I come from places far from here.
Where is the Romany's home? It is everywhere in the world, but it is
everywhere inside his tent. Because his country is everywhere and
nowhere, his home is more to him than it is to any other. He is alone
with his wife, and with his own people. Yes, and by long and by last,
he will make the man pay who spoils his home. It is all he has. Good or
bad, it is all he has. It is his own."
Ingolby had a strange, disturbing premonition that he was about to hear
what would startle him, but he persisted. "You said you had come here to
get your own--is your home here?"
For a moment the Romany did not answer. He had worked himself into a
great passion. He had hypnotized himself, he had acted for a while as
though he was one of life's realities; but suddenly there passed through
his veins the chilling sense of the unreal, that he was only acting a
part, as he had ever done in his life, and that the man before him could,
with a wave of the hand, raise the curtain on all his disguises and
pretences. It was only for an instant, however, for there swept through
him the feeling that Fleda had roused in him--the first real passion, the
first true love--if what such as he felt can be love--that he had ever
known; and he saw her again as she was in the but in the wood defying
him, ready to defend herself against him.
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