e same voice addressed her now, and the
same woman stood in the doorway of the mean house gazing at her with
large, mournful eyes. It was Rachel Bangat, the Malay cook.

"You come see me die, missis?" she questioned, in her soft, languorous
voice.

"Die! Are you sick, Rachel?" said Mrs. Ozanne.

"Yes, missis; Rachel very sick. Going die in three days."

Sophia Ozanne searched the dark, high-boned face with horror-stricken
eyes, but could see no sign of death on it, or any great change after
seventeen years, except a more unearthly mournfulness in the mysterious
eyes.

But she had often heard it said that Malays possess a prophetic
knowledge of the hour and place of their death, and she could well
credit Rachel Bangat with this strange faculty.

"How my baby getting along, missis?"

Such yearning tenderness was in the question that Mrs. Ozanne, spite of
a deep repugnance to discuss Rosanne with this woman, found herself
answering:

"She is grown up now, Rachel."

"She very pretty?"

"Yes."

"And very rich?"

"We are well-off."

"But she? I give her two good gifts that make her rich all by herself.
She no use them?"

"What gifts were those, Rachel?" The mother drew nearer and peered
with haggard eyes at the Malay.

"I tell you, missis. Because I love my baby so much and want her be
very rich and happy, I give her two good things--_the gift of bright
stones_ and _the gift of hate well_."

Sophia Ozanne drew nearer still, staring like a fascinated rabbit into
the mournfully sinister dark eyes, while the soft voice rippled on.

"She no use those gifts I give her? I think so. I think she say, 'I
hate that man,' and he die, sometimes quick, sometimes slow. Or she
not hate too much, and he only get little sick. Or she wish him bad in
his business, and he get bad. That not so?"

Sophia Ozanne thought of the black list she had kept for years of all
the people whom Rosanne disliked and who had come to ill. In swift
procession they passed through her mind, and Dick Gardner, with his
anguished throat, walked at the end of the procession.

"Yes." Her dry lips ejected the word in spite of her wish to be silent.

"Ah!" said the Malay, softly satisfied. "And the bright stones? She
not get all she want without buy?"

This time, Mrs. Ozanne did not answer; only her blanched face grew a
shade whiter. The woman leaned forward and spoke to her earnestly,
imploringly.

"You tell her get rich quic