on, New Orleans, New York
and even here in Baltimore. Like a flash it came across me that every
name was identified, more or less closely, with the political affairs of
the time. Coupling my knowledge with what I conjectured, was it strange
I saw a confirmation of the worst fears expressed by Miss Calhoun in the
half-completed sentences of this seeming clairvoyant?

So occupied had I been with my own thoughts that I feared I might have
done something to call an undesirable attention to myself. Glancing
furtively to one side, I heard, in the opposite direction, these words:

"She has never failed. What she has said will come to pass. Some one of
note will die."

These gloomy words were the first to break the ominous silence.
Turning to face the speaker, I encountered the cold eye of a man with a
retreating chin, a receding forehead, and a mouth large and cruel enough
to stamp him as one of those perverted natures who, to the unscrupulous,
are usefully insane.

Here, then, was a being who not only knew the meaning of the fateful
words we had heard, but, to my mind, could be relied upon to make them a
verity.

It was a relief to me to turn my gaze from his repellant features to the
fixed countenance of Madame. She had not stirred; but either the room
had grown lighter or my eyes had become more accustomed to the darkness,
for I certainly saw a change in her look. Her eyelids were now raised,
and her eyes were bent directly upon me. This was uncomfortable,
especially as there was malevolence in her glance, or so I thought,
and, far from being pleased with my position, I began to wish that I
had never allowed myself to enter the place. Under the influence of this
feeling I let my eyes drop from the woman's countenance to her hands,
which were folded, as I have said, in a fixed position across her
breast. The result was an increase of my mental disturbance. They were
brown, shining hands, laden with rings, and, in the added light, under
which I saw them, bore a strange resemblance to the bronze hand I had
just left in Dr. Merriam's office.

I had never considered myself a weak man, but, from that instant, I
began to have a crawling fear of this woman--a fear that was in nowise
lessened by the very evident agitation visible in the girl, who had been
for me the connecting link between that object of mystery and this.

Unendurable quiet was upon us all again. It was aggravated by awe--an
awe to which I was determined not