ng?
This is for the future."

Then, stretching out her hand to the soothsayer, she asked--

"What am I to do now with this?"

"Roll that letter around this ball," answered the other, handing to
the unknown a little ball of virgin wax. "Both ball and letter will be
consumed in the flame before your eyes; the spirit knows your secrets
already. In three days you will have the answer."

The unknown did as the sibyl bade her; then the latter took from her
hands the ball and the paper in which it was wrapped, and went and threw
both into the chafing pan.

"And now all is done as it should be," said the soothsayer. "Comus!"

The dwarf came in.

"See the lady to her coach."

The stranger left a purse upon the table, and followed Comus. He
conducted her and her companion, who was only a confidential maid, down
a back staircase, used as an exit, and leading into a different street
from that by which the two women had come in; but the coachman, who
had been told beforehand of this circumstance, was awaiting them at the
door, and they had only to step into their carriage, which bore them
rapidly away in the direction of the rue Dauphine.

Three days later, according to the promise given her, the fair unknown,
when she awakened, found on the table beside her a letter in an
unfamiliar handwriting; it was addressed "To the beautiful Provencale,"
and contained these words--

"You are young; you are beautiful; you are a widow. This is for the
present.

"You will marry again; you will die young, and by a violent death. This
is for the future. THE SPIRIT."

The answer was written upon a paper like that upon which the questions
had been set down.

The marquise turned pale and uttered a faint cry of terror; the answer
was so perfectly correct in regard to the past as to call up a fear that
it might be equally accurate in regard to the future.

The truth is that the unknown lady wrapped in a mantle whom we have
escorted into the modern sibyl's cavern was no other than the beautiful
Marie de Rossan, who before her marriage had borne the name of
Mademoiselle de Chateaublanc, from that of an estate belonging to her
maternal grandfather, M. Joannis de Nocheres, who owned a fortune of
five to six hundred thousand livres. At the age of thirteen--that is to
say, in 1649--she had married the Marquis de Castellane, a gentleman of
very high birth, who claimed to be descended from John of Castill