"Well, time wags. Tie up my chin, I tell thee, Ratcliffe the Red," said the Lean Man after a lengthy silence.
Janet could hear Red Ratcliffe start forward to do the old man's bidding, could hear the awed laughter that followed. Her fleeting love for him died out. She loathed his treachery, and his impious trafficking with death. Sick at heart she got to her feet and began to pace up and down the room. Had Mistress Wayne carried the message to Marsh House? Or had she faltered by the way? She was so slender a bridge to safety that it seemed she must break down.
The wind whistled through the shattered window, and with it came a spit or two of rain. Janet, her senses sharpened by anxiety, heard the least under-sound that came from the hall, the moor, the moaning chimney-stacks. She started on the sudden and put her ear to the casement. Up the path that skirted the house-side came the faint slush-slush of horse-hoofs striking sodden earth.
"They are coming!" she muttered, racked with fear lest her warning had miscarried.
Soon she could see thick shadows crossing the window-space—shadows of men on shadows of horses, outlined against the lesser blackness of the sky beyond. Something struck the ground at her feet; she groped for it and her fingers closed upon a dagger with a curving blade. She knew then that Wayne of Marsh was forewarned—knew, too, the meaning of his quiet message to her. If he should fall he had given her a refuge from dishonour.
Her courage returned. At worst she could die with him; and Wayne's luck in battle did not let her fear the worst. She stood straight in the darkness of her prison, and heard the horsemen turn the corner of the house, and waited.
Wayne of Marsh, meanwhile, led his folk straight in at the Wildwater gates, which stood wide-open in proof that they were welcome guests.
"Now, Mistress, what am I to do with you?" whispered Griff to his step-mother as he pulled up his horse and lifted his frail burden to the ground.
But Mistress Wayne, not answering him, slipped from his side and lost herself amid the darkness. Nor did she know what purpose was in her mind—only, that where Ned was, there must she be also.
Shameless Wayne sprang from the saddle and knocked sharply on the door with a cry of "Ratcliffes, ho! Ratcliffes!"