II.
You would not have known the place again. Virginia Cottage, the unpretending little homestead, had been converted into a mansion. Hyde Stockhausen had built a new wing at one end, and a conservatory at the other; and had put pillars before the rustic porch, over which the Virginia creeper climbed.
We heard last month about Ketira the gipsy: and of the unaccountable disappearance of her daughter, Kettie; and of the indignant anger displayed by Hyde Stockhausen when it was suggested that he might have kidnapped her. Curiously enough, within a few days of that time, Hyde himself disappeared from Church Dykely: not in the mysterious manner that Kettie had, but openly and with intention.
The inducing cause of Hyde’s leaving, as was stated and believed, was a quarrel with his step-father, Massock. It chanced that the monthly settling-day, connected with the brickfields, fell just after Kettie vanished. Massock came over for it as usual, and was overbearing as usual; and perhaps Hyde, already in a state of inward irritation, was less forbearing than usual. Any way, ill-words arose between them. Massock accused Hyde of neglecting his interests, and of being too much of a gentleman to look after the work and the men. Hyde retorted: one word led to another, and there ensued a serious quarrel. The upshot was, that Hyde threw up his post. Vowing he would never again have anything to do with old Massock or his precious bricks as long as he lived, he packed up a small portmanteau and quitted Church Dykely there and then, to the intense tribulation of his ancient nurse and servant, Deborah Preen.
“Leave him alone,” said Massock roughly. “He’ll be back safe enough in a day or two.”
“Where is he gone?” asked Ketira the gipsy: who, hovering still around Virginia Cottage, had seen Hyde’s exit with his portmanteau.
Massock stared at her, and at her red cloak: she had penetrated to his presence to ask the question. He had never before seen Ketira; never heard of her.
“What is it to you?” he demanded, in his coarse manner. “Who are you? Do you come here to tell his fortune? Be off, old witch!”
“His fortune may be told sooner than you care to hear it—if you are anything to him,” was the gipsy’s answer. And that same night she quitted Church Dykely herself, wandering away to be lost in the “wide wide world.”