"And the fools that come so readily to seek the Patron," asked John Garnet—"what sort of fools are these?"
"The wisest sort," answered the girl. "Many a time I have heard him say that those who come for information, begin by telling him all they want to know. The Patron never seems to listen, but his ears are very sharp. Besides, he can always find out things in a hundred ways, watching the fire and the stars, or reading the cards. The last is the easiest, only they sometimes come up wrong, but the stars never deceive."
She spoke with implicit faith. For this girl, there was an inscrutable power that ruled supreme over all earthly fortunes, and dominated all mortal efforts. She called it Fate, and believed that its decrees were revealed in the cracklings of a wood fire, the combinations on a table of numerals, the presence of the knave of spades in a hand of diamonds, no less than in those tablets of fire that her ancestors had studied, when the Pyramids were as yet unfinished, when the Chaldæan was still learning the alphabet of that wondrous language he discovered in the stars of heaven.
"Then the Patron is a fortune-teller," continued John Garnet, looking with undisguised admiration in his companion's face. "I thought he was a doctor—I am sure he has doctored me to some purpose. I feel as if I should be out of bed to-morrow, and in the saddle next day. Perhaps it's your nursing, pretty Waif; but I seem to get stronger every hour."
It was a tell-tale face, and changed colour often under the clear, swarthy skin. John Garnet, however (and perhaps this was why women liked him well), detected but slowly the interest he created in the opposite sex; and Waif might have blushed till she was scarlet before he found out the truth, had she not pressed both hands to her bosom with a gesture of pain, and exclaimed, in a choking voice:
"Then you will go away, and I shall never see you again!"
He glanced sharply in her face. The black eyes were fixed and tearless, but there was a world of patient, hopeless sorrow in their gaze; and through John Garnet's heart ran a thrill of something sweeter and keener than pity—something not far removed from love.
"Waif," said he, in the kind, mellow tones she knew so well, "Waif, my pretty maid, shall you be sorry when I have to go away?"
She looked straight in his eyes while he could have counted ten. Then over her dark, delicate face came, as it were, a ripple, that told how deeply she was moved. One instant her slender figure waved like a willow in the wind, the next she had fallen forward on her knees, clasping his hand to her lips and forehead, while she wept convulsively; but, before he had recovered his astonishment sufficiently to soothe her with word or caress, she leaped to her feet, and glided like a phantom from the room.