"Speech has been hindered, Ned, between us," she said, "and we know not when another chance may come. I’ll tell thee now what I have wished to tell thee many a long day past. Thou art one, and they are many; and it stirs my blood, Ned, to see the gallant fight thou’rt making." Wayne tried to check her but she did not heed him. "Once in the kirkyard and once at Marsh—and even the Ratcliffes say thou’rt something between man and devil when a sword is in thy hand. Hold fast, Ned, and strike keen, and thou’lt have the last word yet in this ill-matched quarrel." "Nay, the pitcher goes once too oft to the well, Janet.—And as for the attack on Marsh, ’twas none of my doing that we beat them off. If the lads had not returned in good hour from the hunting, it would have been the Lean Man’s turn." She was silent awhile, thinking of what Red Ratcliffe had confessed to her this morning. _The pitcher goes once too oft to the well_—ay, there was truth in the hard old proverb. "Ned," she cried, looking up on the sudden, "do not go to Bents Farm this week." "Not go to Bent’s? How didst learn I meant to ride up there at all?" "Red Ratcliffe told me this morning. Ned, I’ll not let thee go! They learned of thy coming from the farmer, and some plot is laid—I know not what—to meet thee by the way." She stopped, for Wayne’s face was darker than she had ever seen it, and there was anger in his voice—anger against her, who had sought only to rescue him from treachery. Thwarted, driven back upon herself, she forgot that Wayne’s temper was sharpened to a knife-edge by his long struggle with desire. He stood defenceless between love and hate, and the knowledge of his weakness maddened him. "What is your folk’s is yours, Janet," he cried, "and what is my folk’s is mine; and the Waynes must fall lower before they hearken to what a Ratcliffe has to tell them of her kinsmen’s plans." Her eyes were wide with amazement, and anger, and a hard sort of contempt. "That is the Wayne pride," she said—"what they call honour, but what their neighbours call stark folly. Nay! I know what is in thy mind. Women have no hold on the niceties of honour, thou would’st say—but I tell thee, Wayne of Marsh, if thou’rt to fight this through like a man, not like a want-wit babe, thou’lt have to use the Lean Man’s weapons. What are scruples when life—life, Ned, the one thing that we’re sure of——" "The Wayne pride may be folly," he broke on stormily, "but it has kept Marsh House standing for three hundred years, and I seek no better." "Then thou’lt not be warned?" "I shall ride to Bents Farm on Thursday, as I had in mind to." "And wilt thou take none with thee?" "I meant to take none, and I’ll not shift from my path by a hair’s-breadth." "Fool, fool!" she cried, casting about for some fresh turn of pleading that might weigh with him. "It is told now—I cannot recall my warning, Ned; at least make such use thou canst of it."