They parted in the stable-yard, and Hardcastle, coming to the grey, moonlit front of the house, glanced at the room over the porch. The light still shone from it, and Causleen, kneeling on the window-seat, looked down at him. The lamp-glow behind her ran out to meet the silver-gold, soft moonlight. And both were tender with her beauty.
“Oh, I’ve waited for you,” she said, her voice soft as one of her own Highland burns in summer.
A great joy blazed up in Hardcastle, as if boyhood found its spring again. “You’ve waited?” he asked sharply.
“Yes. Rebecca is beyond herself with grief. She sees you lying dead somewhere on the fells, and sits and croons, saying she ought never to have let you out of her sight—with your wounded knee, and all the mad wolves hunting you.”
“Let them hunt,” said Hardcastle, his dreams shattered suddenly by her chill laugh of contempt.
“I will comfort Rebecca, while you go to father. He has been asking for you.”
“Is that mockery, too?”
“None of it is mockery. And Rebecca need not have feared. There’s a mad wolf glaring up at me—bigger than any of the Garsykes breed.”
Hardcastle conquered his gusty rage. She was a woman, and his guest. If the new dreams had to go—well, the old ones had gone, and soon Logie would be ended, too. Nothing mattered.
“Donald asks for me?” he questioned.