'Does he belong to you, my gal?'
'Yis,' said Sinfi, with a strange, deep ring in her rich contralto voice. 'Yis, he belongs to me now—leastways he's my pal now—whatever comes on it.'
'Then take him away, my wench. What's the matter with him? The old complaint, I s'pose,' he added, lifting his hand to his mouth as though drinking from a glass.
Sinfi gently put out her hand and brushed the man aside.
'I've bin a-followin' on you all the way, brother,' said Sinfi, as we moved out of the cemetery, 'for your looks skeared me a bit. Let's go away from this place.'
'But whither, Sinfi? I have no friend but you; I have no home.'
'No home, brother? The kairengros [Footnote] has got about everythink, 'cept the sky an' the wind, an' you're one o' the richest kairengros on 'em all—leastways so I wur told t'other day in Kingston Vale. It's the Romanies, brother, as 'ain't got no home 'cept the sky an' the wind. Howsumever, that's nuther here nor there; we'll jist go to the woman they told me on, an' if there's any truth to be torn out of her, out it'll ha' to come, if I ha' to tear out her windpipe with it.'
[Footnote: The house-dwellers.]
We took a cab and were soon in Primrose Court.
The front door was wide open—fastened back. Entering the narrow common passage, we rapped at a dingy inner door. It was opened by a pretty girl, whose thick chestnut hair and eyes to match contrasted richly with the dress she wore—a dirty black dress, with great patches of lining bursting through holes like a whity-brown froth.