me?"

"It was an impulse I could not restrain."

"I hope the oracle has not been traducing me?"

"I have had no premonitions lately: when I was suffering I could
think of nothing. But you have been so kind it seems impossible you
should bring me harm."

"I would not for the world," he broke in earnestly.

"I am drifting blindly, and my mind misgives me that all is not right.
I may be walking toward danger unaware. I believe I am," she continued
dreamily, "but so long as I do not fall in love, nothing dreadful will
happen."

"You had better fall in love than become a monomaniac," exclaimed the
young man with more warmth than the occasion seemed to warrant. "If
your premonitions have ceased, it is evidence of an improved state of
health, and as your physician I forbid you to indulge in them."

"Doctors think they can treat everything," she said impatiently; then
continued in an explanatory tone: "I inherit my foreknowledge from my
mother, who was a gypsy celebrated in her tribe for reading the
future. You see that the faculty is hereditary with me, and a dose of
medicine will not cure it. My poor mother died at my birth: she was
very young and beautiful. My father was past forty when he married. I
have never spoken of it before, as he dislikes it to be mentioned. But
you look like a man who could keep a secret, and I want to prove that
I am not as foolish as you think."

Maurice saw it was useless to argue further: the delusion must be
firmly established to have caused this young creature to seclude
herself from general society for so long a period. The facts of her
parentage must have been imprudently confided to her when young, and
an imaginative temperament had done the rest. The secresy with which
she guarded these ideas served to strengthen them. He could only hope
that the life she was now leading would diminish their influence, or
perhaps totally destroy her singular belief. Maurice thought it would
be easy to wait for time to effect this change, but he had not counted
on jealousy.

It was, of all people, that rattlecap George Clifton. George was a
man who invariably attached himself where notoriety was to be
obtained, and since Miss Lafitte had become the rage he was her
shadow. Maurice, soon after this conversation, had discontinued his
professional visits. He wished gradually to make it evident to Fay
that his attentions had a deeper meaning. Besides, he was scarcely in
a state to coolly feel her pul