[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Well?"

"Your life-line is well marked, but it is crossed here."

"Some danger?"

"A great crisis."

"At what epoch?"

"If I had drawn up your horoscope, I could have told you almost to an hour. So far as I can see, it will occur before your eighteenth year is accomplished."

"I shall be eighteen next Friday!"

"In that case the hour approaches. Be prepared. I see something else.

Several men love you."

"How can you see that in my hand?"

"Child! I am reading your mind at this moment; it is like an open book to me."

Esther would have withdrawn her hand, but that she felt it imprisoned as in a vise. The woman stood erect and rigid before her, her eye vitreous, with difficulty expelling her breath between her half open lips. At last she spoke as one in a dream.

"There are three! One is dressed in black."

"Reuben!" murmured Esther.

"The other is a fine gentleman."

"And the third?"

"The third! I cannot distinguish his features.--Yes,--now I see him!--Why, how singular!"

"Why?"

"He resembles the second!"

"Ah!"

"And he holds in his hand--"

"What does he hold?"

"A pencil, I think; yes, he is an artist."

After a brief pause she resumed,--

"Two of these men will soon disappear, but the worthiest will marry you and you will be a great lady."

A flash of pride illumined Esther's eyes.

"Should your prophesy be realized," she said, "seek me out, and I will give you this ring which you see upon my hand."

"I do not want your ring; give me rather the handkerchief which you hold."

"Why do you wish this valueless thing? Is it that you are my well-wisher? Do you love me?"

"I hate you, as I hate all Christians; but I have need, for an incantation, of an object which has belonged to a virgin."

As Esther hesitated, the gypsy s.n.a.t.c.hed the filmy tissue from her hand and fled, vanishing round an angle in the wall like an apparition.

Considerably disturbed in mind, Esther remained some time motionless upon the spot where the gypsy had left her. It seemed to her that the strange creature had exhaled a sort of torpor which she could not shake off. At last she closed the gate and stepped back. As she did so she noticed a bit of folded paper lying at her feet and picked it up.

Unfolding it, she read these lines:--

"You love me. I feel it, know it. Have confidence in my love and honor.

I long to tear you from the slavery in which you live to dwell with me in brightness and joy. Go to the Pantheon on Friday next wearing a brown domino with blue rosettes, and when you hear behind you these words, 'The moon is risen,' directly leave the person who will accompany you and follow the one who will take your hand. Ir order to a.s.sure me that you consent, send me some article which you have worn. I cannot be mistaken in the scent of vervain, which you love. While inhaling it, it will seem as though I inhaled your breath, as though I held my Esther in my arms."

No address, no signature. But the origin of the missive was no more doubtful than its destination.

"How stupid have I been!" exclaimed the girl. "Of what a farce have I been the dupe! Here I fancied that I was dealing with a sorceress, and she turns out to be a common go-between! It was she who dropped this letter at my feet. Out of doubt she knew its contents. That is why she s.n.a.t.c.hed my handkerchief, for which she will be well paid;--and all the while I was wondering at her disinterestedness!"

With a twinge of vexation she thought that even at that moment Lord Mowbray probably believed that he held the pledge of his victory.

"Bah!" she mentally e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "what matters it? His triumph will be short-lived, since I will not go to the masquerade on Friday; though I could go if I wished. Lady Vereker and my theatre companions have wished to take me there. Reuben has had only one word to say upon the abominations of the Pantheon, and my aunt, who is afraid of him, has been only too ready to refuse her permission. But there is nothing to fear!"

Just a shade of disappointment and annoyance dimmed this rea.s.suring thought, but an unexpected incident altered the face of the matter.

Reuben was absent at tea-time. He had scarcely been visible for several days; he appeared to be wholly absorbed in projects of import, of which he disclosed no hint to any one.

"My dear child," said Mrs. Marsham with a touch of embarra.s.sment and some mystery, "I have undertaken a surprise for you which it is quite time to reveal. For a long time you have desired to see a masked ball at the Pantheon, but as I dare not entrust you to the care of so frivolous a person as your new friend, Lady Vereker, I have decided to take you there myself."

"You, aunt!"

"Why not? To the pure all things are pure, and if my eyes commit the sin of looking upon evil, I shall at least have the consolation of screening your innocence from the dangerous spectacle. Moreover, I shall pray without ceasing, and the Lord will go with us."

"But we really ought to have a different sort of cavalier."

"I have thought of that, and have asked Mr. O'Flannigan to serve as our escort. He is a brave man, as he has amply proved himself to be. We shall have, in case of an emergency, an intrepid defender. He has consented, and all that remains is for us to prepare our costumes."

Good Mrs. Marsham forgot to add that, like her niece, she was dying to see a masked ball, and that the curiosity which had been devouring her for years played its little part in the famous "surprise."

"Above all things," she added, "not a word to Reuben!"

When at last she found herself alone in her chamber Esther could not but reflect upon the odd situation which was hurrying on towards a dangerous result. After all, she was free to go to the Pantheon, and even to wear a brown domino with blue rosettes, without its leading to anything culpable. Her heart beat, and she experienced that delicious vertigo which conducts the great-granddaughters of Eve to the verge of the abyss.

What should she do? Of whom ask advice? She had neither mother nor friend, at least no friend who merited the name. Under similar circ.u.mstances gamblers toss up a goldpiece; bigots open the Scriptures and the first verse upon which their eyes fall resolves their doubt after the manner of an oracle. At the moment she was standing before a table upon which rested a bust of Shakespeare with a vase of flowers, a sort of offering renewed each day as though it were a domestic altar. A book-shelf upon the wall contained the works of the great dramatist. In those pages, so often conned, Esther had learned to think and to feel, to know mankind, the world, and love. It was her Bible, her book of books, august and authentic revelation before all others, the repository of her religion and philosophy. For this reason, struck with a sudden inspiration, she caught up the volume, which opened of itself to the first scene of the second act of "All's Well That Ends Well." In the middle of the page five words seemed to blaze before her stupefied eyes,--

"_By Heaven, I'll steal away!_"