They stood up at the window and watched. The boy played the same thing twice over, then he played a Scotch tune. Then he opened the gate and walking across the little lawn stood under the window and touched his cap.
Carstairs put his hand in his pocket and pulled out sixpence. "Wait a minute," he said to the boy. He went downstairs and spoke to him. "Do you come from Scotland?"
"Yes, sir; I seen you there. Sam's down here and he's after you." He turned and went out into the road again and disappeared.
Carstairs looked after him with a troubled frown, then he returned to the sitting-room.
Darwen looked at him with observant, surprised eyes. "Did you know that kid?" he asked.
"No, but he knew me. I once had a row with a gipsy in Scotland; flattened him out, broke his leg; he's been after me ever since. That kid came to tell me he's in this town now. Next pay day I shall invest in a young bull dog."
Carstairs sat down again in the big easy chair and gazed at nothing. His thoughts were far away; he had no doubt who had sent the gipsy boy to warn him. "The most potent force, the love of women." Good God! and what of the love of men? A gipsy girl. It was quite impossible.
Then Darwen played—pleading, soothing music—and Carstairs told him the whole story.
"You'll have to remove that gipsy, that Sam—in self-defence, mind, of course. And the girl—you couldn't marry a gipsy, of course, but it's not necessary."
And Carstairs listened in silence.