“The pity of it—oh, the pity,” she cried.
“I’d rather he died that fashion,” snapped Rebecca, peering out into the moonlight, “than in a bed he’d bought by giving tribute Garsykes way.”
She would not go to meet trouble, and Causleen dared not. So Hardcastle came leading his horse to the door, and was astonished to find two women there who gazed at him as if he came from under some tomb in the churchyard.
“Is it your ghost, Master?” quavered Rebecca.
“No, it’s my body—and damned tired at that.”
Causleen, before she could check the impulse, ran forward and touched his sleeve. Long watching beside her father had weakened her endurance. So had the suspense that brooded over Logie since the feud was up.
“Oh, thank God,” she said with a sudden rush of tears.
Hardcastle glanced at her in frank wonder. It was long since anyone had given him such a welcome home; yet only yesterday she had shunned him as if he had the plague. There was the scent of violets in her hair as it brushed his shoulder—a warm, wet fragrance, born of the night-time breeze—that unsteadied him. He had thought himself past that sort of blandishment, since Nita and he shared courting-days; but his heart found a quicker beat.
She withdrew sharply, ashamed of her weakness and blaming him for it. “Rebecca was so sure that you were killed on the way home,” she said. “I could not comfort her.”
Rebecca herself was in a fine, gusty rage. She had gone through much in the last hour, and the relief from foreboding asked for outlet.