The dun mist hugged the moor as she made forward. The clouds were grey as hopelessness, and everywhere the sound of moorland brooks, flushed by the heavy rains, was like a doom-song in her ears. Underfoot the peat oozed black at every step. The further hills were blotted out, the nearer rises showed unsubstantial, wan and ghoulish; the very grouse were wearied into silence. The shaggy-coated beast that had led her here had vanished into the drifting mists; but still she pressed on, her whole mind bent on reaching Wildwater. She would have been lost at the first mile had she brought reason to help her find the track to Wildwater; but instinct guided her more surely, and presently the black house in the wilderness showed swart among the mists. So dark it looked, so evil, that once she half turned back; but Ned had need of her—and she would go to the house-door and knock, and ask what they had done with him. And if they killed her—well, it would not matter. On and on she went. And now she had reached the outer-most intake; and now she had crossed the lank grass, and gone through the gate at the top, and reached the bare house-side that looked from its solitary window on to the path which led to the courtyard. Mistress Wayne caught her breath, and stopped, and listened; but the house was still as death. Her resolution faltered; she looked up and down the wall, with the rain-lines shimmering grey from the gable-end to the rustling weeds at its foot—looked, and saw nothing for awhile—looked, with the absent gaze of those who wander in their sleep, until a shadow crossed the window-pane, a shadow that took substance. Then there was a crash, the falling of broken glass, and Mistress Wayne had wit neither to scream nor flee. She could but follow the hand that beckoned through the broken pane. *CHAPTER XXVII* *HOW THE LEAN MAN FORGOT THE FEUD* Janet, soon as she reached Wildwater after bidding farewell to Shameless Wayne, went up to the Lean Man’s room to tell him how she had fulfilled her errand and to see if he were in need of anything. But the sound of voices met her when she gained the stair-head, and she stopped irresolute. The pity that she felt for her grandfather was such as to make her shrink from showing it to the rude eyes of her kinsmen, and she would wait until the Lean Man and she could be alone together. The door was wide open, and as she turned to go downstairs again Red Ratcliffe’s voice sounded harshly across the landing. "By the Heart, sir, we judged you all amiss! We thought the fight was dead in you, and now——" "Dead? The fight will die, lad, when I do," chuckled the Lean Man. "Tell me, is it not bravely planned?" Janet crept close to the door, her eyes wide-open with dismay.