Gerald remonstrated. “Old fellow, women are superstitious —far more than we men are; and, also, they are blessed—or cursed—with a nervous system to which we are strangers. I see too much of it in my work not to realise it. Take my advice and do not let her know, or you will frighten her.”

Joshua’s lips unconsciously hardened as he answered: “My dear fellow, I would not have a secret from my wife. Why, it would be the beginning of a new order of things between us. We have no secrets from each other. If we ever have, then you may begin to look out for something odd between us.”

“Still,” said Gerald, “at the risk of unwelcome interference, I say again be warned in time.”

“The gipsy’s very words,” said Joshua. “You and she seem quite of one accord. Tell me, old man, is this a put-up thing? You told me of the gipsy camp—did you arrange it all with Her Majesty?” This was said with an air of bantering earnestness. Gerald assured him that he only heard of the camp that morning; but he made fun of every answer of his friend, and, in the process of this raillery, the time passed, and they entered the cottage.

Mary was sitting by the piano but not playing. The dim twilight had waked some very tender feelings in her breast, and her eyes were full of gentle tears. When the men came in she stole over to her husband’s side and kissed him. Joshua struck a tragic attitude.

“Mary,” he said in a deep voice, “before you approach me, listen to the words of Fate. The Stars have spoken and the doom is sealed.”

“What is it, dear? Tell me the fortune, but do not frighten me.”

“Not at all, my dear; but there is a truth which it is well that you should know. Nay, it is necessary so that all your arrangements can be made beforehand, and everything be decently done and in order.”

“Go on, dear; I am listening.”

“Mary Considine, your effigy may yet be seen at Madame Tussaud’s. The juris-imprudent stars have announced their fell tidings that this hand is red with blood—your blood. Mary! Mary! my God!” He sprang forward, but too late to catch her as she fell fainting on the floor.

“I told you,” said Gerald. “You don’t know them as well as I do.”

After a little while Mary recovered from her swoon, but only to fall into strong hysterics, in which she laughed and wept and raved and cried, “Keep him from me—from me, Joshua, my husband,” and many other words of entreaty and of fear.

Joshua Considine was in a state of mind bordering on agony, and when at last Mary became calm he knelt by her and kissed her feet and hands and hair and called her all the sweet names and said all the tender things his lips could frame. All that night he sat by her bedside and held her hand. Far through the night and up to the early morning she kept waking from sleep and crying out as if in fear, till she was comforted by the consciousness that her husband was watching beside her.