the lane; for the sound of pattering feet was in her ears once more, and there was a coldness in the wind more shrewd than any that blew off the moors. And not only the sound of feet, and icy, upward moving breeze—for a dun and shaggy-coated hound crept out of the empty road, and swung up toward the heath.
Mistress Wayne halted no longer now. There were many who had heard the Dog in Marshcotes, but none save she to whom he showed himself. It must be as she feared; Ned was in peril at Wildwater, and the Dog was leading her to him. Not once did she halt to ask what service she could render him; it was enough that he was in danger, and that Barguest sought her aid.
The dun mist hugged the moor as she made forward. The clouds were grey as hopelessness, and everywhere the sound of moorland brooks, flushed by the heavy rains, was like a doom-song in her ears. Underfoot the peat oozed black at every step. The further hills were blotted out, the nearer rises showed unsubstantial, wan and ghoulish; the very grouse were wearied into silence. The shaggy-coated beast that had led her here had vanished into the drifting mists; but still she pressed on, her whole mind bent on reaching Wildwater.
She would have been lost at the first mile had she brought reason to help her find the track to Wildwater; but instinct guided her more surely, and presently the black house in the wilderness showed swart among the mists. So dark it looked, so evil, that once she half turned back; but Ned had need of her—and she would go to the house-door and knock, and ask what they had done with him. And if they killed her—well, it would not matter.