, though he was seventy years of
age.

"Would you like to come?" he asked. "Would you like to come home to the
Ry?"

With a cry she flung herself upon him. "Rhodo! Rhodo!" she exclaimed,
and now the tears broke forth, and her body shook with sobs.

A few moments later he said to her: "It's fifteen years since you kissed
me last. I thought you were ashamed of old Rhodo."

She did not answer, but looked at him with eyes streaming, drawing back
from him. Her embrace was astonishing even to herself, for as a child
Rhodo had been a figure of awe to her, and the feeling had deepened as
the years had gone on, knowing as she did his work throughout the world
for the Ry of Rys. In his face was secrecy, knowledge, and some tragic
underthing which gave him, apart from his office, a singular loneliness
of figure and manner. He was so closely knit in form; there was such
concentration in face, bearing and gesture, that the isolation of his
position was greatly deepened.

"No, you never kissed me after you were old enough to like or dislike,"
he said with mournful and ironical reflection.

There crept into his face a kind of yearning such as one might feel who
beheld afar off a promised land, and yet was denied its joys. Rhodo
was wifeless, childless, and had been so for forty years. He had had
no intimates among the Romany people. His life he lived alone. That the
daughter of the Ry of Rys should kiss him was a thing of which he would
dream when deeds were done and over and the shadows threatened.

"I will kiss you again in another fifteen years," she said half-smiling
through her tears. "But tell me--tell me what has happened."

"Jethro Fawe has gone," he answered with a sweeping outward gesture.

"Where has he gone?" she asked, apprehension seizing her.

"A journey into the night," responded the old man with scorn and wrath
in his tone, and his lips were set.

"Is he going far?" she asked.

"The road you might think long would be short to him," he answered.

Her hands became cold; her heart seemed to stop beating.

"What road is that?" she asked. She knew, but she must ask.

"Everybody knows it; everybody goes it some time or another," he
answered darkly.

"What was it you said to all of them outside?"--she made a gesture
towards the doorway. "There were angry cries, and I heard Jethro Fawe's
voice."

"Yes, he was blaspheming," remarked the old man grimly.

"Tell me what it was you said, and tell me what has