Bess did not explain that she was opening a gate. Instead, she impelled the other forward and squeezed her arm to impress on her the need of silence. Henrietta felt that the ground over which they were passing was at once softer and more uneven, and she guessed that they had left the road. A moment later the air met her cheek more coldly, and the gloom seemed less opaque. She conjectured that she stood on the brow of a hill—or a precipice—and involuntarily she recoiled. But Bess dragged her on, down a slope so steep that, although the girl trod with caution, she was scarcely able to keep her feet.
Feeling her still hang hack, the gipsy girl plucked at her.
“Hurry!” she whispered. “Hurry, can’t you? We are nearly there.”
“Where?”
“Why, there!”
But the cold and the darkness and the other’s hostile tone had shaken Henrietta’s nerves. She jerked herself free.
“Where?” she repeated firmly. “Where are we going? I shall not go farther unless you tell me.”
“Nonsense!”
“I shall not.”
“Let be! Let be!”