“Me?” Miss Greeby colored even redder than she was by nature.

Gentilla looked at her shrewdly.  “La!  La!  La!  La!” she croaked.  “Age brings a mighty wisdom.  They were fools to throw me out,” and she jerked her grizzled head in the direction of the caravans and tents.

“Don’t talk rubbish, you old donkey!  Mr. Lambert is only my friend.”

“You’re a woman and he’s a man,” said Mother Cockleshell sententiously.

“We are chums, pals, whatever you like to call us.  I want to see him happy.”

“He will never be happy, my lady, unless he marries the rani.  And death, by bringing the money between their true love, has divided them forever, unless the golden rye puts his heart before his fear of silly chatter for them he moves amongst.  The child was right to shoot Hearne, so far, although she could have waited and gained the same end.  The rye is free to marry her, or to marry you, ma’am, but never to marry the angel, unless—­” Mother Cockleshell adjusted the bundle carefully on the donkey, and then cut a long switch from the tree.

“I don’t want to marry Mr. Lambert,” said Miss Greeby decisively.  “And I’ll take care that Chaldea doesn’t!”

Gentilla chuckled again.  “Oh, trust you for that.”

“As to Chaldea shooting Pine—­”

“Leave it to me, leave it to me, ma’am,” said the old gypsy with a grandiloquent wave of her dirty hand.

“But I wish to learn the truth and save Lady Agnes from this trouble.”

“You wish to save her?” chuckled Mother Cockleshell.  “And not the golden rye?  Ah well, my angel, there are women, and women.”  She faced round, and the humor died out of her wrinkled face.  “You wish for help and so have come to see me?  Is it not so?”

“Yes,” said Miss Greeby tartly.  “Chaldea will make trouble.”

“The child won’t.  I can manage her.”

Miss Greeby hitched up her broad shoulders contemptuously.  “She has managed you just now.”

“There are ways and ways, and when the hour arrives, the sun rises to scatter the darkness,” said Gentilla mystically.  “Let the child win for the moment, for my turn comes.”

“Then you know something?”

“What I know mustn’t be said till the hour strikes.  But content yourself, my Gorgious lady, with knowing that the child will make no trouble.”

“She has parted with the letter?”

“I know of that letter.  Hearne showed it to me, and would make for the big house, although I told him fair not to doubt his true wife.”

“How did he get the letter?”

“That’s tellings,” said Mother Cockleshell with a wink of her lively eye.

“I’ve a good mind to take you to the police, and then you’d be forced to say what you know,” said Miss Greeby crossly, for the vague hints irritated her not a little.

The old woman cackled in evident enjoyment.  “Do that, and the pot will boil over, ma’am.  I wish to help the angel rani who nursed me when I was sick, and I have debts to pay to Chaldea.  Both I do in my own witchly way.”