u long
ago that it was a most dreadfully wicked thing, and that nothing but
evil can come of it. Do not say that I have not warned you."

"Come, stop that devil's talk," growled George.

"Devil's talk!--that is a good word, George, for it is of the devil's
wages that I am telling you. Now listen, I am going to prophecy. A
curse will fall upon this house and all within it. Would you like to
have a sign that I speak the truth? Then wait." She was standing up,
her hand stretched out, and in the dim light she looked like some
heathen princess urging a bloody sacrifice to her gods. Her
forebodings terrified her hearers, and, by a common impulse, they rose
and moved away from her.

At that moment a strange thing happened. A gust of wind, making its
way from some entrance in the back of the house, burst open the door
of the room in which they were, and entered with a cold flap as of
wings. Next second a terrible crash resounded from the other end of
the room. George turned white as a sheet, and sank into a chair,
cursing feebly. Bellamy gave a sort of howl of terror, and shrank up
to his wife, almost falling into the fire in his efforts to get behind
her. Lady Bellamy alone, remaining erect and undaunted, laughed aloud.

"Come, one of you brave conspirators against a defenceless girl,
strike a light, for the place is as dark as a vault, and let us see
what has happened. I told you that you should have a sign."

After several efforts, George succeeded in doing as she bade him, and
held a candle forward in his trembling hand.

"Come, don't be foolish," she said; "a picture has fallen, that is
all."

He advanced to look at it, and then benefited his companions with a
further assortment of curses. The picture, on examination, proved to
be a large one that he had, some years previously, had painted of
Isleworth, with the Bellamys and himself in the foreground. The frame
was shattered, and all the centre of the canvass torn out by the
weight of its fall on to a life-sized and beautiful statue of
Andromeda chained to a rock, awaiting her fate with a staring look of
agonized terror in her eyes.

"An omen, a very palpable omen," said Lady Bellamy, with one of her
dark smiles. "Isleworth and ourselves destroyed by being smashed
against a marble girl, who rises uninjured from the wreck. Eh, John?"

"Don't touch me, you sorceress," replied Sir John, who was shaking
with fear. "I believe that you are Satan in person."

"You ar