grey head of the mumbling fortune-teller, whose bony
fingers twitched over and about the crystal globe like wiggling
serpents' tails. The window gave little or no light and the door was
closed, the grinning grandson leaning against it limply. The picture was
a weird, uncanny one, despite the gay, lightsome appearance of the
visitors. The old woman, in high, shrill tones, had commanded silence.
The men obeyed with a grim scepticism, while the women seemed really
awed by their surroundings.

The Witch began by reading the fortune of John Tullis, who had been
pushed forward by the wide-eyed Prince. In a cackling monotone she
rambled through a supposititious history of his past, for the chief part
so unintelligible that even he could not gainsay the statements. Later,
she bent her piercing eyes upon the Prince and refused to read his
future, shrilly asserting that she had not the courage to tell what
might befall the little ruler, all the while muttering something about
the two little princes who had died in a tower ages and ages ago. Seeing
that the boy was frightened, Tullis withdrew him to the background. The
Countess Marlanx, who had returned that morning to Edelweiss as
mysteriously as she had left, came next. She was smiling derisively.

"You have just returned from a visit to some one whom you hate," began
the Witch. "He is your husband. You will marry again. There is a
fair-haired man in love with you. You are in love with him. I can see
trouble--"

But the Countess deliberately turned away from the table, her cheeks
flaming with the consciousness that a smile had swept the circle behind
her graceful back.

"Ridiculous," she said, and avoided John Tullis's gaze. "I don't care to
hear any more. Come, Baron You are next."

Truxton King, subdued and troubled in his mind, found himself studying
his surroundings and the people who went so far to make them
interesting. He glanced from time to time at the delicate, eager profile
of the girl beside him; at the soft, warm cheek and the caressing brown
hair; at the little ear and the white slim neck of her--and realised
just what had happened to him. He had fallen in love; that was the plain
upshot of it. It had come to pass, just as he had hoped it would in his
dearest dreams. He was face to face with the girl of royal blood that
the story books had created for him long, long ago, and he was doing
just what he had always intended to do: falling heels over head and
hope