The gipsy would have been angered, even to baring of steel, by any comrade who had warned him of that which his heart began to tell him too plainly, though he dared not admit it to himself, who had hinted that Thyra loved another, and that other, one of the forbidden race—which, for all his Romany pride and Romany prejudices, he could not but acknowledge superior in every respect to his own. But he knew it, nevertheless, and only waited an opportunity to avenge himself on the rival, whom he had identified, almost to certainty, with John Garnet, alias Galloping Jack, the highwayman. Even now, he thought it might not be too late to detach Waif from her unworthy and impossible attachment. Far into the night Fin Cooper tossed and turned from side to side, restless and sleepless, because of his wrongs, his memories, and his feverish longing to have his hand on John Garnet's throat.
Waif, too, was uneasy and wakeful. She had not listened to the tale of Mary Lee, without accepting its moral for a warning to herself. Well she knew that in the bloody code of her people, to love a Gorgio was an offence punished by death. And she loved a Gorgio! Aye, loved him, as she thought with a thrill of pride, essentially womanly in the exquisite pleasure it evoked, the more deeply and dearly for the penalty. No pale-faced girl could care for him like that! When the time came, she would give him her life, as she had given him her love, without a murmur or a reproach.
Perhaps, at that moment, he was looking at the very star on which her eyes were fixed, as it twinkled through the gaps in her brown weather-worn tent. Perhaps, who knows, in another life, to be spent up there amongst those stars, they might find themselves together? and so Waif's dark eyes closed in that other life, on which we enter every night, and the girl sank into a peaceful sleep, dreaming calmly of her love.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
ON THE SCENT.
Wittingly or unwittingly, nobody ever offended Katerfelto without regretting it. To do him justice, the Charlatan had every intention of screening John Garnet from the avenger of blood, when he started his patient on the Western Road, in pursuit of Lord Bellinger's ponderous coach-and-six. The young man, he thought, would prove a useful tool enough, and he had no objection to do him a kindness into the bargain, provided it cost nothing, and would turn to his own advantage; but, when he discovered Waif was missing too, before the good grey horse and its rider had been six hours out of London, he at once connected the girl's flight with his absence, whom she had nursed so tenderly, and in a quiet, remorseless way vowed vengeance upon both.
John Garnet's mission, if fulfilled at all, must be carried out within three days at farthest. When accomplished, it mattered little what became of the messenger. Perhaps the sooner he was set aside the better. What was the cost of a man and horse, valuable as might be the latter, compared with the interest at stake, with the gains and losses of the great game in which every player waged life and fortune on the result?
Parson Gale, wearying sadly of London, and longing for his moorland hills, found himself no longer put off with mysterious hints, and unintelligible jargon; but, to use his own metaphor, was laid on the line, like a bloodhound resolving to track it, inch for inch, till he pinned his quarry by the throat.