“You will abandon these people?”
“If you insist, I will.”
“Then let us linger.”
“But where—how?” I questioned. “What course can we take?”
“That which they took—the way to Scotland.”
“Let us start at once,” I cried, fired with a thousand conflicting feelings, in which there was jealousy, doubt, and a generous desire to rescue my friend; but my limbs gave way beneath all this eagerness, and I fell back gasping for breath.
“Not now—you must have rest, poor child,” said the gipsy, smoothing my hair with his palms.
I drew back, recoiling from a repetition of the mysterious influence which had possessed me the last time I was in that room.
“Do you fear me—me, Chaleco?” he said, with saddened eyes.
“No; but let me act independently—let my brain be clear, my limbs free—let my own will control me—none other shall!”