ashtrees; and the sweet smell of the thick woodland, of the bracken and
fern, crept into the room. The balm of a perfect evening of Summer was
upon the face of nature. The world seemed untroubled and serene; but in
this hidden but two stormy spirits broke the peace to which the place and
the time were all entitled.

After Fleda's scornful words of release and dismissal, Jethro stood for a
moment confounded and dismayed. He had not reckoned with this. During
their talk it had come to him how simple it would be to overpower any
check to his exit, how devilishly easy to put the girl at a disadvantage;
but he drove the thought from him. In the first place, he was by no
means sure that escape was what he wanted--not yet, at any rate; in the
second place, if Gabriel Druse passed the word along the subterranean
wires of the Romany world that Jethro Fawe should vanish, he would not
long cumber the ground.

Yet it was not cowardice or fear of consequences which had held him back;
it was a staggering admiration for this girl who had been given to him in
marriage so many years ago. He had fared far and wide in his adventures
and amours when he had gold in plenty; and he had swung more than one
Gorgio woman in the wild dance of sentiment, dazzling them by the
splendour of his passion. The fire gleaming in his dark eyes lighted a
face which would have made memorable a picture by Guido. He had fared
far and wide, but he had never seen a woman who had seized his
imagination as this girl was doing; who roused in him, not the old hot
desire, but the hungry will to have a 'tan' of his own, and go travelling
down the world with one who alone could satisfy him for all his days.

As he sat in this improvised woodland prison he had had visions of a
hundred glades and valleys through which he had passed in days gone by--