do he added: "I am not a
robber of the dead. That's high-faluting talk. What I have of his was
given to me by him. She was for me if I could win her. He said so. This
is a free country. I will wait outside," he added to Fleda.

She made a gesture as though she would detain him, but she realized that
the hour of her fate was at hand, and that the old life and the new were
face to face, Rhodo standing for one and she for the other. When they
were alone, Rhodo's eyes softened, and he came near to her. "You asked
me what I wished to tell you," he said. "See then, I want to tell you
that it is for you to take the place of the dead Ry. Everywhere in the
world where the Romanys wander they will rejoice to hear that a Druse
rules us still. The word of the Ry of Rys was law; what he wished to be
done was done; what he wished to be undone was undone. Because of you
he hid himself from his people; because of you I was for ever wandering,
keeping the peace by lies for love of the Ry and for love of you."

His voice shook. "Since your mother died--and she was kin of mine--you
were to me the soul of the Romany people everywhere. As a barren woman
loves a child, so I loved you. I loved you for the sake of your mother.
I gave her to the Ry, who was the better man, that she might be great
and well placed. So it is I would have you be ruler over us, and I would
serve you as I served your father until I, also, fall asleep."

"It is too late," Fleda answered, and there was great emotion in her
voice now. "I am no longer a Romany. I am my father's daughter, but I
have not been a Romany since I was ill in England. I will not go back; I
shall go with the man I love, to be his wife, here, in the Gorgio world.
You believed my father when he spoke; well, believe me--I speak the
truth. It was my father's will that I should be what I am, and do what I
am now doing. Nothing can alter me."

"If it be that Jethro Fawe is still alive he is free from the Sentence
of the Patrin, and he will become the Ry of Rys," said the old man with
sudden passion.

"It may be so. I hope it is so. He is of the blood, and I pray that
Jethro has escaped the sentence which my father passed," answered Fleda.
"By the River Starzke it was ordained that he should succeed my father,
marrying me. Let him succeed."

The old man raised both hands, and made a gesture as though he would
drive her from his sight.

"My life has been wasted," he said. "I wish I were also in de