"'Who meets the monk in light of day,
Woe goes with him on his way.'"
"Cheery little thing," grunted Simon Varr as she paused an instant. "Is that all of it?"
"No, there's one more verse." Miss Ocky deepened her tones a note or two as she solemnly read it.
"'Who meets the monk when dusk is nigh
Within the fortnight he shall die.'"
She closed the book and regarded her brother-in-law with eyes half-mocking, half-pitying.
"Of course you wouldn't dream of treating such nonsense seriously, Simon; I know that. But it's curious, and rather interesting, don't you think? Jennison had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote his account of it, but even he relates as a matter of fact the coincidence that those persons who saw the vision were subsequently badly out of luck." Ocky shook her head gently and glanced at him commiseratingly. "If it should come true in your case, Simon, I suppose this is an opportune moment to offer you my condolences!"
"Thank you," he managed to reply dryly.
He felt very squeamish inside, though most of that was due to his innate abhorrence of anything that brought up the subject of death. As far as the Monk was concerned, he had found in the letter thrust into the cleft stick and now reposing in a pigeonhole of his desk the reason back of that masquerade—though he had to admit that the writer of the anonymous note had certainly hit upon a sufficiently gruesome method of transmitting it.
"Thank you, Ocky, for your condolences," he continued after an interval. "The same to you and many of them! We'll go together, no doubt. Don't forget you saw the Monk at the same time I did!"
"Ah!"