"Who cares?" she said. "We've no children, and for my part I'm as pleased as Punch that your horrid old third cousins will come into less when we're swept off the board. Meanwhile, we get the insurance money for 'loss of use' again. It's simply splendid. And that dear Nelson Smith insists on buying the best Sheffield plate to replace what's gone. It's handsomer than the real!"
Neither she nor Dick lost any jewellery, though they possessed a little with which they had not had the courage to part. And this seemed mysterious to Constance. She wondered over it: and remembering how the Countess de Santiago had prophesied another robbery for them, telephoned to ask if she'd be "a darling, and look again in her crystal."
Madalena telephoned back: "I'll expect you this afternoon at four o'clock."
CHAPTER XIV
THE TEST
Madalena had meant to go out that afternoon, but she changed her mind and stopped at home. "I know what you've come for," she said, as she kept Connie's hand in hers. It was an effective way she had, as if contact with a person helped her to read the condition of that person's mind.
"Do you really?" exclaimed Constance. "Why, I—but you mean you've guessed what has hap——"
"It's not guessing, it's seeing," answered the Countess. "I'm in one of my psychic moods to-day. A prophecy of mine has come true?"
"No-o—yes. Well, in a way you're right. In a way you're wrong. What is it you see?"