“How do you happen to know so much about it, my pretty lady?” sneered the gipsy, fixing her bold, black eyes suspiciously on the beauty’s pale, writhing face. “Do not dare to address me, insolent intruder! Go!” and Lelia pointed, angrily, at the door. “Then the pretty lady wants no news of poor Gipsy Darke? That is very strange. Perhaps it is true, as the servants at The Crags are telling, that she is jealous of the poor girl who inherited the Willoughby money and who is now a great heiress!” muttered the woman, in scathing rebuke of Lelia’s rudeness, so that the general scowled at her darkly. “Peace, woman; do not presume to talk back to Mrs. Willoughby!” he said sternly. Then he looked at Lelia, adding, with equal decision: “Please restrain yourself or leave the room until we hear this woman’s story.” “I will not go!” Lelia muttered rebelliously. “Then, be silent!” he said, and turned to the woman. “We offered the reward in good faith, and if you have earned it you shall have it!” he said. “But first you must produce the body of Gipsy Darke either dead or alive, and it must be properly identified.” “You will find no difficulty in doing so,” the woman answered confidently. “She is at the camp, where she has been ever since she was dragged out of the old well, half-drowned, but alive, and brought to me by my son!” CHAPTER XXXII. GIPSY’S PARENTAGE. A stifled moan escaped Lelia’s ashen lips and she hid her face against Laurie’s arm, her form trembling with dismay, feeling as if her sin had indeed found her out. It was the most terrible moment of Lelia’s life, crouching there beside her cold, unloving husband, expecting the suspended sword to fall at any moment on her head. Of course, the gipsy woman knew who had tried to kill Gipsy, and put her in the old well. She would blurt it out presently after torturing her victim a while, like a cruel cat playing with a mouse. Lelia intended to deny it all, of course, but she knew that would not help her at all. Gipsy could fasten the crime upon her if she chose. And who could guess but that she would choose? This was her hour of vengeance on Lelia, who had wronged and flaunted her all her life. She would be more of an angel than Lelia believed her if she held back her hand from her revenge. She waited, agonizingly, for the woman to accuse her of her sin, and as she clung to Laurie she felt his strong frame shaken, too, with deep emotion. He was trembling with pure joy that sweet Gipsy Darke was really alive. His whole heart thrilled with subtle rapture. At the same time his repugnance to Lelia’s presence was so extreme that he would have pushed her from him if he had dared, crying out that he hated her because she had won him by a fake pretense when she knew that his heart was no longer her own. He endured her touch, her nearness, with passive disgust, fixing eager eyes on the woman, to whom the general was saying: