Theresia, sitting on the dais, with the heady fumes of Oriental scents blurring her sight and the clearness of her intellect, was drinking in the honeyed words and flattering prophecies of the old witch. "Thy name will be the greatest in the land! Before thee will bow the mightiest thrones! At thy words heads will fall and diadems will totter!" Mother Théot announced in sepulchral tones, whilst gazing into the crystal before her. "As the wife of citizen Tallien?" Theresia queried in an awed whisper. "That the spirits do not say," the old witch replied. "What is a name to them? I see a crown of glory, and thy head surrounded by a golden light; and at thy feet lies something which once was scarlet, and now is crimson and crushed." "What does it mean?" Theresia murmured. "That is for thee to know," the sybil replied sternly. "Commune with the spirits; lose thyself in their embrace; learn from them the great truths, and the future will be made clear to thee." With which cryptic utterance she gathered her veils around her, and with weird murmurs of, "Evohe! Evohe! Sammael! Zamiel! Evohe!" glided out of the room, mysterious and inscrutable, presumably in order to allow her bewildered client to meditate on the enigmatical prophecy in solitude. But directly she had closed the door behind her, Mother Théot's manner underwent a change. Here the broad light of day appeared to divest her of all her sybilline attributes. She became just an ugly old woman, wrinkled and hook-nosed, dressed in shabby draperies that were grey with age and dirt, and with claw-like hands that looked like the talons of a bird of prey. As she entered the room, a man who had been standing at the window opposite, staring out into the dismal street below, turned quickly to her. "Art satisfied?" she asked at once. "From what I could hear, yes!" he replied, "though I could have wished thy pronouncements had been more clear." The hag shrugged her lean shoulders and nodded in the direction of her lair. "Oh!" she said. "The Spaniard understands well enough. She never consults me or invokes the spirits but they speak to her of that which is scarlet. She knows what it means. You need not fear, citizen Chauvelin, that in the pursuit of her vaulting ambition, she will forget that her primary duty is to you!" "No," Chauvelin asserted calmly, "she'll not forget that. The Cabarrus is no fool. She knows well enough that when citizens of the State have been employed to work on its behalf, they are no longer free agents afterwards. The work must be carried through to the end." "You need not fear the Cabarrus, citizen," the sybil rejoined dryly. "She'll not fail you. Her vanity is immense. She believes that the Englishman insulted her by writing that flippant letter, and she'll not leave him alone till she has had her revenge." "No!" Chauvelin assented. "She'll not fail me. Nor thou either, citoyenne." The old hag shrugged her shoulders.