red, does she grant rare glimpses through media which she has
provided for the use of the initiate--such as this crystal here, in which I
was studying your future, when you came in, the high future I plan for
you."

"And--you won't tell me?"

"I may not. It is forbidden. Nature deals unkindly with those who violate
her confidence. But--who knows?"

He checked himself as if struck by a new turn of thought, and studied the
girl's face intently.

"Who knows?" he repeated, as if to himself.

"What--?"

"It is quite within the bounds of possibility," Victor mused, "that you
should have inherited some of the psychic power which was born in me.
Perhaps--who knows?--to you as well Nature will be supple and disclose her
secrets.... If you care to seek her favour?"

"But--how?"

"By consulting the crystal."

Sofia's eyes sought that coldly burning stone. Her head was so heavy, she
hesitated, oppressed by misgivings without shape that she could name,
phases of formless timidity having rise in some source which she was too
tired to search out.

But she lingered and continued to stare at the crystal.

"Why not?" Victor's accents were gently persuasive. "At worst, you can only
fail. And if you do not fail, it will make me happy to think that you have
been given a little insight into my dreams for you."

"Yes," Sofia assented in a whisper--"why not?"

Victor drew her forward by the hand.

"Look," he said "look deep! Divest your mind as nearly as you can of all
thought--let the crystal give up its message to a mind devoid of prejudice,
its receptiveness unimpaired. Think of nothing, if you can manage
it--simply look and see."

Automatically to a degree the girl obeyed, already in a phase of
crepuscular hypnosis, her surface senses dulled by the potent "wine of
China." And watching her closely, Victor permitted himself a smile of
satisfaction as he noted the rapidity with which she yielded to the
hypnogenic spell of the translucent quartz; how her breathing quickened,
then took on a measured tempo like that of a sleeper; how a faint flush
warmed the unnatural pallor of her cheeks, how her dilate eyes grew fixed
in an unwinking stare, and slightly glassed....

Under her regard the goblin sphere took on with bewildering rapidity
changing guises. Its rotundity was first lost, it assumed the semblance of
a featureless disk of pallid light, which swiftly widened till it obscured
all else, then seemed to advance upon and