“I have not forgotten, I can never forget, Jules, the very singular Fate-reading, or whatever you may please to call it, spoken by the Astrologer Talcke last winter at Miss Bosanquet’s soirée. You were not in the room, you know, but I related it to you when we arrived home. He certainly foretold Lavinia’s death, as I, recalling the words, look upon it now. He said there was some element of evil in their house, threatening and terrible; he repeated it more than once. In their house, Jules, and that it would end in darkness; which, as every one understood, meant death: not for Mrs. Fennel; he took care to tell her that; but for another. He said the cards were more fateful than he had ever seen them. That evil in the house was Fennel.”
Still Monsieur Jules offered no comment.
“And what could be the meaning of those dreams Lavinia had about him, in which he always seemed to be preparing to inflict upon her some fearful ill, and she knew she never could and never would escape from it?” ran on Mary Carimon, her eager, suppressed tones bearing a gruesome sound in the stillness of the night. “And what is the explanation of the fits of terror which have shaken Fennel since the death, fancying he sees Lavinia? Flore said to me this morning that she is sure Lavinia is in the house.”
Glancing at her husband to see that he was at least listening, but receiving no confirmation of it by word or motion, Mary Carimon continued:
“Those dreams came to warn her, Jules. To warn her to get out of the house while she could. And she made arrangements to go, and in another day or two would have been away in safety. But he was too quick for her.”
Monsieur Jules Carimon turned now to face his wife. “Mon amie, tais toi,” said he with authority. “Such a topic is not convenable,” he added, still in French, though she had spoken in English. “It is dangerous.”
“But, Jules, I believe it to have been so.”
“All the same, and whether or no, it is not your affair, Marie. Neither must you make it so. Believe me, my wife, the only way to live peaceably ourselves in the world is to let our neighbours’ sins alone.”