'What's the matter, mother?' asked James, as the woman stopped in the middle of a sentence, still holding his hand and staring at the palm steadfastly with a scared look. 'What's that?' she asked, pointing to a short indented line across the palm. 'Why, what keen eyes you have, old lady! That's the mark of a hole I dug in my palm two years ago, cutting a tough bit of cavendish. My scout told me I was bound to have lockjaw, but I didn't realize his expectations. I suppose lockjaw doesn't run in our family.' 'Right across the line of life,' muttered the gipsy, still examining the seam left by the knife upon the pinkish, womanish palm. 'Does that mean anything bad—that I am to die young, for instance?' 'The scar of a knife can't overrule the planets,' replied the sibyl, sententiously. CHAPTER II. BEHIND THE SCENES. James Penwyn and Maurice Clissold went to the Eborsham Theatre as soon as they had eaten their dinner and smoked a single cigar apiece, lounging by the open window in the gloaming, talking over their afternoon's adventure. 'What a fellow you are, Jim!' cried Maurice, with a half-contemptuous, half-compassionate air, as for the foolishness of a child. 'To hear you go on about that scarecrow of a girl, one would suppose you had never seen a pretty woman in your life.' 'I never saw prettier eyes,' said James, 'and she has a manner that a fellow might easily fall in love with—so simple, so childish, so confiding.' 'Which means that she gazed with undisguised admiration upon the magnificent Squire Penwyn, of Penwyn Manor. A woman need only flatter you, Jim, for you to think her a Venus.' 'That poor little thing didn't flatter me. She's a great deal too innocent.' 'No, she only admired you innocently; opening those big blue eyes of hers to their widest in a gaze of rapture. Was it the locket, or the studs, or the moustache, I wonder, that struck her most?' 'Don't be a fool, Clissold. If we are to go to the theatre, we'd better not waste any more time. I want to see what kind of an actor our friend is.' 'Student of humanity,' jeered Maurice, 'even a provincial player is not beneath your notice. Cuvier was profound upon spiders. Penwyn has a mind of a wider range.' 'What is his name, by-the-bye?' mused James, thinking of Mr. Elgood. 'We don't even know his name, and we've asked him to supper. That's rather awkward, isn't it?' 'Be sure he will come. No doubt he has already speculated on the possibility of borrowing five pounds from you.' Mr. Penwyn rang the bell and gave his orders with that easy air of a man unaccustomed to count the cost. The best supper the 'Waterfowl' could provide, at half-past eleven.