“She took such a tone of command, and looked so terrible, that the people about seemed afraid to stop her; and even Sir Philip himself, as he stood wiping the mud from his face, seemed sort of dazed like for the minute. As soon as she’d finished, he was for calling for the police, but not as if he was in much of a hurry for them, and no one meddled with the old woman, who went off muttering and cursing. But there was a sharp stone in the mud she threw, and William’s wife saw the blood running down the side of Sir Philip’s face as he wiped it with his handkerchief. But, poor man! what a day for him, to be insulted like that, and out of court, all on account of a pack of filthy gypsies. And they do say, though, of course, I’m not so silly as to believe it, that those gypsies have the evil eye, and that it’s most awful unlucky to be cursed by one of them. William’s wife said she felt she’d rather have died at once than have such things said to her. The old woman’s eyes looked that dreadful that William’s wife was taken with hysterics as she was telling me about the affair. Lor’, sir, I do hope nothing dreadful will happen in consequence.” Dr. Netherbridge dismissed Mrs. Brooks presently, and going over to the Boar’s Head Hotel, where the latest local gossip was always to be heard, he found that his housekeeper’s account had been in no way exaggerated. James Carewe’s threats in court occupied a measure of public attention, but the gypsy woman’s curse was the cream of the news, and much solemn head-wagging took place over it. Not one person there, however, had the slightest suspicion of the relationship which existed between these poachers and gypsies and the lovely wife of Sir Philip Cranstoun, and Dr. Netherbridge returned to his home oppressed by the terrible responsibility which developed upon him of imparting the news of her father’s death and her brother’s imprisonment to Lady Cranstoun in her present critical state of health. As to the chief actor in these scenes, Sir Philip Cranstoun, he was in his secret heart less unmoved by to-day’s events than he made himself appear. Old Mrs. Carewe’s curse lingered in his ears as he sat by his lonely dinner-table, trying vainly to dim his recollection of that unpleasant scene outside the court-house by deep draughts of rare old wine. But no amount of drinking had ever yet clouded his faculties, which to-night seemed abnormally on the alert.