"Your friend," murmured Madame Cagliostra, now addressing herself to Anna and not to Sylvia, "should dispossess herself as quickly as possible of her necklace, of these round balls. They have already brought her ill-fortune in the past, they have lowered her in the estimation of an estimable person--in fact, if she is not very careful, indeed, even if she be very careful--it looks to me, Madame, as if they would end by strangling her!" Sylvia became very uncomfortable. "Of course she means my pearls," she whispered. "But how absurd to say they could ever do me harm." "Look here," said Anna Wolsky earnestly, "you are quite right, Madame; my friend has a necklace which has already played a certain part in her life. But is it not just because of this fact that you feel the influence of this necklace so strongly? I entreat you to speak frankly. You are really distressing me very much!" Madame Cagliostra looked very seriously at the speaker. "Well, perhaps it is so," she said at last. "Of course, we are sometimes wrong in our premonitions. And I confess that I feel puzzled--exceedingly puzzled--to-day. I do not know that I have ever had so strange a case as that of this English lady before me! I see so many roads stretching before her--I also see her going along more than one road. As a rule, one does not see this in the cards." She looked really harassed, really distressed, and was still conning her cards anxiously. "And yet after all," she cried suddenly, "I may be wrong! Perhaps the necklace has less to do with it than I thought! I do not know whether the necklace would make any real difference! If she takes one of the roads open to her, then I see no danger at all attaching to the preservation of this necklace. But the other road leads straight to the House of Peril." "The House of Peril?" echoed Sylvia Bailey. "Yes, Madame. Do you not know that all men and women have their House of Peril--the house whose threshold they should never cross--behind whose door lies misery, sometimes dishonour?" "Yes," said Anna Wolsky, "that is true, quite true! There has been, alas! more than one House of Peril in my life." She added, "But what kind of place is my friend's House of Peril?" "It is not a large house," said the fortune-teller, staring down at the shining surface of her table. "It is a gay, delightful little place, ladies--quite my idea of a pretty dwelling. But it is filled with horror unutterable to Madame. Ah! I entreat you"--she stared sadly at Sylvia--"to beware of unknown buildings, especially if you persist in keeping and in wearing your necklace." "Do tell us, Madame, something more about my friend's necklace. Is it, for instance, of great value, and is it its value that makes it a source of danger?"