But Nell was pitiless. The news so rudely broken to her had brought a twelvemonth’s hidden bitterness to the front, and she would not check it. "But for you the feud would have slept itself away—but for you Ned would be sitting at table yonder.—Mistress, how dared you come first to tell me of it?—Nay, hold your tears, for pity’s sake; they’ll bring no lives back." The girl rose, and would have gone out, but her step-mother stood in front of her, lifting up her hands in piteous entreaty. "Nell, I want—I want to go with you; I loved him, too, and I think he’ll be glad to see me at the last—if—if he’s not dead by this." "_You_ want to go with me? My faith, I’ll seek other company, or go alone," flashed Nell, and left her there. Mistress Wayne had found a certain fluttering courage nowadays; see Ned she would and claim a farewell from him, without leave from Nell. The girl would not share her company; but the road was free to her—the road that led to the Wildwater boundary-stone. She waited only for a moment, then followed Nell whose figure she could see boldly outlined against the sweep of still, blue sky that lay across the top of Barguest Lane. "I have brought disaster to them; yes, ’tis very true," she mused all along the bare white road. The girl had far outstripped her by this time; but she caught sight of her again, a long mile ahead, as Nell topped the hill at whose feet the boundary-stone was set. Full of eagerness to know the worst, Mistress Wayne quickened pace, though her feet ached and her head throbbed painfully. It seemed this ling-bordered stretch of road would never end. She gained the hill-top where she had last seen Nell, and glanced down in terror-stricken search of the body lying in the hollow; but naught met her eyes, save an empty road winding into empty space. Nor did a nearer view dispel the mystery: the boundary-stone stood gaunt, flat-topped and black, in the hot sunlight; the sand of the roadway was disordered as if a plunging horse had scattered it with hoof-play; but that was all. Where was Ned? He lay beside the boundary-stone, those evil folk from Wildwater had told her. Yet there was no blood upon the ground, nor the least sign to tell her that a man had been done to death here. Nell, too, was gone, completely as if the road had yielded, bog-like, to her tread and closed about her. Only the sad cries of moor-birds broke the stillness—these, and the far-off echo of horse-hoofs pounding over a stony track. Mistress Wayne sat her down at the roadside, among the budding heather. A great faintness stole over her; she felt her new-found hold on life slipping from her grasp. What had chanced to Wayne? Where was Nell? Was this some fresh delusion, nursed by the sun-heat and her hurried walk? She could not tell—only, she knew that the grey line of road was circling round her, that the sky seemed closing in. "I—brought—disaster," she murmured, and let her head fall back among the heather.