The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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      "Your friend," murmured Madame Cagliostra, now addressing herself to Anna and not to Sylvia, "should dispossess herself as quickly as possible of her necklace, of these round balls. They have already brought her ill-fortune in the past, they have lowered her in the estimation of an estimable person—in fact, if she is not very careful, indeed, even if she be very careful—it looks to me, Madame, as if they would end by strangling her!"

      Sylvia became very uncomfortable. "Of course she means my pearls," she 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 these pearls, if genuine, were of such great value!

      At first she had not believed them to be real, then gradually she had become convinced of Sylvia's good faith. If the pearls were false, Sylvia did not know it.

      But Madame Cagliostra's answer was disappointing—or prudent.

      "I cannot tell you that," she said. "I cannot even tell you of what the necklace is composed. It may be of gold, of silver, of diamonds, of pearls—it may be, I'm inclined to think it is, composed of Egyptian scarabei. They, as you know, often bring terrible ill-fortune in their train, especially when they have been taken from the bodies of mummies. But the necklace has already caused this lady to quarrel with a very good and sure friend of hers—of that I am sure. And, as I tell you, I see in the future that this necklace may cause her very serious trouble—indeed, I see it wound like a serpent round her neck, pressing ever tighter and tighter—"

      She suddenly began shuffling the cards. "And now," she said in a tone of relief, "I will deal with you, Madame," and she turned to Anna with a smile.

      Sylvia drew her chair a little away from the table.

      She felt depressed and uncomfortable. What an odd queer kind of fortune had been told her! And then it had all been so muddled. She could scarcely remember what it was that had been told her.

      Two things, however, remained very clear in her mind: The one was the absurd prediction that she might never go back to her own country; the second was all that extraordinary talk about her pearls. As to the promised lover, the memory of the soothsayer's words made her feel very angry. No doubt Frenchwomen liked that sort of innuendo, but it only disgusted her.

      Yet it was really very strange that Madame Cagliostra had known, or rather had divined, that she possessed a necklace by which she laid great store. But wasn't there such a thing as telepathy? Isn't it supposed by some people that fortune-tellers simply see into the minds of those who come to them, and then arrange what they see there according to their fancy?

      That, of course, would entirely account for all that the fortune-teller had said about her pearls.

      Sylvia always felt a little uncomfortable when her pearls were not lying round her pretty neck. The first time she had left them in the hotel bureau, at her new friend's request, was when they had been together to some place of amusement at night, and she had felt quite miserable, quite lost without them. She had even caught herself wondering whether M. Girard was perfectly honest, whether she could trust him not to have her dear pearls changed by some clever jeweller, though, to be sure, she felt she would have known her string of pearls anywhere!

      But what was this that was going on between the other two?

      Madame Cagliostra dealt out the pack of cards in a slow, deliberate fashion—and then she uttered a kind of low hoarse cry, and mixed the cards all together, hurriedly.

      Getting up from the table, she exclaimed, "I regret, Madame, that I can tell you nothing—nothing at all! I feel ill—very ill!" and, indeed, she had turned, even to Sylvia's young and unobservant eyes, terribly pale.

      For some moments the soothsayer stood staring into Anna Wolsky's astonished face.

      "I know I've disappointed you, Mesdames, but I hope this will not prevent your telling your friends of my powers. Allow me to assure you that it is not often that I am taken in this way!"

      Her voice had dropped to a whisper. She was now gazing down at the pack of cards which lay on the table with a look of horror and oppression on her face.

      "I will only charge five francs," she muttered at last, "for I know that I have not satisfied you."

      Sylvia sprang to the window. She tore apart the curtains and pulled up the sash.

      "No wonder the poor woman feels faint," she said quickly. "It's absurd to sit with a window tight shut in this kind of room, which is little more than a box with three people in it!"

      Madame Cagliostra had sunk down into her chair again.

      "I must beg you to go away, Mesdames," she muttered, faintly. "Five francs is all I ask of you."

      But Anna Wolsky was behaving in what appeared to Sylvia a very strange manner. She walked round to where the fortune-teller was sitting.

      "You saw something in the cards which you do not wish to tell me?" she said imperiously. "I do not mind being told the truth. I am not a child."

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