“One is no more,” replied the gipsy.  “She from whom I took you lies in the earth on Norwood Common.  I stretched the corpse myself,—­it was a bonny corpse.”

Tamar fetched a deep, a very deep sigh.  “Does my father live?” she asked.

“Your father!” repeated the gipsy, with a malignant laugh,—­“your father!”

Tamar became more and more agitated; but excessive feeling made her appear almost insensible.  With great effort she repeated,—­“Does my father live?”

“He does,” replied the woman, with a malignant smile, “and shall I tell you where and how?—­shut up, confined in a strong-hold, caught like a vile animal in a trap.  Do you understand me, Tamar?  I think they call you Tamar.”

“What!” said the poor girl, gasping for breath, “is my father a convicted felon?”

“I used no such words,” replied the gipsy; “but I told you that he lies shut up; and he is watched and guarded, too, I tell you.”

“Then he has forfeited his liberty,” said Tamar; “he has committed some dreadful crime.  Tell me, Oh! tell me, what is it?”

The gipsy laughed, and her laugh was a frightful one.

“What!” she said, “are you disappointed?—­is the blight come over you? has the black fog shut out all the bright visions which the foolish Laird created in your fancy?  Go, child!” she said, “go and tell him what I have told you, and see whether he will continue to cherish and flatter the offspring of our vagrant race.”

“He will,” replied Tamar; “but tell me, only tell me, what is that mark burnt upon my shoulder?”

“Your father branded you,” she answered, “as we do all our children, lest in our many wanderings we should lose sight of our own, and not know them again; but come,” she added, “the night draws on, darkness is stealing over the welkin; you are for the shed; there is your pole-star; see you the fitful glare of the forge?—­I am for another direction; fare-you-well.”

“Stay, stay,” said Tamar, seizing her arm, “Oh, tell me more! tell me more!  My father, if I have a living father, I owe him a duty,—­where is he?  Tell me where he is, for the love of heaven tell me?”

The woman shook her off,—­“Go, fool,” she said, “you know enough; or stay,” she added, in her turn seizing Tamar’s arm,—­“if you like it better, leave those Dymocks and come with me, and you shall be one with us, and live with us, and eat with us and drink with us.”

“No! no!” said Tamar, with a piercing shriek, disengaging herself from the gipsy, and running with the swiftness of a hare, towards the friendly hovel.

Old Shanty was alone, when, all pale and trembling, Tamar entered the shed, and sunk, half fainting, on the very bench on which the gipsy had sate on the eventful night in which she had brought her to the hovel fourteen years before.