Nita stood regarding him for a moment, then laughed—a little, eerie laugh that had an edge of steel. “I’ll not let them burn the house for another reason now. It would be too easy a way out for its pride-sick master. You’re glancing at the wood again? It was no Garsykes face that peeped between the branches.”
“Whose was it, then?”
“Aye, whose? You’ll learn soon enough—and, after all, it’s only one more trouble to your load.”
A silence followed, heavy and brooding as thunder-weather brewing up. Nita, used to swaying men by her lightest smile, had done all to bring Hardcastle into captivity again. She had failed, and the Master drew back a pace or two, appalled by what he saw in the girl’s face and dove-like eyes.
“I shall teach them the way of better sport with Logie than burning it. You’d only die once in the flames. For weeks, maybe—or months—the Wilderness will let you go your ways. A mischance here and there, to let you know we’re not asleep—the waiting for a blow that will surely come at last—do you think pride will carry any man through that?”
“Yes,” said Hardcastle, and went up the pastures, swinging the hare he carried.
III
Nita turned at last, when he was out of sight, and went down the track to Garsykes. Heart she had none to be wounded, but vanity was touched to the quick. Hardcastle would never be moved by her spells from this to the Crack o’ Doom, and with the knowledge came a passionate gust of hate.
It was in this mood that she encountered Will o’ Wisp, lumbering to the inn on heavy feet.
“You’re not your own merry self,” she said. “What ails you?”