t part. I
felt as we must part when we was in Wales togither last time, and now
I knows it.'

[Footnote: Some Romanies think that spirits rise from the ground.]

'Part, Sinfi! Not if I can prevent it.'

'Reia,' replied Sinfi emphatically, 'when I've wonst made up my mind,
you know it's made up for good an' all. When us two leaves this 'ere
Ring to-night, you'll turn your ways and I shall turn mine.'

I thought it best to let the subject drop. Perhaps by the time we had
left the Ring this mood would have passed. After a minute or so she
said,

'You needn't see no fear about not marryin' Winifred Wynne. You
_must_ marry her; your dukkeripen on Snowdon didn't show itself there
for nothink. When you two was a-settin' by the pool, a-eatin' the
breakfiss, I was a-lookin' at you round the corner of the rock. I
seed a little kindlin' cloud break away and go floatin' over your
heads, and then it shaped itself into what us Romanies calls the
Golden Hand. You know what the Golden Hand means when it comes over
two sweethearts? You don't believe it? Ask Rhona Boswell! Here she
comes a-singin' to herself. She's trying to get away from that devil
of a Scollard as says she's bound to marry him. I've a good mind to
go and give him a left-hand body-blow in the ribs and settle him for
good and all. He means mischief to the Tarno Rye, and Rhona too.
Brother, I've noticed for a long while that the Romany blood is a
good deal stronger in you than the Gorgio blood. And now mark my
words, that cuss o' your feyther's'll work itself out. You'll go to
his grave and you'll jist put that trushul back in that tomb, and
arter that, and not afore, you'll marry Winnie Wynne.'

Sinfi's creed did not surprise me: the mixture of guile and
simplicity in the Romany race is only understood by the few who know
it thoroughly: the race whose profession it is to cheat by
fortune-telling, to read the false 'dukkeripen' as being 'good enough
for the Gorgios,' believe profoundly in nature's symbols; but her
bearing did surprise me.

'Your dukkeripen will come true,' said she; 'but mine won't, for I
won't let it.'

'And what is yours?' I asked.

'That's nuther here nor there.'

Then she stood again as though listening to something, and again I
thought, as her lips moved, that I heard her whisper, 'I will, I
will.'

III

I had intended to go to London at once after leaving Gypsy Dell, but
something that Sinfi told me during our interview impelled