"Oh, it's nothing," said Hyde carelessly. "But I don't want it to be bad to-morrow when I travel, and I thought perhaps you might be able to give me something or other to set it to rights to-night. I start at ten to-morrow morning." "Sore throats are not cured so easily," retorted Duffham. "You must have taken cold." Telling him he would send in a gargle and a cooling draught, and that he was to go to bed soon, Duffham rose to leave. Hyde opened the glass-doors of the room that we might pass out that way, and stepped over the threshold with us. Talking with Duffham, he strolled onwards towards the gate. "About three weeks, I suppose," he said, in answer to the query of how long he meant to be away. "If Mabel----" Gliding out of the bushy laurels on one side the path, and planting herself right in front of us, came Ketira the gipsy. Her face looked yellower than ever in the twilight of the summer's evening; her piercing black eyes fiercer. Hyde was taken aback by the unexpected encounter. He started a step back. "Where's my daughter, Hyde Stockhausen?" "Go away," he said, in the contemptuous tone one might use to a dog. "I don't know anything of your daughter." "Only tell me where she is, that I may find her. I ask no more." "I tell you that I do not know anything of her. You must be mad to think it. Get along with you!" "Hyde Stockhausen, you lie. _You do know where she is; you know that it is with you she has been._ Heaven hears me say it: deny it if you dare." His face looked whiter than death. Just for an instant he seemed unable to speak. Ketira changed her tone to one of plaintive wailing. "She was my one little ewe lamb. What had she or I done to you that you should come as a spoiler to the fold? I _prayed_ you not. Make her your wife, and I will yet bless you. It is not too late. Do not break her heart and mine." Hyde had had time to rally his courage. A man full of wine can generally call some up, even in the most embarrassing of situations. He scornfully asked the gipsy whether she had come out of Bedlam. Ketira saw how hard he was--that there was no hope. "It is said that you depart to-morrow to bring home a bride, Hyde Stockhausen. _I counsel you not to do it._ For your own sake, and for the young woman's sake, I bid you beware. The marriage will not bring good to you or to her." That put Hyde in a towering passion. His words came out with a splutter as he spurned her from him. "Cease your folly, you senseless old beldame! Do you dare to threaten me? Take yourself out of my sight instantly, before I fetch my horsewhip. And, if ever you attempt to molest me again, I will have you sent to the treadmill." Ketira stood looking at him while he spoke, never moving an inch. As his voice died away she lifted her forefinger in warning. And anything more impressive than her voice, than her whole manner--anything more startlingly defiant than her countenance, I never wish to see.