ypsy saw Lady Agnes coming through the wood.
Chaldea knew her at once, having often seen her when she had come to
visit Mother Cockleshell a few months previously. With characteristic
cunning, the girl dived into the undergrowth, and there remained
concealed for the purpose of spying on the Gentile lady whom she
regarded as a rival. Immediately, Chaldea guessed that Lady Agnes was
on her way to the cottage, and, as Lambert was alone as usual for the
afternoon, the two would probably have a private conversation. The girl
swiftly determined to listen, so that she might learn exactly how
matters stood between them. It might be that she would discover
something which Pine--Chaldea now thought of him as Pine--might like to
know. So having arranged this in her own unscrupulous mind, the girl
behind a juniper bush jealously watched the unsuspecting lady. What she
saw did not please her overmuch, as Lady Agnes was rather too beautiful
for her unknown rival's peace of mind.

Sir Hubert's wife was not really the exquisitely lovely creature Chaldea
took her to be, but her fair skin and brown hair were such a contrast to
the gypsy's swarthy face and raven locks, that she really looked like an
angel of light compared with the dark child of Nature. Agnes was tall
and slender, and moved with a great air of dignity and calm
self-possession, and this to the uncontrolled Chaldea was also a matter
of offence. She inwardly tried to belittle her rival by thinking what a
milk-and-water useless person she was, but the steady and resolute look
in the lady's brown eyes gave the lie to this mental assertion. Lady
Agnes had an air of breeding and command, which, with all her beauty,
Chaldea lacked, and as she passed along like a cold, stately goddess,
the gypsy rolled on the grass in an ecstasy of rage. She could never be
what her rival was, and what her rival was, as she suspected, formed
Lambert's ideal of womanhood. When she again peered through the bush,
Lady Agnes had disappeared. But there was no need for Chaldea to ask her
jealous heart where she had gone. With the stealth and cunning of a Red
Indian, the gypsy took up the trail, and saw the woman she followed
enter the cottage. For a single moment she had it in her mind to run to
the camp and bring Pine, but reflecting that in a moment of rage the man
might kill Lambert, Chaldea checked her first impulse, and bent all her
energies towards getting sufficiently near to listen to a conversati