"Disappeared!" said I musingly.
"Yea, temperance hath her demands on occasions," said he, thinking I alluded to the exit of the wine, and not the ominous mark; "for there be two kinds of this noble virtue, the jejune and the hearty, whereof the former observes no plethoric gratifications, and the other is not averse to an extreme of cordial indulgence."
"Disappeared!" said I in a harping way, once again, "and left the skin discoloured."
"But it was there, and I saw it with these eyes," cried Graeme, "and the doctor saw it, and Betha, but, thank God, not the mother."
"The vouchsafing of the eyes is an easy task," drawled Rogers. "The truth of present fact is of the moment of experience as regards the seer; but, as a moral entity, it never dies. The great Author of nature has his intention in these mysterious signs. We know only that there are two kinds of these God's finger-touches—the enduring and the evanescent. That we have now witnessed was of the latter kind, which we also call superficial in opposition to the other, which is painted on the rete mucosum, and never goes off. The difference of indications we know not, further than that a mysterious purpose is served by both. But might I ask if ever there was any occasion on which the figure of this card might, as connected with some thrilling incident, have been impressed upon the imagination of the mother?"
"Never," cried Graeme, as he shook violently.
"Then it betokens fortune to the heir of the Moated Grange," said Rogers.
"It betokens vengeance!" roared Graeme, no longer able to contain himself; and he began to pace rapidly the room. Then stopping before me—
"How long will you torment me with your scepticism? Here, Betha," he cried to the woman, who at the instant again called Rogers, "what did you see on the back of the boy?"
"The ten of diamonds, sir," replied she, evidently frightened by the wild eyes of her master. "But you are not to be feared. Do I not know God's signs when I see them fresh from his very finger? I have seen them aforetime; and no man or woman on earth, no, even our minister, will convince me they are meant for nothing. This bairn will be a rich man, but it will not be by the devil's books; for he who made the mark does not tempt to evil by promises printed on the bodies of them he loves."