Her grandfather was standing by the well-spring in the courtyard as she entered. His back was toward her, and he failed to mark her light step on the flagstones. A vague foreboding seized the girl; creeping closer, she saw the Lean Man stoop to rinse his hands in the clear stream, and a low cry escaped her as she saw that the water reddened as it ran between his fingers. Nicholas swung round with a frown, and clapped a hand to the breast of his tightly-buttoned coat. "What art doing here, lass?" he said roughly. "I—I have been walking——" "What, so soon after I bade thee keep so close to home?" said Nicholas, wiping his hands furtively on the lappel of his coat. She answered nothing for awhile. Then, "How went the hunting?" she asked, with a sudden glance at him. "Bonnily. I’ve brought home better flesh, Janet, than Wildwater has seen this score years." Her forboding took clear shape. Had he met Shameless Wayne on his way home from the kirk-stone? What was it that the Lean Man guarded so carefully at his breast? At all costs she must learn if Ned were safe. "Where did you kill the quarry?" she whispered, and longed to take back the question for fear of the answer she might get. "Where? Why, on Cranshaw Rigg—’tis on the Long Wayne’s land, thou’lt call to mind," chuckled the Lean Man. "Then—then ’twas not Wayne of Marsh?" He glanced at her curiously; but it was plain that he shared none of Red Ratcliffe’s suspicion touching her tenderness for Wayne. "Nay, it was not Wayne of Marsh—for the reason that, seek as I would, I could not find the lad," he answered, as he turned to go indoors. "’Tis not Ned after all," murmured Janet. "Thank God he kept the tryst with me." *CHAPTER VI* *THE BROWN DOG’S STEP* Marsh House lay lower than Wildwater, and it had a softer look with it, though built much after the same pattern so far as roominess and stout building went. The trees grew big about it and a pleasant orchard ran from the garden to the chattering stream; yet was it ghostly, in a quiet fashion of its own, and not all its trees and sheltered garden-nooks could rob it of a certain eeriness, scarce felt but not to be gainsaid. On either hand the gateway two balls of stone had lately topped the uprights; but one of these had fallen and lay unheeded in the courtyard—a quiet and moss-grown mourner, so it seemed, for the lost pride of the Waynes of Marsh. Behind the house, leading up to the sloping shoulder of the moor, ran a narrow, grass-grown way, scarce wide enough to let a horseman through and lined on either hand by grassy banks and lichened walls of sandstone; they called it Barguest lane, and the Spectre Hound who was at once the terror of the moorside and the guardian spirit of the Waynes, was said to roam up and down between the moor and Marsh House whenever trouble was blowing in the wind.