whispered. "But how absurd to say they could ever do me harm."

"Look here," said Anna Wolsky earnestly, "you are quite right, Madame;
my friend has a necklace which has already played a certain part in her
life. But is it not just because of this fact that you feel the influence
of this necklace so strongly? I entreat you to speak frankly. You are
really distressing me very much!"

Madame Cagliostra looked very seriously at the speaker.

"Well, perhaps it is so," she said at last. "Of course, we are sometimes
wrong in our premonitions. And I confess that I feel puzzled--exceedingly
puzzled--to-day. I do not know that I have ever had so strange a case
as that of this English lady before me! I see so many roads stretching
before her--I also see her going along more than one road. As a rule, one
does not see this in the cards."

She looked really harassed, really distressed, and was still conning her
cards anxiously.

"And yet after all," she cried suddenly, "I may be wrong! Perhaps the
necklace has less to do with it than I thought! I do not know whether the
necklace would make any real difference! If she takes one of the roads
open to her, then I see no danger at all attaching to the preservation of
this necklace. But the other road leads straight to the House of Peril."

"The House of Peril?" echoed Sylvia Bailey.

"Yes, Madame. Do you not know that all men and women have their House of
Peril--the house whose threshold they should never cross--behind whose
door lies misery, sometimes dishonour?"

"Yes," said Anna Wolsky, "that is true, quite true! There has been, alas!
more than one House of Peril in my life." She added, "But what kind of
place is my friend's House of Peril?"

"It is not a large house," said the fortune-teller, staring down at
the shining surface of her table. "It is a gay, delightful little
place, ladies--quite my idea of a pretty dwelling. But it is filled with
horror unutterable to Madame. Ah! I entreat you"--she stared sadly at
Sylvia--"to beware of unknown buildings, especially if you persist
in keeping and in wearing your necklace."

"Do tell us, Madame, something more about my friend's necklace. Is it,
for instance, of great value, and is it its value that makes it a source
of danger?"

Anna Wolsky wondered very much what would be the answer to this question.
She had had her doubts as to the genuineness of the pearls her friend
wore. Pearls are so exquisitely imitated nowadays, and