"Very good, Jackson. You can tell the gipsy woman that, if she needs immediate help of any kind, she can apply in the village, to Rawlins, but that I cannot see her to-night."
"Yes, sir."
The man departed; and the Misses Mordaunt finished their duet, and rose from the piano, to receive the usual thanks and acknowledgments from their hearers.
Again Miss Graham was asked to sing, and again she seated herself before the instrument, triumphant in the consciousness that she could excel the timid girls who had just left the piano.
But this time Lionel Dale did not place himself beside the instrument. He stood near the door of the apartment, ready to receive the servant, if he should return with a second message from the gipsy woman.
The servant did return, and this time he begged his master to step outside the room before he delivered his message. Lionel complied immediately, and followed the man into the corridor without.
"I was almost afraid to speak in there, sir," said the man, in an awe-stricken whisper; "folks have such ears. The woman says she must see you, sir, and this very night. It is a matter of life and death, she says."
"Then in that case I will see this woman. Go into the drawing-room, Jackson, and tell Mrs. Mordaunt, with my compliments, that I find myself compelled to receive one of my parishioners; and that she and the other ladies must be so good as to excuse my absence for half an hour."
"Yes, sir."
The rector went to the hall, where, cowering by the fire, he found an old gipsy woman.