ide wink to the two men, "suppose
we _was_ to go agen our nateral feelin's and let you go back, what would
you promise to do in return?"

"Anything--I'll do anything," said Mary, checking her tears and looking
up with a gleam of hope.

"Then, look you here," said Seraminta, changing her soft tone to a
threatening one, and frowning darkly. "First you've got to promise not
to tell a soul of yer havin' bin in this room an' how you got 'ere.
Next, to keep a quiet tongue about what you heard us say; and last, to
bring all the money you've got and put it under the flat stone where the
four roads meet, to-morrow at six o'clock in the evening. An' if yer do
all these things we'll let you bide at the parson's. But if you breathe
a word about what you've seen an' heard, whether it's in the dark or the
light, whether it's sleeping or waking, whether it's to man, woman, or
child, that very minute you'll be claimed for ours, and ours you'll be
for ever."

The room was getting dark by this time, and the fire burning low gave a
sudden flicker now and then, and died down again; by this uncertain
light the dark figures standing round, and the lowering frown on
Seraminta's crafty face, looked doubly awful.

Mary was frightened almost out of her wits, for she believed every word
the woman had said, and thought her quite capable of carrying out her
threat. The one thing was to escape. If she could only do that, she
would gladly keep silence about these dreadful people and their possible
relation to her.

"I promise," she said eagerly. "I never, never will. Not to anybody."

The gypsies drew together near the fire and talked in low tones, using
the language which Mary could not understand: after a minute the woman
came back to her.

"Give me yer handkercher," she said, and when Mary drew it tremblingly
out of her pocket she tied it over the child's eyes and took hold of her
hand.

"Come along," she said, and Mary followed meekly.

Although she could see nothing, she knew that they went down the stone
steps and along the way she had come, and presently they were outside
the house, for she felt the wind in her face and the long grass under
her feet. Suddenly the woman stopped.

"Now," she said, "remember; if you speak it will be the worse for you
and for your friends, an' you'll be sorry for it all your life long.
An' it's Seraminta as tells you so."

"I won't," said Mary, "if you'll only let me go."

"It goes agen me,