"Ay, if it meant no more!" mused Shameless Wayne, and turned as his step-mother came timidly to his side. "Come in to supper, dear. Thou need’st it, as Wayne of Cranshaw said," she pleaded, threading her arm through his and coaxing him indoors. The board was ready spread; but the brave show of pewter, the meats and pasties and piled heaps of haverbread, served only to make the wide, empty hall look drearier, and Wayne would not glance at the slender, high-backed chair which marked Nell’s wonted seat at table. Hunger was killed in him; but he forced himself to eat, since food meant strength to fight Nell’s battle by and by. And while he ate, the little woman sat close beside him, watching his every movement, and wishful, so it seemed, to speak of something that lay near her heart. "Ned," she whispered, finding courage at last, "it was I who sent Nell across the moor to-day; and what she said to me was true—I have brought nothing but disaster on your house since first I came to Marsh. The man who lies outside there, Ned—the man whom your cousin slew—I was feared just now, seeing him dead. But need I be? God knows I would fain lie where he lies now, for then—then, dear, I should bring no more trouble upon those I love. Naught but disaster I’ve brought——" "That is not true, bairn," said Wayne gently. "Many a time thou hast brought rest to me when none else could—no, not Nell herself.—Ay, once thou gav’st me hope that there was no such crying shame in loving awry," he added, with sudden bitterness. "What of thy wisdom now, bairn? Shall I woo Mistress Janet while I help tear Wildwater stone from stone?" "It was no fault of hers, dear. How if she sorrows for Nell as much as thou, or I, or any of us?" But Wayne would not listen. "How the time crawls!" he muttered, as he pushed his plate away and rose impatiently. "Surely they are here by now. Hark! was not that the courtyard-gate? I left it unbarred against their coming. Didst hear it opened?" "Ay, I heard it opened—and there’s a footstep on the paving-stones." "Bairn, help me to buckle my sword-belt on again. I know there’s luck goes where thy hand has rested." She helped him eagerly. "It is not all disaster that I bring, then? Thanks for that word, Ned; I needed it," she murmured, chafing her baby fingers against the stiff buckle. She was still striving with it, and Ned was stooping to help her, when the main door opened, and Janet Ratcliffe stood slender on the threshold, not laughing, but with an odd merriment lurking in her eyes and about her resolute mouth. "I have come to our dearest enemy. Make me your captive, Wayne of Marsh," she said. He sprang back as if she had been less warmly flesh and blood; but Mistress Wayne smiled in her pleased child’s fashion as she crept out of sight among the shadows at the far end of the hall. "You have chosen your time well, Mistress, if a jest is in your mind," said Wayne.