“No, no,” she said, hurriedly, “I must go home.”

“You must stay until we play,” he insisted, and called the men together, and Judy, still trembling from the moment of dread in the dark tent, sank down once more beside the sullen girl on the rugs.

But the leader called the girl away for a moment, and when she came back she sat closer to Judy than before, and her hand was busy with the fastening of the chain at the back—­but so lightly, so deftly, that Judy sat unconscious.

And in the intervals of the music the girl laughed and chatted, telling Judy of the life on the road, of anything to hold her attention.

“You would look like one of us,” she said, “if you wore one of these,” and she threw across Judy’s shoulders a scarf of red silk.

“I believe I am half gipsy,” said Judy, trying to be agreeable, but shrinking with a feeling of repulsion from the untidy creature so near her.

The girl drew away the scarf with a loud laugh and a triumphant nod and a wink to the leader, and presently the music stopped.

“I must go,” said Judy, more and more in dread of these strange people.

Once more the old woman bent over the blue flames; but the children had gone deeper into the wood, and the place was silent except for the occasional guttural remark of one of the men, or a wail from the baby in the wagon.

“I must go,” she said again, and started off.

But when she reached the road, the young leader caught up with her.

“You are beautiful,” he said, when he was beyond the hearing of the others.

Judy hurried on in silence, but he kept by her side.  “You are beautiful,” he said again, and laid his hand on her arm.

Then Judy whirled around on him.  “Don’t speak to me that way again,” she said, imperiously.  “I may be alone and helpless, and I know now that I was very foolish to come.  But my grandfather is a Judge.  If anything happens to me, he will call you to account.  Go back to the camp.  Go back and let me alone.”

The man stopped short and gazed at her.

“You are brave,” he said, in a more respectful tone.

“None of my family have ever been cowards,” said Judy, who was herself again.  “I am not afraid of you.”

His bold eyes dropped before the fearlessness in hers.

“Good-bye,” he said, humbly, and when he reached the edge of the camp he turned and looked after her, and there was a shadow on his swarthy face.

The girl on the pile of rugs called him.

“I got it,” she said.

“Give it to me,” he ordered, roughly.  But she held the necklace away from him with a teasing laugh.  “It is mine, it is mine,” she cried, then shrieked, as he wrenched it out of her hand, twisting her wrist cruelly.

Judy, alone once more and with her courage all gone, so that she was so weak that she could hardly stand, ran on and on, blindly.  She dared not go back the way she had come for fear of meeting again some of the hated band.