"Ah! it’s enough that I do know, my dear! I ’ave ways and means of knowing things that I keep to myself! I ’ave friends about me too, who can tell me everything--who can ’elp me, if I choose, to give Life and Fortune to one person, and Trouble and Death to another--and woe to them that offend me, that’s all!"

But if the Baroness expected to impress Miss Brandt with her hints of terror, she was mistaken. Harriet did not seem in the least astonished. She had been brought up by old Pete and the servants on her father’s plantation to believe in witches, and the evil eye, and “Obeah” and the whole cult of Devil worship.

"I know all about that," she remarked presently, "but you can’t do me either good or harm. I want nothing from you and I never shall!"

"Don’t you be too sure of that!" replied Madame Gobelli, nodding her head. "I’ve brought young women more luck than enough with their lovers before now--yes! and married women into the bargain! If it ’adn’t been for me, Lady--there! it nearly slipped out, didn’t it?--but there’s a certain Countess who would never ’ave been a widow and married for the second time to the man of ’er ’eart, if I ’adn’t ’elped ’er, and she knows it too! By the way, ’ow do you like Miss Leyton?"

"Not at all," replied Harriet, quickly, "she is not a bit like Mrs. Pullen--so cold and stiff and disagreeable! She hardly ever speaks to me! Is it true that she’s the daughter of a lord, as Madame Lamont says, and is it that makes her so proud?"

"She’s the daughter of Lord Walthamstowe, but that’s nothing. They’ve got no money. ’Er people live down in the country, quite in a beggarly manner. A gal with a fortune of ’er own, would rank ’eads and ’eads above ’er in Society. There’s not much thought of beside money, nowadays, I can tell you!"

"Why does she stay with Mrs. Pullen then? Are they any relation to each other?" demanded Harriet.

"Relation, no! I expect she’s just brought ’er ’ere out of charity, and because she couldn’t afford to go to the seaside by ’erself!"

She had been about to announce the projected relationship between the two ladies when a sudden thought struck her. Captain Ralph Pullen was expected to arrive in Heyst in a few days--thus much she had ascertained through the landlady of the Lion d’Or. She knew by repute that he was considered to be one of the handsomest and most conceited men in the Limerick Rangers, a corps which was noted for its good-looking officers. It 

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