"It does not appear to lie precisely in the want of money: but certainly money is in some way connected with the evil," he was beginning to say, his eyes fixed dreamily on the cards, when Ann interrupted him. "That is too strong a word--evil. Why do you use it?" "I use it because the evil is there. No lighter word would be appropriate. There is some evil element pervading your house, very grave and formidable; it is most threatening; likely to go on to--to--darkness. I mean that it looks as if there would be some great break-up," he corrected swiftly, as if to soften the other word. "That the house would be broken up?" questioned Ann. He stole a glance at her. "Something of that sort," he said carelessly. "Do you mean that the evil comes from an enemy?" she went on. "Assuredly." "But we have no enemy. I'm sure we have not one in all the world." He slightly shook his head. "You may not suspect it yet, though I should have said"--waving the pencil thoughtfully over some of the cards--"that he was already suspected--doubted." Nancy took up the personal pronoun briskly. "He!--then the evil enemy must be a man? I assure you we do not know any man likely to be our enemy or to wish us harm. No, nor woman either. Perhaps your cards don't tell true to-night, Signor Talcke?" "Perhaps not, madame; we will let it be so if you will," he quietly said, and shuffled all the cards together. That ended the séance. As if determined not to tell any more fortunes, the signor hurriedly put up the cards and disappeared from the recess. Nancy did not appear to be in the least impressed. "What a curious 'future' it was!" she exclaimed lightly to Mary Carimon. "I might as well not have had it cast. He told me nothing." They walked away together. I went back to the sofa and Anna Bosanquet followed me. "Mrs. Fennel calls it 'curious,'" I said to her. "I call it more than that--strange; ominous. I wish I had not heard it." "Dear Miss Preen, it is only nonsense," she answered. "He will tell some one else the same next time." But she only so spoke to console me. A wild wish flashed into my mind--that I should ask the man to tell _my_ future. But had I not heard enough? Mine was blended with this of Ann's. _I_ was the other woman whom the dark fate was more relentlessly pursuing. There could be no doubt of that. There could be as little doubt that it was I who already suspected the author of the "evil." What can the "dark fate" be that we are threatened with? Debt? Will his debts spring upon us and break up our home, and turn us out of it? Or will it be something worse? That card which followed me meant a coffin, they said. Ah me! Perhaps I am foolish to dwell upon such ideas. Certainly they are more fitting for the world's dark ages than for this enlightened nineteenth century of it.