e her, that tempted
Jeanne to peer into these mysteries; she only wished to be reassured as
to Delavigne and his absurd threat----"

Madame de Lera stopped speaking a moment, and then she went on--

"Madame d'Elphis had just then become the rage, and so Jeanne decided to
consult her, although the woman charged a higher fee than, I understand,
the other fortune-tellers were then doing. When the two sisters found
themselves there, my married niece bargained that the seance should be
half-price, as Jeanne only wished to stay a very few minutes, and to ask
but one question. After the bargain was concluded, Jeanne, it seems,
observed--the story of the interview has been told to me, and before me,
many many times--that she hoped the fortune-teller would take as much
trouble as if she had paid the full fee. On this the woman replied, with
a rather malignant smile, 'I can assure Mademoiselle that she will have
plenty for her money!'

"Then began the seance. La d'Elphis gave, as those sorts of people
always do, a marvellously accurate account of the poor child's
past,--the simple, virginal past of a very young girl,--but when it came
to the future, she declared that her vision had become blurred, and that
she could see nothing! Nothing! Nothing! Both the sisters pressed her to
say more, to predict something of the future; and at last, speaking very
reluctantly, she admitted that she saw Jeanne, pale, deathly pale, clad
in a wedding-dress, and she also evoked a wonderful vision of white
flowers...."

Madame de Lera looked up at her visitor, but Vanderlyn made no comment;
and so she went on:--

"Then, with some confusion, Jeanne summoned up courage to ask the one
question she had come there to ask. The answer came at once, and was
more than reassuring: 'As to the man concerning whom you are so
anxious,' said Madame d'Elphis, 'you may count on his fidelity. The
years will go on and others who loved you will forget you--but he will
ever remember.' 'Then nothing will happen to him to-morrow?' asked
Jeanne eagerly. 'To-morrow?' replied the woman, mysteriously, 'To-morrow
I see him plunged in deep grief, and yet that which has brought him this
awful sorrow will not perhaps be wholly regretted by him.'

"My poor little niece, if rather piqued, was yet much relieved, and the
two sisters left the presence of this horrible, sinister creature."

Madame de Lera passed her hand with a nervous movement over her
mouth--"It was while the