"I shall ride to Bents Farm on Thursday, as I had in mind to."
"I meant to take none, and I'll not shift from my path by a hair's-breadth."
"Fool, fool!" she cried, casting about for some fresh turn of pleading that might weigh with him. "It is told now--I cannot recall my warning, Ned; at least make such use thou canst of it."
"Hast lived so long with the storms, Janet," said he, smiling gravely, "that thou hast learnt naught of Fate? What will be, will be, girl, and if I'm to die by a Ratcliffe blade in three days' time--why, 'tis settled; if not, thy warning still goes for naught."
Stung by his disdain, she ceased pleading, and allowed her own right pride to have its say. "So be it; but I would have thee know this before I leave thee. There's somewhat hangs on the taking of thy life--somewhat that touches my welfare nearly."
"What is't?" he asked, eyeing her curiously.
"'Twould not advantage thee to know.--And so farewell, Ned, and God give thee a better wit."
Shameless Wayne had no struggle now with his love for this slim, passionate girl; with the first hint of battle his mind had swung back to what had been all in all to him since he swore above his father's body never to rest until the Ratcliffes had paid their price. She was a Ratcliffe, and she had dared to bid him slink out of touch of danger; and the good-bye that had seemed agony not long ago, was easy now, as he watched her go up the brink-field without a thought to call her back for one last hopeless word--the word for lack of which her step went heavy up the slope.
"I can do naught for him," she murmured, not turning as she topped the rise. "Is there one other as fond as he in the whole world, to see a plain pitfall and ride hot-foot over it?"
She cared not a whit for what the Lean Man might have in store for her. She would make a straight confession to him and thereafter face him without dread--nay, with a sort of gladness, since his first hot impulse might earn her a release from that terrible bargain which had pledged her to the slayer of Wayne of Marsh. Then she fell into a storm of anger against Wayne, that his stubbornness had forbidden him to save himself and her; and after that a sense of utter loneliness came over her, and she lay down in the heather and sobbed without restraint.