You had better go," she rejoined quietly.
Suddenly he turned at the doorway. A look of passion burned in his eyes.
His voice became soft and persuasive. "I would put the past behind me,
and be true to you, my girl," he said. "I shall be chief over all the
Romany people when Duke Gabriel dies. We are sib; give me what is mine. I
am yours--and I hold to my troth. Come, beloved, let us go together."
A sigh broke from her lips, for she saw that, bad as he was, there was a
moment's truth in his words. "Go while you can," she said. "You are
nothing to me."
For an instant he hesitated, then, with a muttered oath, sprang out into
the bracken, and was presently lost among the trees.
For a long time she sat in the doorway, and again and again her eyes
filled with tears. She felt a cloud of trouble closing in upon her. At
last there was the sound of footsteps, and a moment later Gabriel Druse
came through the trees towards her. His eyes were sullen and brooding.
"You have set him free?" he asked.
She nodded. "It was madness keeping him here," she said.
"It is madness letting him go," he answered morosely. "He will do harm.
'Ay bor', he will! I might have known--women are chicken-hearted. I ought
to have put him out of the way, but I have no heart any more--no heart; I
have the soul of a rabbit.
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