evealed the truth to Mr. Pargeter,--and he will believe
implicitly all you say,--then, Madame, you will not only have
accomplished a good action, but a sum, bringing the fee for the seance
which is just concluded up to ten thousand francs, will be placed at
your disposal by me."

Madame d'Elphis looked long and searchingly at the man standing before
her.

"Monsieur," she said, "will you give me your word that the death of Mrs.
Pargeter was as this paper declares it to have been--that is to say, a
natural death?"

"Yes," answered Vanderlyn, "she knew that she would die in this
way--suddenly."

"Then," said the fortune-teller, coldly, "I will do as you desire."

Vanderlyn, following a sudden impulse, put the envelope he held in his
hand on the table. "Here is the fee," he said, briefly. "I know that I
can trust in your discretion, your loyalty,--may I add, Madame, in your
kindness?"

"I am ashamed," she whispered, "ashamed to take this money." She clasped
her hands together in an unconscious gesture of supplication, and then
asked, with a curious childish directness, "It is a great deal--can you
afford it, Monsieur?"

"Yes," he said, hastily; the suffering, shamed expression on her face
moved him strangely.

"When you next see Mr. Pargeter," she murmured, "you shall have written
proof that I have carried out your wish."

She tapped the table twice, sharply,--then led the way into the larger
room. It was empty, but Vanderlyn, even as he entered, saw a door
closing quietly.

Madame d'Elphis walked across to an un-curtained window; she opened it
and stepped through on to a broad terrace balcony.

"Walk down the iron stairway," she said, in a low voice, "there are not
many steps. A little door leads from the garden below straight into the
street; the door has been left unlocked to-night."

Vanderlyn held out his hand; she took it and held it for a moment. "Ah!"
she said, softly, "would that _I_ had died when I was still young, still
beautiful, still loved!--"

XII.

The bright May sun was pouring into Tom Pargeter's large smoking-room,
making more alive and vivid the fantastic and brilliantly-coloured
posters lining the walls.

Laurence Vanderlyn, standing there in a peopled solitude, caught a
glimpse of his own strained and tired face in a mirror which filled up
the space between two windows, and what he saw startled him, for it
seemed to him that none could look at his countenance and not see
w