“Your way baint so plain tu zee as t’other young lady’s,” she muttered at last, in an odd, sing-song tone. “There’s life an’ death an’ fire an’ flame afore yu zee the sun shinin’ clear.... And if so be yu take the wrong turnin’, you’ll niver zee it. And there’ll be no postes to guide ’ee. Tez your awn sawl must tell ’ee how to walk through the darkness. For there’s darkness comin’... black darkness.” She paused, and the liquid in the black pot over the fire seethed up suddenly and filled the silence with its chuckling and gurgling, so that to Jean it seemed like the sound of some hidden malevolence chortling defiance at her. The old woman clutched her hand a little tighter, turning the palm so that the light from the tiny window fell more directly upon it. “There’s a castle waitin’ for ’ee, me dear,” she resumed in the same sing-song voice as before. “I can zee it so plain as plain. But yu won’t never live there wi’ the one yu luve, though you’m hopin’ tu. I see ruin and devastation all around it, and the sky so red as blid above it.” She released Jean’s hand slowly, and her curiously bright eyes fastened upon Tormarin. “Shall I tell the gentleman’s hand?” she asked, stretching out her withered claw to take it. But he drew it away hurriedly. “No, no,” he said, attempting to speak lightly. “This lady’s fortune isn’t sufficiently encouraging for me to venture.” The gipsy’s eyes never left his face. She nodded slowly. “That’s as may be. For tez the zaim luck and zaim ill-lack will come to yu as comes to thikke maid. There’s no ring given or taken, but you’m bound together so fast and firm as weddin’-ring could bind ’ee.” Jean felt her face flame scarlet in the dusk of the tiny room, and she turned and made her way hastily out into the sunshine once more, thankful for the eager queries of Nick and Claire, which served to bring back to normal the rather strained atmosphere induced by the gipsy’s final comment. As they climbed the side of the tor once more, Jean relapsed into silence. More than once, more than twice, since she had come to England, she had been vaguely conscious of some hidden menace to her happiness, and now the gipsy had suddenly given words to’ her own indefinite premonition of evil. “For there’s darkness comin’... black darkness.” ***** It was a relief to join the rest of the picnic party, who were clamouring loudly for their lunch, good-humouredly indignant with the wanderers for keeping them waiting. “Another five minutes,” announced Burke, “and we should have begun without you. Not even Lady Anne could have kept us under restraint a moment longer.” The party was quite a large one, augmented by a good many friends from round about the neighbourhood, and amid the riotous fun and ridiculous mishaps which almost invariably accompany an alfresco meal, Jean contrived to throw off the feeling of oppression generated by Keturah’s prophecy.