"No, it wasn't a letter," Elza said, and looked Rosemary now straight between the eyes. "You know these gipsies are queer people. They have curious gifts of divination and prophecy. This man——"
She seemed to hesitate, her glance wavered, and once more she started mechanically stroking Rosemary's hands.
"But the man had a letter for you, Elza dear," Rosemary insisted. "I saw it in his hand."
"Oh, that was only a blind; and so was his story about the gentleman on a horse. He told me that he had come all the way from Ujlak to speak with me. Ujlak is where I was born, and my dear brother and Peter's mother. My sister-in-law lives there still. Anna was born there, and little Marie. It was my father's home and my grandfather's before him, and our ancestors' for many generations. Well, this gipsy came from there."
"In order to speak with you?"
"So he said."
"Well, and what did he have to tell you?" Rosemary asked.
"That he had had a vision. My father had appeared before him in a dream, and told him that he must start at once and seek me. He was to tell me that he whom I love best in all the world is in immediate danger of death."
Rosemary never moved; she was looking straight at Elza. Only when Elza paused, seeming to wait for some word from her, Rosemary said:
"That—wretched creature told you that?"