Tod gave a grunt of displeasure. “Stockhausen must be doing it for pastime,” he said; “but he ought not to be so thoughtless. Ketira the gipsy would give the girl a shaking if she knew: she——”
The words came to an abrupt ending. There stood Ketira herself.
She was at the extreme end of the inlet amid the trees, holding on by the trunk of one, round which her head was cautiously pushed to view the promenaders. Comparatively speaking, it was dark just here; but I could see the strangely-wild look in the gipsy’s eyes: the woe-begone expression of her remarkable face.
“It is coming,” she said, apparently in answer to Tod’s remarks, which she could not have failed to hear. “It is coming quickly.”
“What is coming?” I asked.
“The fate in store for her. And it’s worse than death.”
“If you don’t like her to walk out by moonlight, why not keep her in?—not that there can be any harm in it,” interposed Tod. “If you don’t approve of her being friendly with Hyde Stockhausen,” he went on after a pause, for Ketira made no answer, “why don’t you put a stop to it?”
“Because she has her mother’s spirit and her mother’s will” cried Ketira. “And she likes to have her own way: and I fear, woe’s me! that if I forced her to mine, things might become worse than they are even now: that she might take some fatal step.”
“I am going home,” said Tod at this juncture, perhaps fancying the matter was getting complicated: and, of all things, he hated complications. “Good-night, old lady. We heard you were in bed with rheumatism.”
He set off back, up the narrow inlet. I said I’d catch him up: and stayed behind for a last word with Ketira.