erlyn rather reluctantly obeyed her. As she seated herself opposite
to him, he was struck by the sad intensity of her face; he told himself
that she had once been--nay, that she was still--beautiful, but it was
the tortured beauty of a woman who lives by and through her emotions.

He also realised that his task would not be quite as easy as he had
hoped it would be; the manner of La d'Elphis was cold, correct, and
ladylike--no other word would serve--to the point of severity. He saw
that he would have to word his offer of a bribe in as least offensive a
fashion as was possible. But while he was trying to find a sentence with
which to embark on the delicate negotiation, he suddenly felt his left
hand grasped and turned over, with a firm and yet impersonal touch.

The centre of the soothsayer's cool palm rested itself on the ring--his
mother's wedding ring--loosely encircling his little finger, and then
Madame d'Elphis began speaking in a low, quiet, and yet hesitating,
voice,--a voice which suddenly recalled to her listener her Southern
birth and breeding; it was strangely unlike the accents in which she had
asked him to produce the promised fee.

Surprise, a growing, ever-deepening surprise, kept Vanderlyn silent. He
soon forgot completely, for the time being, the business which had
brought him there.

"For you the crystal," she whispered, "for others the Grand Jeu. You
have not come, as others do, to learn the future; you do not care what
happens to you--now."

She waited a moment, then, "the ring brings with it two visions," she
said, fixing her eyes on the polished depths before her. "Visions of
love and death--of pain and parting; one, if clear, yet recedes far into
the past...."

She raised her voice, and began speaking in a monotonous recitative:

"I see you with a woman standing in a garden; behind you both is a great
expanse of water. She is so like you that I think she must be your
mother. She wears her grey hair in Madonna bands; she puts her arms
round your neck; as she does so, I see on her left hand one ring--the
ring which you are now wearing, and which I am now touching. She, your
mother, is bidding you good-bye, she knows that she will never see you
again, but you do not know it, so she smiles, for she is a brave
woman----"

Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking. Vanderlyn stared at her with a sense
of growing excitement and amazement; he was telling himself that this
woman undoubtedly possessed the