For minutes Victor gave no sign or stir; and in all the room nothing moved but ghostly whorls of smoke writhing slowly upward from a pungent censer of beaten gold.

The great lamp of brass was dark, and there was no other light than a solitary bulb, whose hooded rays were concentrated upon the crystal ball, so that the latter shone with a dead-white glare, somehow baleful, like an elfin moon deeply lost in a sea of sombre enchantment.

Bending forward in his chair, an elbow planted on the table, his forehead resting upon the tips of long, white fingers, Victor’s gaze was steadfast to the crystal.  Refracted light sculptured with curious shadows that saturnine face intent to immobility.

Too young, too inexperienced and sensitive to be insusceptible to the spell of the theatrical, the girl was conscious of a steady ebb of her new-found store of fortitude, skepticism, and defiance, together with an equally steady inflow of timidity and uneasiness.  That sinister figure at the table, absorbed in study of the inscrutable sphere—­what did he see there, to hold his faculties in such deep eclipse?  Adept in black arts of the Orient as he was said to be, what wizardry was he brewing with the aid of that traditional tool of the necromancer?  What spectacle of divination was in those pellucid depths unfolding to his rapt vision?  And what had this consultation of the occult to do with the man’s mind concerning herself?

Sofia was shaken by a tremor of dread....

And as if her emotion were somehow communicated, arousing him to knowledge of her presence, Victor started, sat back, and with a sigh passed a hand across his eyes.  When the hand fell, his face wore its habitual look for Sofia, modified by a slightly apologetic and weary smile.

“My child!” he exclaimed in accents of contrite surprise, “have I kept you waiting long?”

“Only a few minutes.  It doesn’t matter.”

But her voice seemed sadly small and thin in comparison with Victor’s rotund and measured intonations.

“Forgive me.”  Victor rose, nodding to indicate the shining crystal.  “I have been consulting my familiar,” he said with a light laugh.  “You have heard of crystal-gazing?  A fascinating art that languishes in undeserved neglect.  The ancients were more wise, they knew there was more in Heaven and Earth....  You are incredulous?  But I assure you, I myself, though far from proficient, have caught strange glimpses of unborn events in the heart of that transparent enigma.”

He took her hands and cuddled them in his own.

She quivered irrepressibly to his touch.

“But you are trembling!” he protested, solicitous, looking down into her face—­“you are wan and sad, my dear.  Tell me you are not ill.”

“It is nothing,” Sofia replied—­again in that faint, stifled voice.  She added in determined effort to subdue her trembling and turn their talk to essentials:  “You sent for me—­I am here.”