“So she did, ma’am; but at short price, odds on, a favorite you know.”
“Mr. Grannan, though,” he went on, “so his trainer told me, lost pretty heavily on his entry. He said he telegraphed him to place ten thousand on his entry and that he, of course, lost it. Mr. Grannan’s been playing in tough luck all round, so they say.”
At the mention of Grannan’s name the mistress gave a perceptible start, a shudder passed over her, and a moment later, with some stifled remarks she ended the interview, and was moving away in her carriage.
Long after she had retired to her apartments in the home of her aunt, did she hear the words that had escaped the lips of the trainer, sounding within her ears. Grannan had had bad luck! The scene in front of the cathedral was again evolving in her mind. The funeral cortege, the coffin piled high with the floral wreaths. A sudden trepidation seized upon her. She had again dropped the handkerchief. She saw the handsome face of the tall figure beside her bending forward to recover it and then gather the fatal flower.
Could it be that Grannan’s fate—ill fortune, perhaps ruin—had been sealed by the fall of a handkerchief, as many another horseman’s had by the fall of a flag? And that handkerchief dropped by her hand? Could she then be unwittingly instrumental in the downfall which seemed to threaten him? The thought distracted her. She arose from her seat and walked the floor of her room in a fit of petulancy. Her brain teemed with myriad vague and indescribable fancies. The fingers of her hand grew numb, deadened, as though she had but withdrawn them from his parting grasp. She saw the same expression of his face that had touched her, when she had refused his gift. The look of entreaty in his eyes as he turned away.
“Alas!” she at length exclaimed aloud, muttering to herself strangely in her bewilderment. “Alas! alas! for the doctrines of pernicious fatalism. How oft do we entangle ourselves in our own sophisms; and, after all, what poor strugglers we are in the eternal web of destiny. The devils must, indeed, oft laugh out at the fool who has boasted wisdom.”
V
Saturday morning dawned. Dashes of sunlight at length began to dart through the rifts in the lifting clouds. It had rained heavily during the night, and the mistress, though she had ordered out her carriage for a drive to the race course, felt that the condition of the track would, no doubt, preclude the possibility of Cassandra’s start in the handicap. She remembered that the trainer had said, “if the track’s right.” However, she must go. The spell, the fascination that drew her thither seemed irresistible. Her aunt persuaded her to remain for lunch; but one o’clock found her gazing with intensity into the depths of the bewitching eyes, while she tenderly stroked the shapely little head that Cassandra had at sight of her thrust through the doorway of her apartment.
“I was just starting,” said the trainer, who now addressed her, “for a last inspection of the track before deciding what’s best to do. You know, ma’am,” he continued, “this is to be a hard-fought race, and while I believe the little girl”—nodding at Cassandra—“is well conditioned to go the route of a mile and a quarter, and will stand the punishment, still, in heavy going the chances are all against her. There’s Helen Orland,” he went on, “and Empress and Annabel—the track to-day, ma’am’s to their liking.”
The trainer paused, for he could not help but note unmistakable traces of disappointment on the face of the mistress.