“Is that the way you treat your friends?” I inquired.

“Yes,” she replied, meaningly. Then, after a pause, added, “I have no desire to bring evil upon you.”

“Evil!” I exclaimed, gazing in wonderment at her beauty. “What evil can you possibly bring upon me?”

“You will, perhaps, discover some day,” she answered, with a hollow, artificial laugh. “But I’m so very late. Good night, and thank you again so much.”

Then turning quickly, with a graceful bow she entered the gate leading to the house, and rang the bell.

I saw her admitted by a smart maid, and having lit a fresh cigarette settled myself in a corner, and told the cabman to drive back to Charing Cross Mansions.

The man opened the trap-door in the roof of the conveyance, and began to chat, as night-cabmen will do to while away the time, yet the outlook was very dismal—that broad, long, never-ending road glistening with wet, and lit by two straight rows of street-lamps as far as the eye could reach right down to Oxford Street.

I was thinking regretfully of Aline; of her grace, her beauty, and of the strange circumstances in which we had become acquainted. Her curious declaration that she might cause me some mysterious evil sorely puzzled me, and I felt impelled to seek some further explanation.

I entered my chambers with my latch-key, and the ever-watchful Simes came forward, took my hat and coat, drew forward my particular armchair, and placed the whiskey and syphon at my elbow.

I had mixed a final drink, and was raising my glass, when suddenly my eyes fell upon the little triangular side-table where the curios were displayed.

What I saw caused me to start and open my eyes in amazement. Then I walked across to inspect it more closely.

The ivory crucifix, the most treasured in my collection, had been entirely consumed by fire. Nothing remained of it but its ashes, a small white heap, the silver effigy fused to a mass.

“Simes!” I cried. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“I don’t know, sir,” he answered, pale in alarm. “I noticed it almost the instant you had left the house. The ashes were quite warm then.”

“Are you sure you haven’t had an accident 

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