any
chance of their seeking one another's company."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," remarked the secretary
sententiously. "And you may be living in a fool's paradise. Lambert is
within running-away distance of her, remember."

Pine laughed in a raucous manner. "An elopement would have taken place
long ago had it been intended," he snapped tartly. "Don't imagine
impossibilities, Mark. Agnes married me for my money, so that I might
save the credit of the Lambert family. But for me, Garvington would have
passed through the Bankruptcy Court long ago. I have paid off certain
mortgages, but I hold them as security for my wife's good behavior. She
knows that an elopement with her cousin would mean the ruin of her
brother."

"You do, indeed, trust her," observed Silver sarcastically.

"I trust her so far and no further," repeated Pine with an angry snarl.
"A Gentile she is, and Gentiles are tricky." He stretched out a slim,
brown hand significantly and opened it. "I hold her and Garvington
there," and he tapped the palm lightly.

"You don't hold Lambert, and he is the dangerous one."

"Only dangerous if Agnes consents to run away with him, and she won't do
that," replied Pine coolly.

"Well, she certainly doesn't care for money."

"She cares for the credit of her family, and gave herself to me, so that
the same might be saved."

Silver shrugged his narrow shoulders. "What fools these aristocrats
are," he observed pleasantly. "Even if Garvington were sold up he would
still have his title and enough to live on in a quiet way."

"Probably. But it was not entirely to save his estates that he agreed to
my marriage with his sister," said Pine pointedly and quietly.

"Eh! What?" The little man's foxy face became alive with eager inquiry.

"Nothing," said Pine roughly, and rose heavily to his feet. "Mind your
own infernal business, and mine also. Go back and show that letter to
Garvington. I want my tribe to stay here."

"_My_ tribe," laughed Silver, scrambling to his feet; and when he took
his departure he was still laughing. He wondered what Garvington would
say did he know that his sister was married to a full-blooded Romany.

Pine, in the character of a horse-coper, saw him out of the camp, and
was staring after him when Chaldea, on the watch, touched his shoulder.

"I come to your tent, brother," she said with very bright eyes.

"Eh? Yes!" Pine aroused himself out of a brown study. "Avali, miri pen.
You