Red Ratcliffe caught the direction of his glance, and touched him lightly on the shoulder. "’Tis but an outworn saying, yond," he cried. "We neither strike nor kill, now that the dead has bequeathed us fairer days." He beckoned toward the bier, and Wayne and all his folk drew round it in a ring, looking down upon the closed eyes and wax-white face of their old enemy. Until now they had doubted whether the Lean Man were really dead; but doubts vanished as they saw the still look of him and marked how death had lent its own nobility to the scarred weasel-face. "His last prayer was for an end to our long feud," said Red Ratcliffe, smooth and grave. "Ay, was it—and he wept that he had not lived to see us friends," cried one of his fellows. Shameless Wayne kept his eyes on the dead man, for fear his scorn of all this honeyed speech should show too soon; and he thought, as Red Ratcliffe spoke, that a tremour like the first waking of a smile ran up from the cloth that bound the Lean Man’s jaws. But he could not tell; the candle-flames were slanting now in the wind that rustled through the open door, and the fantastic shadows thrown by them across the bier might trick the keenest sight. "’Twas wondrous how quiet an end he had—the old hate clean forgotten," went on Red Ratcliffe. "May all his kinsfolk have as quiet an end," said Wayne, and sighed impatiently, wondering when the signal for the onset would free him from all this give-and-take of idle talk. Yet he would not hurry to the goal; for if the Ratcliffes thought to lull him into security by delay, the self-same logic taught him likewise to be patient. For Shameless Wayne was cool to-night; his aim was not victory alone, and if one Ratcliffe of them all escaped, he would count himself a beaten man. A silence followed. The Ratcliffes were glancing sideways at each other, as if asking, "When?"—and one of them, stooping to Red Ratcliffe’s ear, whispered, "The door! We have forgot to cut off their retreat." "The night blows shrewd, friends. Let’s shut it out," cried Red Ratcliffe boisterously. He stopped half toward the door, and fetched an oath, then laughed aloud; for there on the threshold stood little Mistress Wayne, shivering from head to foot. "By the Mass, we entertain a gentle member of your house, friend Wayne," he said. "Enter, Mistress; there’s no peace-cup rightly drunk, they say, unless a woman’s lips have touched it." Wayne frowned on her as she stepped timidly into the room and crossed to where he stood. "How com’st thou here?" he asked. "I could not leave thee—oh, Ned, I could not leave thee," she whispered. "Dear, thou’lt win with me here to watch thee—and—for Our Lady’s sake, get done with it, for I’m sick with doubts and fears."