‘Thank God for it!’ replied the girl, as she lifted the baby’s brown hand to her lips and kissed it fondly. ‘I know he’s a disgrace, mother, but it would kill me to part with him now. He’s all I’ve got left of Fred.’ ‘I don’t know that, my girl. I’ve dreamed some strange things about that Fred (as you call him) lately. That’s why I want to lay the cards for you. That marriage of his hasn’t turned out well. I feel sure of it, though we’ve heard nothing of him since the letter he sent me to say it was coming off. He’s in trouble of some sort, as sure as he lives. I can see so much by the influences round the child, and I verily believe it’s death.’ ‘Not for him, mother,’ cried Rhoda, quickly. ‘If it’s not for him, it’s very near him; but, if you won’t cut the cards, I can’t say more. Your fate and his are so mixed up, that I can’t read one without the other.’ ‘Very well, mother, I will cut them,’ replied Rhoda, as she laid her boy in his cradle, and seated herself at the table. ‘You make me uneasy when you speak of Fred so, and I shall not rest till I know the worst.’ Mrs Berry produced her favourite pack of cards, which had been laid for all the inhabitants of Luton, and, having withdrawn some from the pack, directed her daughter to cut and shuffle the remainder, and lay them on the table in three portions, with their faces downwards. As she raised and dealt them out, she went on rapidly with her reading. ‘There he is, you see,’ she commenced, pointing to the king of clubs, ‘as black as the little crow yonder. And I was right. There’s death round him. If it hasn’t come, it’s coming, and it’s for his wife, not for himself. See how he counts to the marriage ring in the lap of death. There’s no escaping it for him, one way or another. Shuffle them again, my dear, and cut as before.’ Rhoda did as she was desired, and her mother scrutinised the cards attentively. ‘There’s trouble around him, as sure as he lives, and danger threatens him very nearly.’ ‘Danger, mother? What danger?’ exclaimed the girl, in a voice of alarm. ‘Not illness or death, my dear, so you needn’t look so frightened. But he seems to me to be surrounded by a net of some sort--as if there were people about him who are trying to take advantage of him--to rob him, perhaps, or to entangle him in difficulties. He is full of perplexities. I don’t like the look of this fair man who is mixed up with him. He’s an enemy of his, and has done him, or will do him, a great mischief. He’s been a bad man to you, this Mr Frederick Walcheren, but he ought to be warned against those who are about him, and especially of this fair man, or he will get into more trouble still.’