For the past four days, although Stella knew it not, Stephen had taken every possible opportunity of hanging about the house, the serious illness of one of the collies--an illness so opportune for his plans that he might be almost suspected of having some hand in it--forming an excellent excuse for loitering near the house, young Stephen being renowned for his success as a horse and dog doctor. As soon, therefore, as Stella’s pale face was pressed against her prison bars, her eyes fell upon the handsome, swarthy countenance and black beard of the young gamekeeper, and the words spoken by old Sarah, the gypsy fortune-teller, flashed back into her mind. The hag had sworn to her that the “Romanys” were her friends, her people, and that they would help her to escape, if escape were necessary. At the time, her words seemed mere incomprehensible jargon, and her allusions to “Clare,” and assertions that Stella was “Clare’s child,” had seemed the idle chatter of a woman whose wits were wool-gathering in second childhood. But now all that was changed. The key to the mystery was in Stella’s possession, and her cheeks flushed and her heart beat high with excitement and hope as she recalled the fact that her mother had escaped out of Sir Philip’s power back to her own people, if it was only to die, and that she, Stella, might well do the same. Old Sarah had told her what to do if she needed her help. She had but to place within the hands of Stephen Lee that little old coin, slung on a piece of red silk string, which she still carried about her, and succor would most certainly come. In an instant she had made a rapid gesture to Stephen, whose eyes were upturned to her window. He glanced quickly round, and nodded; then noted, with the keen eye of a man who spent his life out of doors, the direction taken, in falling, by the little medal as it was cast down by Stella’s hand, caught it in his fingers, slipped it in his pocket, and walked leisurely away, as though nothing had happened. Stella had just time to close the window and retire from its vicinity, when the maid Ellen returned. Her presence and that of Dakin were detestable to Stella, who could not even weep for Lady Cranstoun’s death free from their curious and vulgar gaze, nor would she ever exchange a word with either of them. To-day, for the first time, buoyed up by this new hope of escape, she seemed indifferent to the woman’s presence. Her hope lay in the gypsies, and with all the wild gypsy element in her blood, she was longing to be free. CHAPTER XIV. “THE ROMANYS HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.” On leaving the terrace before the Chase, Stephen Lee struck immediately into the forest in a northerly direction.