She found her courage then, and answered crisply, following the old metaphor. At all hazards she must make them think that her hatred against Wayne of Marsh was equal to their own. "The trickiest fox breaks cover once too oft; ye’ll catch him yet," she laughed—"whose saddle goes empty of a rider?" "Thy Uncle Robert’s. Get thee to bed, lass, and use thy woman’s trick of prayer." "To what end shall I use it, sir?" she asked softly. It was easy to play her part of Ratcliffe, now that she knew how things had gone at Marsh. "Why, to the end of vengeance." The Lean Man’s voice rang thin and high with sudden passion. "Pray to the Fiend, girl, or to Our Lady, or to the first that bends an ear to thee—pray that the Waynes——" He stopped, and Janet saw him shrink as if a shrewd wind had nipped him unawares. And then, without a word, he led his horse across the yard. Janet still lingered at the casement, watching the moonlight fade away among the grey hollows of the moor. "I will pray," she murmured—"pray that the Waynes may win a rightful quarrel—pray that love may one day conquer kinship, and——" "Janet!" She looked down at Red Ratcliffe, standing close to the wall with face upturned to her window. "What is’t?" she said coldly. "Thou know’st as well as I. The times are perilous, and when a man loves he cannot wait.—Listen, Janet! I’m sick with longing for thee." "The wind blows cold. Canst find no time more fitting for love-idleness?" she said, and shut the casement with a snap. Red Ratcliffe halted a moment, for the night’s work, unmanning him, had loosed his hotter impulses. Panic had held him, and after that dull fear; and now the brute in him rose up. "Come back, thou wanton!" he cried, so loudly that Nicholas heard him from across the yard. "Dost think I can wait all night while thou stand’st bleating under a lass’s chamber-window?" roared the Lean Man. "Come, fool, and help me stable this nag of mine." Red Ratcliffe moved away, sullenly, with a bridle in either hand, and found his grandfather leaning heavily against the door-post of the stable. "Thou’lt have to groom the three of them," said Nicholas, in a failing voice. "That cursed fire has—has tapped my strength a little." He stood upright with a plain effort, and frowned on his grandson, and, "Lad," he said, "what wast saying to Janet just now? I gave thee free leave to win her if thou could’st—but, by the Living Heart, there shall none force her inclination."