"Are you willing to learn?" he asked, with his quiet sarcastic smile. "An hour's practice every day for ten days would make your ladyship independent of chance and all its fluctuations. Chance, forsooth! there's no such thing. Do you think I trust to chance when I direct your actions and forecaste read your future? Fate is the ruling power of the universe; but science and skill, the quick brain and the ready hand—these may control Fate."
On a weak mind so high-sounding a sentence, meaning nothing, took no small effect. She blushed, she simpered, she bit her lips, she hesitated.
"I should like it prodigiously," she said, with a nervous laugh, "if—if it wasn't dishonest, you know; and—and if it couldn't be found out!"
He took a pack of cards from a drawer. "Observe my fingers," he began, but she interrupted him with a faint scream.
"Not now!" she exclaimed; "some other time, Doctor. I'm so frightened! I'm sure I heard somebody at the door. It is cheating, you know. Besides, I must be at Ranelagh in an hour, and I have to dress, all but my head, that was done this morning. I wish I hadn't come. La! I know I could never find courage. Let me out, please. This is between ourselves, of course. Shall I find you to-morrow night at the same time?"
Assuring her that he never left his post, Katerfelto ushered her ladyship with much ceremony to the door, which was opened by Waif, on whom the departing visitor found nothing better to bestow than a look of supreme indifference and scorn.
Not so the next comer. Hardly had the chairmen, who winked at each other as they took up their precious burden, moved a dozen paces, when a heavy step was heard in Deadman's Alley, and a burly figure, that seemed to ignore all considerations of secrecy and disguise, stopped at Katerfelto's door to thump till it shook again.
Undoing the fastening, hastily as she might, Waif found herself confronted by a stout middle-aged person, in a rusty black riding suit, who looked as if he had been taking hasty refreshment, washed down by strong potations, as indeed was the case.
Parson Gale—for it was none other—had ridden post from Exmoor to London on receiving the news of his brother's death in a midnight brawl. Arrived in the metropolis, he lost no time in communicating with the officers of justice; and from the particulars thus furnished, satisfied himself that the affray took place without witnesses, and that the survivor had escaped. The Parson swore a great oath that he would avenge the crime, and if the perpetrator was above ground, hunt him down to death. His difficulty was to find out where John Garnet lay concealed. Every day, and all day long, he pursued his inquiries, without success. Tired and hungry, while sitting at his tavern supper he chanced to hear Katerfelto spoken of as a cunning man, for whom there were no secrets in this world or the next; and having ascertained the locality of Deadman's Alley, finished his bottle, and started without delay on his search.
The apparition of Waif, in answer to his summons, may have surprised him a little; but when a pretty lass was in question, Parson Gale was never at a loss; he recovered his astonishment in time to chuck her under the chin, and bestow on her a most unwelcome caress. The girl's eyes glittered, and her lithe fingers stole to the knife at her girdle. He caught her by the wrist, and kissed her again. She disengaged herself, with one dexterous twirl, and pushed rather than ushered this unwelcome admirer into the presence of Katerfelto; muttering, in her own outlandish tongue, something that sounded less like a blessing than a curse.