Janet leaned against the wall, sick and nerveless. The blow had fallen on her like a thunder-bolt, and as yet she could not realise that the Lean Man on his very death-bed was playing so grim a part.
"I would have had them ride up this afternoon," went on Nicholas, "because I feared to die before the good hour came. But the Waynes of Cranshaw are less guileless, it would seem, than him of Marsh, and they would trust me not a stiver till the breath was cold in me. What, then? Ye shall lay me out in state in the great hall below us, and I will show death that I am ready to play his game before he calls me—ay, but I'll not die, call he never so, before I have sat me up on my bier and cheered you to the fight."
"You'll look so reverend, I warrant, that the sight of you will disarm them altogether," laughed Red Ratcliffe boisterously. "We shall pledge your soul with such sorrow, we Wildwater folk, and they'll be eyeing us so steadfastly, that our blades will be clean through them before they have got hand to hilt. Courage, grandfather! You'll see the end of every Wayne that steps before you leave us."
"If fortune holds. I bade them all to the feast—all, lest one should be lacking from the tally of dead men. Lord God, I must live until the dawn!"
"And Janet was your messenger? A bonnie stroke, to make the stock-dove lure the wild goose into bowshot."
The Lean Man rose from his pillows, and his voice was terrible to hear. "Janet?" he cried. "She played me false, she let my foe wanton with her in sight of all the moorside; she killed my love, I tell thee, and I hate her more than I hate Wayne of Marsh. From the first moment that I learned it, I cursed her by the Dog; and to my last breath I'll curse her. I all but killed her on the first impulse; but then I thought better of it, and planned to tear her heart in two by making her the bait for Wayne—and the plan will carry—the plan will carry, lad!"
"Ay, it will carry, sir. But she must guess naught of it, or by the Mass she'll find a way to warn them. Where is she now?"
Again the feeble, hollow laugh. "With Shameless Wayne, lad, to be sure. I sent her to him, saying I was like to die this night and bidding him be ready for the lyke-wake."
"Christ pity me! It was I who sent him for his kinsfolk," murmured Janet.
She was dazed yet from the shock; the wall against which she leaned seemed to turn round and round her; love, faith and honour, so sure a moment since, were empty phantoms now; nothing was real, save these two evil voices, of the youngster she had hated and the old man she had loved.