"What mean you, silly wench? Ha! I perceive the meaning of those tears. The truth flashes upon me. He has discarded you."
"No, by the Heaven of Heavens, he is still the same—unaltered in affection."
"If so, your tears are out of place."
"Mother, it is not fitting that I, a gipsy born, should wed with him."
"Not fitting! Ha! and you my child! Not fitting! Get up, or I will spurn you. Not fitting! This from you to me! I tell you it is fitting; you shall have a dower as ample as that of any lady in the land. Not fitting! Do you say so, because you think that he derives himself from a proud and ancient line—ancient and proud—ha, ha! I tell you, girl, that for his one ancestor I can number twenty; for the years in which his lineage hath flourished, my race can boast centuries, and was a people—a kingdom!—ere the land in which he dwells was known. What! if, by the curse of Heaven, we were driven forth, the curse of hell rests upon his house."
"I know it," said Sybil; "a dreadful curse, which, if I wed him, will alight on me."
"No; not on you; you shall avoid that curse. I know a means to satisfy the avenger. Leave that to me."
"I dare not, as it never can be; yet, tell me—you saw the body of Luke's ill-fated mother. Was she poisoned? Nay, you may speak. Sir Piers's death releases you from your oath. How died she?"
"By strangulation," said the old gipsy, raising her palsied hand to her throat.
"Oh!" cried Sybil, gasping with horror. "Was there a ring upon her finger when you embalmed the body?"