“You are sure, quite sure?” the girl cried piteously.
“It is written, and nothing can alter it,” cried the seeress, and Berry thought of some words she had read in a book of Eastern verses:
The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your piety, nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
She knelt there sobbing piteously, as a beaten child, and that cracked voice went on, and on:
“I can save your life, girl, and I will do it, because you are so young and so fair that I pity you. If you will meet me on the stroke of twelve down in the Bonair grounds in the northern walk leading to the private zoo, I will lend you for a week a charm against drowning—for nothing, because I pity you so. When the week is ended the danger will be past, and a long and happy life lies before you. Is it worth the trouble? Will you come?”
“I—I—yes, I will come!” faltered Berry wildly; then she fled from the hag’s presence, followed by a low, exultant laugh, and in the hall she fainted with the horror of all she had heard, believing that the woman must indeed be gifted with supernatural powers.
Now that she was alone, it all rushed wildly over her, [and she knew] that she must go to receive the mysterious charm that could avert her impending doom of death.