Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/177



HEY were great black eyes, sunken into the face of an old woman. She stood in a corner, and it occurred to me that she had perhaps run there, as much afraid of me as I was of her. No eyes were ever like those, I thought, except the eyes of a gipsy.

"What are you doing?" I stammered, in French, hardly expecting her to understand and answer me; but she replied in an old, cracked voice that sounded hollow and unreal in the cavern.

"I have been asleep," she said. "I am waiting for my sons. We are in Les Baux on business. I thought, when I heard you, it was my boys coming to fetch me. I can't go till they are here, because I have dropped my rosary with a silver crucifix down below, and the way is too steep for me. They must get it."

"Do they know you are here?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," she returned. "They will come at six. We shall perhaps have our supper and sleep in this house to-night. Then we will go away in the morning."

"It is only a little after five now," I told her. "You frightened me at first."

She cackled a laugh. "I am nothing to be afraid of," she chuckled. "I am very old. Besides, there is no harm in me. If you have the time, I could tell your fortune." Rh