“How glad I shall be to get away! I cannot help but sympathize with Lelia in her distaste for The Crags. It is unendurably lonely. I shall go away the day after the funeral, as soon as the will is read. I suppose the old lady has certainly left me a legacy,” ran her thoughts, as she sought her own room to rest. As for Lelia, all unconscious of the revelations of her nervous slumber, she arose, rested and refreshed, but so sullen over Laurie’s desertion that she remained in her own room making a great parade of grief, so as to deny herself to the neighbors who came from miles around to express their sincere sympathy. CHAPTER XXVIII. A GIPSY PROPHECY. The handsome young bridegroom who had forgotten his exacting bride under the stress of his great sorrow rode on rapidly toward Lewisburg, some seven or eight miles away. Sad and heavy thoughts bore him company, for he seemed dazed with the shock of all that had befallen him in the past week. Gipsy’s murder, his forced marriage, his aunt’s death--all following so rapidly upon each other--were enough to unbalance the strongest brain. The impulse of flight came over him, as it comes to so many in dark hours--the longing to seek in distant lands, among strangers, surcease from sorrow. Alas, he might not flee from his pain. He was bound by Lelia’s fetters; she would not let her wretched captive go free. The worst of it, too, was that he felt sure that he had been gulled into the marriage by a cunning scheme. She had only pretended to take the poison, but her clever acting had deceived every one, even the physician, and all had combined to force him into his hated bonds. As he rode along the lonely mountain road between the overarching trees, there arose in his mind a hatred toward Lelia and a reluctance ever to live beneath the same roof with one so unworthy. “Daily, hourly, at her side--how can I bear it?” he groaned, and just then Satan shied so violently as to almost throw him to the ground. Recovering his seat with an alert spring, he reined in the horse, sharply, and looked about him for the cause of the disturbance. It was the slender, white figure of a girl that must have crossed the road in front of them, for with a bound it disappeared in a dark strip of wood and Satan snorted with relief and regained his equanimity. “Ah, a ghost, old boy!” exclaimed Laurie, patting his neck and cantering along with a throbbing heart; for the flying figure, clad in ghostly white, with streaming dark hair, had such a familiar air that he was instantly reminded of Gipsy Darke. Like Lelia he could have cried out: “I am haunted!” But for the sad errand on which he was bound he would have dismounted and followed the fugitive into the wood in the half-hope of finding that it was Gipsy. But such a course seemed the height of folly, and with a sigh from the bottom of his heart, he rode on, turned a curve in the road, and suddenly found himself in a gipsy camp.