asked Unorna eagerly.

"Absolutely. I have examined the question for years. There can be no
doubt of it. Food can maintain life, blood alone can renew it."

"Have you everything you need here?" inquired Unorna.

"Everything. There is no hospital in Europe that has the appliances we
have prepared for every emergency."

He looked at her face curiously. It was ghastly pale with excitement.
The pupil of her brown eye was so widely expanded that the iris looked
black, while the aperture of the gray one was contracted to the size
of a pin's head, so that the effect was almost that of a white and
sightless ball.

"You seem interested," said the gnome.

"Would such a man--such a man as Israel Kafka answer the purpose?" she
asked.

"Admirably," replied the other, beginning to understand.

"Keyork Arabian," whispered Unorna, coming close to him and bending down
to his ear, "Israel Kafka is alone under the palm tree where I always
sit. He is asleep, and he will not wake."

The gnome looked up and nodded gravely. But she was gone almost before
she had finished speaking the words.

"As upon an instrument," said the little man, quoting Unorna's angry
speech. "Truly I can play upon you, but it is a strange music."

Half an hour later Unorna returned to her place among the flowers, but
Israel Kafka was gone.

CHAPTER VII

The Wanderer, when Keyork Arabian had left him, had intended to revisit
Unorna without delay, but he had not proceeded far in the direction of
her house when he turned out of his way and entered a deserted street
which led towards the river. He walked slowly, drawing his furs closely
about him, for it was very cold.

He found himself in one of those moments of life in which the
presentiment of evil almost paralyses the mind's power of making
any decision. In general, a presentiment is but the result upon the
consciousness of conscious or unconscious fear. This fear is very often
the natural consequence of the reaction which, in melancholy natures,
comes almost inevitably after a sudden and unexpected satisfaction
or after a period in which the hopes of the individual have been
momentarily raised by some unforeseen circumstance. It is by no means
certain that hope is of itself a good thing. The wise and mournful
soul prefers the blessedness of that non-expectancy which shall not be
disappointed, to the exhilarating pleasures of an anticipation which may
prove empty. In this matter lies one of the