“I do not know whether I do or not,” replied Laura, calmly.
The woman laughed lightly. She peered at the lines of Laura’s palm for a moment, and then said:
“You believe nothing without investigation. For so young a person you are very cautious, and you have much good sense. You are sharp and intelligent. And you are gentle-hearted. In short, your friends love you very dearly, and you are very faithful to them. Is it not so?”
“You flatter me,” said Laura, quietly.
She noted that the woman was no longer holding her hand by the fingers; that she had shifted her own hand to Laura’s wrist, and that two of the queen’s fingers were resting lightly on her pulse—just as Dr. Agnew held a patient’s hand when he counted the throbbing of his heart.
“Oh, I know,” went on the Gypsy, in her whining, sing-song way. “You would be faithful in every event. If you had a secret you could keep it—surely. For instance,” she added, without changing her tone or raising her voice, “if you had seen the girl with the yellow handkerchief and green skirt, and the little, puckered blue scar high up—near the right temple—you would not tell where she was—which direction she had gone.”
That was why the woman was feeling her pulse! Laura knew her heart jumped at the question. She might control her features; but the woman’s question had startled her, and that sudden heart-throb had told the shrewd queen what she wished to know.
She smiled lazily, in the dim light, upon the girl before her. She knew that Laura Belding and her friends had seen the fugitive from the Gypsy camp.
[CHAPTER V—THE SITUATION LOOKS SERIOUS]
Laura Belding was as quick to think as she was to act. She remained perfectly calm after the woman’s question—calm outwardly, at least. Now she spoke: