"Mario de Bois-Doré?" cried Pilar, her sparkling eyes becoming dull and lifeless. "He is here, you say? where? where? Show him to me!"
"Come, Bois-Doré," they shouted on all sides, "do not hide your face, but hold out your hands."
Mario came forth from his corner and showed himself to the two women, one of whom darted forward to grasp his hand, while the other turned her head away as if to avoid being recognized.
"I saw you, Bellinde," said Mario to the latter; "and as for you, Pilar," he added, withdrawing his hand, which she seemed to wish to put to her lips, "look at my lines, that is enough."
"Mario de Bois-Doré!" cried Pilar, suddenly losing control of herself, "I know them well enough, the lines in your fatal hand! I studied them carefully enough long ago. I never told your fortune; it is too cruel and too unhappy."
"And I know your science," retorted Mario, shrugging his shoulders. "It depends on your whim, your hatred, your folly."
"Very well, put it to the test!" cried Pilar, more and more incensed; "and if you do not believe in my science, do not fear to listen to your sentence. To-morrow, my pretty Mario, you will sleep on your back, on the edge of a ditch; but to no purpose will your lovely eyes be open and staring, you will never again see the light of the stars."
"Because there will be clouds in the sky," observed Mario, undisturbed.
"No, the weather will be fair; but you will be dead!" said the sibyl, wiping the cold perspiration from her forehead with her hair. "Enough! let no one else question me! I shall say things that are too harsh to all of you here!"
"You will take back your words, you wicked she-devil!" cried the young man who had procured for Mario the pleasure of this agreeable prophecy. "Do not let her leave the room, friends! These infernal witches lead us into death by the confusion they sow in our minds. They are the cause of our losing, in the face of danger, the confidence that saves. Let us compel her to swallow her words and to confess that she said them from pure deviltry."