Mistress Wayne did not answer for awhile; she was watching the moonlight glance freakish, cold and wan, from out the purple-yellow of the clouds—was listening to the curlew-wail that thrilled across the stark, dim moor. And, slowly, as she stood there, the closed door of her mind seemed to swing back a little, letting the sense of outward things creep in. It was a dream, then, that Dick was coming to take her safe into shelter of the valleys; this was the moor that closed her in—the moor, whose face had frightened her, whose storms had chilled her to the bone, through all the brief months of her wedlock with Wayne of Marsh. She gazed and gazed into the moon-dusk, with still face and rounded, panic-stricken eyes; and from the dusk strange shapes stole out and mouthed at her. This for a long moment—and then she ran like a scared child to the little old woman’s arms, and hid her face, and entreated protection from that wilderness which had grown a live, malignant presence to her. "Give me house-walls about me—give me light, and warmth—Mary Mother, hark how the night-birds wail, and scream, and mock me," she cried, with sobs between each panting plea. The Sexton’s wife, not understanding how any one should fear the moor to which she had lived bedfellow these five-and-sixty years, was yet quick to snatch the opportunity. It would never do to leave this witless body to the night-rain and the cold, and who knew how soon she might fall again upon her lover’s body and again refuse to quit the spot? "Come wi’ me," she muttered, putting an arm about Mistress Wayne and hurrying her across the gravestones. "Where wilt take me?" cried the other, half halting on the sudden. "Not—not to Marsh House, where Wayne lies and haunts me with that still look of reproach?" "Not to Marsh, Mistress—nay, not to Marsh. See ye, ’tis but a step, and there’ll be a handful o’ fire for ye—an’ walls to keep th’ cold out——" "Then, we’ll hurry, will we not? Quick, quick! The shadows are laughing at us—and the owl on the church steeple yonder hoots loud in mockery. Oh, let us hurry, hurry!" "Well, then, we’re here. Whisht, Mistress, for there’s naught ye need to fear," cried Nanny, halting at the door of the cottage which stood just across the road. The Sexton, Luke Witherlee, was smoking his pipe in the ingle-nook and hugging the last embers of the peat-fire. A thin, small-bodied man, with parchment cheeks, crow’s-footed, and a weakish mouth, and eyes that were oddly compact of fire and dreaminess. He glanced up as the goodwife entered, and let his pipe fall on the hearthstone when he saw what manner of guest she had brought back with her.