en she
saw me her eyes burned with a sudden dark excitement.

"Carl," she said, with the most staggering abruptness, "you are
dying."

"How do you know?" I said morosely. "Do I look it?"

"Yet the crystal warned you!" she returned, with apparent but not real
inconsequence.

"I want you to tell me," I said eagerly, and with no further pretence.
"You must have known something then, when you made me look in the
crystal. What did you know--and how?"

She sat a moment in thought, stately, half-languid, mysterious.

"First," she said, "let me hear all that has happened. Then I will
tell you."

"Is Sullivan about?" I asked. I felt that if I was to speak I must not
be interrupted by that good-natured worldling.

"Sullivan," she said a little scornfully, with gentle contempt, "is
learning French billiards. You are perfectly safe." She understood.

Then I told her without the least reservation all that had happened to
me, and especially my experiences of the previous night. When I had
finished she looked at me with her large sombre eyes, which were full
of pity, but not of hope. I waited for her words.

"Now, listen," she said. "You shall hear. I was with Lord Clarenceux
when he died."

"You!" I exclaimed. "In Vienna! But even Rosa was not with him. How--"

"Patience! And do not interrupt me with questions. I am giving away a
secret which carries with it my--my reputation. Long before my
marriage I had known Lord Clarenceux. He knew many women; I was one of
them. That affair ended. I married Sullivan.

"I happened to be in Vienna at the time Lord Clarenceux was taken with
brain fever. I was performing at a music-hall on the Prater. There was
a great rage then for English singers in Vienna. I knew he was alone.
I remembered certain things that had passed between us, and I went to
him. I helped to nurse him. He was engaged to Rosa, but Rosa was far
away, and could not come immediately. He grew worse. The doctors said
one day that he must die. That night I was by his bedside. He got
suddenly up out of bed. I could not stop him: he had the strength of
delirium. He went into his dressing-room, and dressed himself fully,
even to his hat, without any assistance.

"'Where are you going?' I said to him.

"'I am going to her,' he said. 'These cursed doctors say I shall die.
But I sha'n't. I want her. Why hasn't she come? I must go and find
her.'

"Then he fell across the bed exhausted. He was dying. I had rung for
hel