"When I heard the news, I went to him.

It was you who betrayed him to the mob, and--" "Wait, wait," Fleda cried in agitation.

"Is--is he dead ?" "He is alive, but terribly hurt; and he may die," was the reply.
Then the old man turned to the Romany with a great anger and determination in his face.

He stretched out an arm, making a sign as cabalistic as that which Fleda had used against her invisible foe in the bedroom.
"Go, Jethro Fawe of all the Fawes," he said.

"Go, and may no patrins mark your road!" Jethro Fawe shrank back, and half raised his arm, as though to fend himself from a blow.
The patrin is the clue which Gipsies leave behind them on the road they go, that other Gipsies who travel in it may know they have gone before.
It may be a piece of string, a thread of wool, a twig, or in the dust the ancient cross of the Romany, which preceded the Christian cross and belonged to the Assyrian or Phoenician world.