“Will the ring-dove fly to her covert when she sees the fowler’s gun pointed to her breast?”
“Last night she left me in anger!”
“Since last night she has felt what would have withered common hearts to a cinder,” replied the Sibyl. “At sunset she was a child! The morning light found her a woman. Like an earthquake, terror and suffering have turned all the fresh soil of her nature uppermost. She is of the pure blood, and that is old and strong as wine that has been forgotten centuries in a vault.”
“But if I consent to your plan—which certainly promises safety to the poor child—it will be but the very thing in fact that I myself proposed last night. No marriage ceremony which you recognize would be held binding among my people.”
“What have we to do with your people? What do we care if they recognize our marriage rites or not?” answered the Sibyl, haughtily. “It is not their opinion that we regard, but our own. If I am content—I, her nearest relative—who shall dare to cast scorn upon my child, because she defies all laws but those of her own people?”
For a moment the young man’s eyes flashed; but the excitement was momentary. His face became grave and stern; his heart grew heavy, and he shrunk within himself as a proud nature always must, when it comes in possession of a wrong wish.
“Understand me perfectly,” he said. “If I submit to this ceremony, whatever it may be, it will not be considered a marriage among my countrymen. Aurora will never be received as my wife—have no claim on my property save that which I may, of my own free consent, bestow, and in all things her position must depend on my will, my sense of honor. She will not even be looked on with respect; I can give her home, shelter, gold, affection, care, but my wife she cannot be.”
“What Gitana ever was respected by the Busne? We are not fools enough to demand it,” said the old woman bitterly. “As for your laws, we despise them—your gold, surely no woman of our people desires more than her husband chooses to give; your whole nation—what is it to us but a curse and a thing to be abhorred? Could my poor Aurora go back to her tribe in safety, you should not have her for a ton’s weight of the yellowest gold ever sifted from the Darro. No, I ask that ceremony which we hold binding, nothing more, save that I may not be left to starve, and Aurora is yours.”
“But I shall be free by the law to marry another,” said the young man, forcing himself to lay all the painful points of the case before the Sibyl, thus relieving the clamors of his conscience.
“You dare not marry another, law or no law. Aurora is of my blood,” answered the Sibyl, and the blaze of her fiery heart broke over her face. “A strong will makes its own laws and defends its own rights. You dare not marry another, she will not permit it. I will not.”