"We shall thank you all our lives for this—all our lives," she cried. A shadow crossed the Lean Man’s face; his hand trembled on the bed-covering; his eyes wandered hither and thither about the room, not meeting Janet’s. "I was so fearful when you learned my love for Wayne," she went on. "I feared you would find a way to kill him, and then that you would leave Red Ratcliffe free to do as he would with me." "All that was in my mind, lass," said Nicholas, after a long silence. "Nay, if this pesty sickness had not weakened the pride in me—but that is passed. Get thee to Marsh, then, and bid every Wayne in Marshcotes or in Cranshaw come up to drink old sores away.—What, doubtful?" he broke off, as Janet halted half toward the door. "Not of Ned’s coming, sir—but the Waynes of Cranshaw will hold back, suspecting treachery. I saw Ned two days ago, and he told me how his kinsfolk had taken the news of your peace-errand." The smile played again about the Lean Man’s lips. "God’s pity, what do they fear from me?" he cried. "Look at me, Janet, and say if I could scare any one—save the crows, haply, when they come a-stealing corn." "They say that, while Nicholas Ratcliffe lives, there will be bloodshed; they say, sir, that they’ll give no ear to talk of peace until—" She checked herself. "Nay, finish it out, lass! Until I’m under sod, thou would’st have said? So my name holds good even yet? Well-away, ’tis a thought to soften one’s pillow, when all is said." He fell into silence, and Janet, standing by the bedside, saw his rough brows drawn tight together as if the brain were quick yet in his dying body. A vague foreboding seized her; time and again in the past she had seen the Lean Man knit his brows in thought, and some one of his moorside foes had always rued it later in the day. "So the Cranshaw Waynes carry suspicion of me still?" said Nicholas after awhile. "Art sure, Janet, they will doubt me to the last? Doubt me, when Wayne of Marsh has given his hand, knowing that peace is all I ask for?" "They have not seen the changed look of you as Wayne of Marsh has done, or they could never doubt." There was a break in Janet’s voice, for her foreboding of a moment ago grew shameful when measured by the old man’s gentleness. "Then I must die without seeing what I yearned to see. Well, so be it. Now give me a promise, girl—the last I shall ever ask of thee." "I promise it beforehand—but it must not be the last. You will live, grandfather——" "Tush, bairn! A broken jug carries no wine.—God, don’t cry so, Janet! When I was hale, I could never bide the sight of tears; and now they madden me. Listen; when the breath is out of my body, my folk will wake beside the bier. Well, the Waynes must come then if they’ll not come while I’m living; death will soften them, lass." "Grandfather——"