Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 142: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LADY BESS’S HISTORY 125 maining silent upon the subject, he would not press me, nor should my treatment undergo any change so long as I might choose to remain with the band. I did not think fit to enter into full particulars relative to the jewels, but I gave him to understand that I had fled precipitately from Barcelona in order to escape a cruel persecution at the hands of the son of a lady in whose family I had occupied the position of a governess. Don Diego was perfectly satished with this explanation, and he asked what he could do to serve me. { replied that my object was to return to France. He said that it was his intention to remain for a few days in the present neighbourhood, but that afterward he and his band would be pushing their way toward the Pyrenees, and that if I thought fit to remain with them during this short inter- val, he would himself conduct me across the Pyrenean boundary into France. ‘“T accepted this offer at once, and for several reasons. In the first place, [ had not sufficient money to travel by any public conveyance, and I did not like to expose my - necessitous position to Don Diego, or receive pecuniary assistance from him. In the second place, even if I had possessed ample funds, I should not have liked to trust myself to a public conveyance, for I knew not to what extent James Knight’s malignity might have reached, and I thought it quite probable that he would give such publicity to the incident of the jewels that should lead to my arrest, if from a personal description I chanced to be recognized. Moreover, it would be impossible to travel without a passport, and mine would betray me to the authorities as the fugitive governess from Barcelona, sup- posing that James Knight had really made the matter public. In the third place, I was sufficiently interested in my new companions to entertain the wish of beholding somewhat more of their mode of life, in which there was a certain romantic charm for such a disposition as mine. These were the principal motives that at once prompted me to accept Christoval’s proposal that I should remain ior a few days with his band. “A week thus passed. Every morning at daybreak the men of the band, headed by Don Diego, set out from the encampment, and did not return until late in the afternoon, when they found the banquet ready prepared for them by ke ; eonicloooks (EO)