ousin, a woman ever had?"

She looked closely at him, her lips a little parted, her head thrown
back.

"Life is sweet, dear cousin. Reckon with yourself and with it, and
live--live."--Then she put out her hand and held up the crystal between
her face and his. "There," she went on, "tell me about this. I become
indiscrete, thanks I suppose to your Brockhurst habit of putting back
the clock, and speak with truly Elizabethan frankness. It belongs to
semi-barbaric ages, doesn't it, this, to tell the true truth? Show me
this. It seems rather fascinating."

And Richard obeyed mechanically, pointing out to her the signs of the
Zodiac, those of the planets, and other figures of occult significance
engraved on the encircling, golden bands. Showed her how those same
bands, turning on a pivot, formed a golden cradle, in which the crystal
sphere reposed. He lifted it out from that cradle, moreover, and laid
it in the softer cradle of her palm. And of necessity in the doing of
all this, their heads--his and hers--were very near together, and their
hands met. But they were very solemn all the while, solemn, eager,
busy, as two babies revealing to each other the mysteries of a newly
acquired toy. And it seemed to Madame de Vallorbes that all this was as
pretty a bit of business as ever served to help forward such gay
purposes as hers. She was pleased with herself too--for did she not
feel very gentle, very sincere, really very innocent and good?

"No, hold it so," Richard said, rounding her fingers carefully, that
the tips of them might alone touch the surface of the crystal. "Now
gaze into the heart of it steadily, fixing your will to see. Pictures
will come presently, dimly at first, as in a mist. Then the mist will
lift and you will read your own fortune and--perhaps--some other
person's fate."

"Have you ever read yours?"

"Oh! mine's of a sort that needs no crystal to reveal it," he answered,
with a queer drop in his voice. "It's written in rather indecently big
letters and plain type. Always has been."

Helen glanced at him. His words whipped up her sense of drama, fed her
excitement. But she bent her eyes upon the crystal again, and the hush
descended once more, disturbed only by that nervous tapping of rain.

"I see nothing, nothing," she said presently. "And there is much I
would give very much to see."

"You must gaze with a simple intention." The young man's voice came
curiously hoarse and broken. "Purify your mi