She stopped, and the wind grew colder, so it seemed. How if the Lean Man had changed his path? How if he had met Wayne by the way and given him that which would render him a laggard till the Trump of Doom? Again she strained her eyes across the peat, and far down the moor she saw a sturdy, loose-limbed figure stride up toward her. Nearer and nearer the figure came, and the girl laughed low to herself. Standing with one arm on the stone, she looked down at Shameless Wayne and waited. And many a dark matter came clear to her in that moment, as she marked the lines of trouble in his face; nor could she tell which was the stronger—the shyness that knowledge of her self-surrender brought, or the fierce, protective impulse that bade her fight his troubles for him. "So you’ve kept tryst, Janet? I scarce looked for it," he said gravely. "Is it my wont, Ned, to break tryst?" she answered. "Nay, but last night has changed all—for you and me." His coldness jarred on her, after her late eagerness toward him. "Art chill as this rainy sky, Ned," she said. "Is’t because I have looked askance at thee of late that thou giv’st me you for the old _thou_ of friendship?" "Nay, but because the friendship is frost-nipped, Janet." She was silent for a while, fighting the maidish battle of pride with tenderness. "That need not be," she said at last. "Was I not like to hold off, Ned, when thou wast so sure of me that thou could’st play the wilding up and down the country-side? So sure of me that, thrice out of four times, a wine-flagon showed more tempting company than I? But thou’rt altered, Ned—I saw it in thy face as thou camest up the moor—and——" "Hold, lass!" he cried, gripping her arm. "I’ll trick no secrets from thee now. Know’st thou I let another fight for me in Marshcotes kirkyard?" "I heard as much a while back. And what said I to my heart about it, think’st thou?" "That it matched well with Shameless Wayne." "That it matched ill with what I would have the man I love to be—Ned, Ned, ’tis I am shameless, for I cannot see thy trouble and keep confession back. It was well enough to flout thee in old days, when thou hadst little need of me—but now—hast never a use for me, dear?"