flung it back
almost in his face.

"I can tell you all you wish to know without a fee," cried the hoarse,
muffled voice, which somehow made every drop of blood in Kendal's veins
run cold as he heard it.

"That would not be very profitable to you, I am sure, madame," he said,
wonderingly.

"That makes no difference to you," was the almost rude answer. He felt
quite disconcerted; he hardly knew what to say next. This certainly was
an odd _contretemps_, to say the least. "You are here to learn the
whereabouts of--a woman?" she whispered, in a deep, uncanny voice. "Is
it not so?"

"By Heaven! you are quite right," cried Kendal, in amazement, quite
startled out of his usual politeness.

This woman had never laid eyes on him before, he told himself. Now, how,
in the name of all that was wonderful, could she have known this? He had
sneered at fortune-telling all his whole life through; now he began to
wonder if there was not something in it, after all.

"This woman, who is young, and by some called beautiful, will be your
evil genius!" she hissed. "You wronged her through your
fickle-mindedness, and wrecked her young life."

"Great God!" he cried, "are you woman or devil, or a combination of
both? But go on--go on!" he cried, excitedly. "I see you know all my
past. There is no use in my attempting to hide anything from you. But
tell me, where shall I find this young woman of whom you speak? I must
track her down."

A laugh that was horrible to hear broke from the lips of the veiled
woman opposite him.

"That you will never be able to do!" she cried, fiercely. "Though she
may cross your path at will, you might as well hunt for a particular
grain of sand along the sea-shore, a needle in a haystack, a special
blade of grass in a whole field. You may recognize this fact, and abide
by it. But, hark you! listen to what I have to say: The fates have
decreed that your heart shall be wrung as you have wrung hers--pang for
pang!"

"Who and what are you," he cried, "who talk to me in this way? You act
more like a vengeful spirit than a woman unconcerned in my affairs. Who
and what are you, anyhow?"

"I tell you only what I see," was the muttered response.

"See where?" demanded Kendal in agitation.

"That is not for you to know."

"But I shall--I will know!" he cried, furiously. "There is something
underneath all this trumpery. I am not a man to be trifled with in
this fashion, I can tell you, with your fortune-tellin