"There will be no hunting while this weather lasts."
"None."
"Then your grand meeting of to-morrow will be put off?"
"Yes, unless the weather changes in the night."
"Once more, good night, Mr. Dale."
"Good night."
The rector stood at the door, watching the gipsy woman as she walked along the snow-laden pathway. The dark figure moving slowly and silently across the broad white expanse of hidden lawn and flower-beds looked almost ghost-like to the eyes of the watcher.
"What does it all mean?" he asked himself, as he watched that receding figure. "Is this woman a common impostor, who hopes to enrich herself, or her tribe, by playing upon my fears? She asked nothing of me to-night; and yet that may be but a trick of her trade, and she may intend to extort all the more from me in the future. What should she be but a cheat and a trickster, like the rest of her race?"
The question was not easy to settle.
He returned to the drawing-room. His mind had been much disturbed by this extraordinary interview, and he was in no humour for empty small-talk; nor was he disposed to meet Reginald Eversleigh, against whom he had received so singular, so apparently groundless, a warning.