is--"

"You will go on strange roads and take the man you need," said the gipsy
again.

Marcella glimpsed her splendid knight riding in at the gate with her,
and the farm-yard ceased to be muddy and dirty and decayed; it became a
palace courtyard, with glittering courtiers thronging round. It did not
occur to her that the gipsy had heard the Lashcairn legend in the
village--the most natural thing for a legend-loving gipsy to hear--she
was accustomed to believing anything she was told, and that the gipsy's
words confirmed her own longings made them seem true.

"I'm afraid there's not much chance of strange roads for me," she said,
looking out over the sea with beating heart to where a distant ribbon of
smoke on the horizon showed a ship bound for far ports.

"When were you born?"

Marcella told her and, taking a little stick from under her shawl, the
gipsy scratched strange signs in the mud.

"You were born under the protection of Virgo," said the gipsy, and
Marcella's eyes grew round and big. "You will go by strange paths and
take the man you need. There will be many to hurt you. Fire and flood
shall be your companions; in wounding you will heal, in losing you will
gain; your body will be a battle-ground."

"Oh, but how can you know?" cried Marcella, and suddenly all those
stern Rationalists she had read, Huxley and Frazer, Hegel and Kraill,