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Ellie and myself. It didn't really go along so very quickly, I suppose, because we both had our secrets. Both had things we wanted to keep from the other and so we couldn't tell each other as much about ourselves as we might have done, and that kept bringing us up sharp, as it were, against a kind of barrier. We couldn't bring things into the open and say “When shall we meet again? Where can I find you? Where do you live?” Because, you see, if you ask the other person that, they'd expect you to tell the same.
    Fenella looked apprehensive when she gave me her name. So much so that I thought for a moment that it mightn't be her real name. I almost thought that she might have made it up! But of course I knew that that was impossible. I'd given her my real name.
    We didn't know quite how to take leave of each other that day. It was awkward. It had become cold and we wanted to wander down from The Towers - but what then?
    Rather awkwardly, I said tentatively:
    “Are you staying round here?”
    She said she was staying in Market Chadwell. That was a market town not very far away. It had, I knew, a large hotel, three-starred. She'd be staying there, I guessed. She said, with something of the same awkwardness, to me:
    “Do you live here?”
    “No,” I said, “I don't live here. I'm only here for the day.”
    Then a rather awkward silence fell again. She gave a faint shiver. A cold little wind had come up.
    “We'd better walk,” I said, “and keep ourselves warm. Are you - have you got a car or are you going by bus or train?”
    She said she'd left a car in the village.
    “But I'll be quite all right,” she said.
    She seemed a little nervous. I thought perhaps she wanted to get rid of me but didn't quite know how to manage it. I said:
    “We'll walk down, shall we, just as far as the village.”
    She gave me a quick grateful look then. We walked slowly down the winding road on which so many car accidents had happened. As we came round a corner, a figure stepped suddenly from beneath the shelter of the fir tree. It appeared so suddenly that Ellie gave a start and said “Oh!” It was the old woman I had seen the other day in her own cottage garden. Mrs. Lee. She looked a great deal wilder today with a tangle of black hair blowing in the wind and a scarlet cloak round her shoulders; the commanding stance she took up made her look taller.
    “And what would you be doing, my dears?” she said. “What brings you to Gipsy's Acre?”
    “Oh,” Ellie said, “we aren't trespassing, are we?”
    “That's as may be. Gipsies' land this used to be. Gipsies' land and they drove us off it. You'll do no good here, and no good will come to you prowling about Gipsy's Acre.”
    There was no fight in Ellie, she wasn't that kind. She said gently and politely, “I'm very sorry if we shouldn't have come here. I thought this place was being sold today.”
    “And bad luck it will be to anyone who buys it!” said the old woman. “You listen, my pretty, for you're pretty enough, bad luck will come to whoever buys it. There's a curse on this land, a curse put on it long ago, many years ago. You keep clear of it. Don't have naught to do with Gipsy's Acre. Death it will bring you and danger. Go away home across the sea and don't come back to Gipsy's Acre. Don't say I didn't warn you.”
    With a faint spark of resentment Ellie said,
    “We're doing no harm.”
    “Come now, Mrs. Lee,” I said, “don't frighten this young lady.”
    I turned in an explanatory way to Ellie.
    “Mrs. Lee lives in the village. She's got a cottage there. She tells fortunes and prophesies the future. All that, don't you, Mrs. Lee?” I spoke to her in a jocular way.
    “I've got the gift,” she said simply, drawing her gipsy-like figure up straighter still. “I've got the gift. It's born in me. We all have it. I'll tell your fortune, young lady. Cross my palm with silver and I'll tell your fortune for you.”
    “I don't think I want my fortune told.”
    “It'd