ur life was to be the life of a great and good man--a benefactor to
the human race. Your memory was to be a magnificent memento for a
whole world to honor. Your dreams were wild, vague, and impracticable,
and ended in--nothing."

Sir Jasper Kingsland listened and stared like a man in a dream. Achmet
the Astrologer continued to read the palm with a fixed, stony face.

"And now the lines are crossed, and the trouble begins. As usual, a
woman is at the bottom of it. Sir Jasper Kingsland is in love."

There was a pause. The baronet winced a little.

"It is in Spain--glowing, gorgeous Spain--and she is one of its
loveliest children. The oranges and pomegranates scent the burning
air, the vineyards glow in the tropic sun, and golden summer forever
reigns. But the glowing southern sun is not more brilliant than the
Spanish gypsy's flashing black eyes, nor the pomegranate blossoms half
so ripe and red as her cheeks. She is Zenith, the Zingara, and you
love her!"

"In the fiend's name!" Sir Jasper Kingsland cried, "what jugglery is
this?"

"One moment more, my Lord of Kingsland," he said, "and I have done.
Let me see how your love-dream ends. Ah! the old, old story. Surely I
might have known. She is beautiful as the angels above, and as
innocent, and she loves you with a mad abandon that is worse than
idolatry--as only women ever love. And you? You are grand and noble,
a milor Inglese, and you take her love--her crazy worship--as a
demi-god might, with uplifted grace, as your birthright; and she is
your pretty toy of an hour. And then careless and happy, you are gone.
Sunny Spain, with its olives and its vineyards, its pomegranates and
its Zenith the Gitana, is left far behind, and you are roaming, happy
and free, through La Belle France. And lo! Zenith the forsaken lies
prone upon the ground, and goes stark mad for the day-god she has lost.
There, Sir Jasper Kingsland! the record is a black one. I wish to read
no more."

He flung the baronet's hand away, and once more his eyes glowed like
the orbs of a demon. But Sir Jasper Kingsland, pale as a dead man, saw
it not.

"Are you man or devil?" he said, in an awe-struck tone. "No living
mortal knows what you have told me this night."

Achmet the Astrologer smiled--a dire, dark smile.

"Man, in league with the dark potentate you have named, if you like.
Whatever I am, I have truthfully told you the past, as I will
truthfully tell your son's future."