“You are in love,” she continued, “and your sweetheart loves you dearly. You saw her this morning, and you would give a trifle to know where she will be to-morrow. You traveled with her last night and didn't know it—and the business that brought you to town will prosper.”
“You say you know my name,” replied the stranger, “if so, write it on a slip of paper.”
She hesitated a moment.
“Will it do,” she asked, “if I give you the initials?”
“No,” he replied, “the name in full—and I think you are fairly caught.”
She gave no reply, but having got a slip of paper and a pen, went to the wall and knocked three times, repeating some unintelligible words with an appearance of great solemnity and mystery. Having knocked, she applied her ear to the wall three times also, after which she seemed satisfied.
The stranger of course imputed all this to imposture; but when he reflected upon what she had already told him, he felt perfectly confounded with amazement. The prophetess then went to her father's counter and wrote something upon a small fragment of paper, which she handed to him. No earthly language could now express his astonishment, not from any belief he entertained that she possessed supernatural power, but from the almost incredible fact that she could have known so much of a man's affairs who was an utter stranger to her, and to whom she was herself unknown.
“Well, it is odd enough,” he added; “but this knocking on the wall and listening was useless jugglery. Did you not say, when first you inspected my hand, that you could read my name in the lines of it? then, of course you knew it before you knocked at the wall—the knocking, therefore, was imposture.”
“I knew the name,” she replied, “the moment I looked into your hand, but I was obliged to ask permission to reveal it. Your observation, however, was very natural. It may, in the meantime, be a consolation for you to know that I'm not at liberty to mention it to any one but yourself and one other person.”
“A man or woman?”