In a short while the obstruction was removed. Camillo closed his eyes, trying to think of other things; but the voice of Rita’s husband whispered into his ears the words of the letter: “Come immediately…” And he could behold the anguish of the drama. He trembled. The house seemed to look right at him. His feet instinctively moved as if to leave the carriage and go in… Camillo found himself before a long, opaque veil… he thought rapidly of the inexplicability of so many things. The voice of his mother was repeating to him a host of extraordinary happenings; and the very sentence of the Prince of Denmark kept echoing within him:

“There are more things in heave and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

What could he lose by it, if…?

He jumped out to the pavement, just before the fortune-teller’s door; he told the driver to wait for him, and hastened into the entry, ascending the stairs. There was little light, the stairs were worn away from the many feet that had sought them, the banister was smooth and sticky; but he saw and felt nothing. He stumbled up the stairs and knocked. Nobody appearing, he was about to go down; but it was too late now, — curiosity was whipping his blood and his heart beat with violent throbs; he turned back to the door, and knocked once, twice, three times. He beheld a woman; it was the card-reader. Camillo said that he had come to consult her, and she bade him enter. Thence they climbed to the attic by a staircase even worse than the first and buried in deeper gloom. At the top there was a garret, ill lighted by a small window. Old furniture, somber walls, and an air of poverty augmented, rather than destroyed, the prestige of the occupant.

The fortune-teller told him to be seated before the table, and she sat down on the opposite side with her back to the window, so that whatever little light came from without fell full upon Camillo’s face. She opened a drawer and took out a pack of worn, filthy cards. While she rapidly shuffled them she peered at him closely, not so much with a direct gaze as from under her eyes. She was a woman of forty, Italian, thin and swarthy, with large, sharp, cunning eyes. She placed three cards upon the table, and said:

“Let us first see what has brought you here. The gentleman has just received a severe shock and is in great fear…”

Camillo, astonished, nodded affirmatively.

“And he wishes to know,” she continued, “whether anything will happen to him or not…”

“To me and to her,” he explained, excitedly.