ath--a lonely demise in his humble cave--a story sprang
up about him to the effect that his spirit still lingered in the
neighborhood of its passing. Several credible persons claimed at
different times to have met the Monk, and since by some unhappy chance
these victims of an optical delusion were all subsequently visited by
misfortune in greater or less degree, it soon began to be whispered
about that to encounter the specter was a sure augury of impending
calamity. A local poet, long since forgotten, was inevitably inspired
to preserve the legend in his rustic doggerel. I append a few couplets:

"_'Who meets the monk at crack o' dawn
Shall rue the day that he was born._

"_'Who meets the monk in light of day,
Woe goes with him on his way.'_"

"Cheery little thing," grunted Simon Varr as she paused an instant.
"Is that all of it?"

"No, there's one more verse." Miss Ocky deepened her tones a note or
two as she solemnly read it.

"_'Who meets the monk when dusk is nigh
Within the fortnight he shall die.'_"

She closed the book and regarded her brother-in-law with eyes
half-mocking, half-pitying.

"Of course you wouldn't dream of treating such nonsense seriously,
Simon; I know that. But it's curious, and rather interesting, don't
you think? Jennison had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote his
account of it, but even he relates as a matter of fact the coincidence
that those persons who saw the vision were subsequently badly out of
luck." Ocky shook her head gently and glanced at him commiseratingly.
"If it _should_ come true in your case, Simon, I suppose this is an
opportune moment to offer you my condolences!"

"Thank you," he managed to reply dryly.

He felt very squeamish inside, though most of that was due to his
innate abhorrence of anything that brought up the subject of death. As
far as the Monk was concerned, he had found in the letter thrust into
the cleft stick and now reposing in a pigeonhole of his desk the reason
back of that masquerade--though he had to admit that the writer of the
anonymous note had certainly hit upon a sufficiently gruesome method of
transmitting it.

"Thank you, Ocky, for your condolences," he continued after an
interval. "The same to you and many of them! We'll go together, no
doubt. Don't forget you saw the Monk at the same time I did!"

"_Ah_!"

The monosyllable was almost a gasp of pain. Simon stared at her,
rather startled by the effect