Yes; he had certainly a pathetic thrill in his voice; but now there was something else—­something strange—­in the slow and monotonous cadence that caught the acute ear of his friend.  And again he went on, but absently, almost as if he were himself listening—­

“—­Is she a queen, having great gifts to give? 
—­Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterest tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die. 
And he shall leave all things under the sky,
And go forth naked under sun and rain,
And work and wait and watch out all his years.”

“Evelyn,” said George Brand, suddenly, fixing his keen eyes on his friend’s face, “where have you heard that?  Who has taught you?  You are not speaking with your own voice.”

“With whose, then?” and a smile came over the pale, calm, beautiful face, as if he had awakened out of a dream.

“That,” said Brand, still regarding him, “was the voice of Natalie Lind.”

CHAPTER III.

In A house in Curzon street.

Armed with a defiant scepticism, and yet conscious of an unusual interest and expectation, George Brand drove up to Curzon Street on the following evening.  As he jumped out of his hansom, he inadvertently glanced at the house.

“Conspiracy has not quite built us a palace as yet,” he said to himself.

The door was opened by a little German maid-servant, as neat and round and rosy as a Dresden china shepherdess, who conducted him up-stairs and announced him at the drawing-room.  It was not a large room; but there was more of color and gilding in it than accords with the severity of modern English taste; and it was lit irregularly with a number of candles, each with a little green or rose-red shade.  Mr. Lind met him at the door.  As they shook hands, Brand caught a glimpse of another figure in the room—­apparently that of a tall woman dressed all in cream-white, with a bunch of scarlet geraniums in her bosom, and another in her raven-black hair.

“Not the gay little adventuress, then?” was his instant and internal comment.  “Better contrived still.  The inspired prophetess.  Obviously not the daughter of this man at all.  Hired.”

But when Natalie Lind came forward to receive him, he was more than surprised; he was almost abashed.  During a second or two of wonder and involuntary admiration, he was startled out of his critical attitude altogether.  For this tall and striking figure was in reality that of a young girl of eighteen or nineteen, who had the beautifully formed bust, the slender waist, and the noble carriage that even young Hungarian girls frequently have.  Perhaps the face, with its intellectual forehead and the proud and firmly cut mouth, was a trifle too calm and self-reliant for a young girl: