"Nothing further, sir. Your sister is in dire peril; would less have brought me to one who has spurned my warnings oft aforetime?" He waited, frowning, till she should tell him more. "Men’s wits move like the snail does, methinks," she cried. "Am I less dear at Wildwater than Nell at Marsh? Send up to the Lean Man, sir, and say what dread things you will do to me, and see if he will not exchange his prisoner for yours." Wayne looked hard at her, doubtful still and bewildered by the heedless devilry of her plan. "You have risked much for the honour of my house," he said slowly. "Nay, for the honour of a woman who had little deserved the infamy they planned for her." "But ’tis out of reason! You run too great a hazard, Mistress.—See, our plans are laid, and already the Cranshaw and the Hill House Waynes are on the road hither. Go back while you have time, Mistress." "I shall not go back, sir, for I know how hopeless are your plans. They have guarded Wildwater securely against attack; and even if you seemed like to force an entry they would make sure—how shall I tell thee, Ned?" she broke off, lapsing to the old familiar speech and turning her eyes shamefacedly from his. "They would make sure of Nell’s dishonour. That is thy meaning, Janet? God’s life, that is a true word. Yet—when they learn that this capture was all thy doing, not mine, thou’lt have a rough welcome home to Wildwater?" "There is always danger for me there," she said, her voice deepening; "but that should not vex thee, surely, Wayne of Marsh?" Shameless Wayne glanced neither back nor forward now. It seemed as if some hidden chord, frayed by the months of self-denial, had snapped on the sudden; her fearless strength, her man’s power to frame a swift stroke of daring and to carry it through, her woman’s fierce, unheeding tenderness—all these he understood at last—understood, too, that his love for her, nurtured in rough soil and inclement weather, had come to a hardier growth than pride. Before, he had lacked her, felt the keen need of possession; but now he loved her, and watched the old barriers crumble into unmeaning dust. "Janet," he said quietly, not moving nearer to her yet, "dost think I care naught what chances to thee?" "’Twould seem so, Ned. Twice I have told thee of the bargain made between the Lean Man and my cousins——" "Nay, only hinted at it. What was this bargain, Janet?" Lower still her voice dropped. "That I should be given to the one who slew thee," she said. She glanced once at him, and for the first time since leaving Wildwater she felt a touch of fear. For Shameless Wayne had given a cry—a cry such as she had never hearkened to, so deep it was, so brutish in its rage against those who had agreed to this foul bargain. He sprang to her side—she could feel his arms close masterful about her—and then, with some strange instinct of defence, she forced herself away.