A cold draught passed over my head, and I turned on my couch to see whence it came.  I started bolt upright, and my hair stood on end with sudden terror.  I had uttered the name of Ram Lal aloud in my reverie, and there he sat on a chair by the door, as gray as ever, with his long staff leaning from his feet across his breast and shoulder.  He looked at me quietly.

“I come opportunely, Mr. Griggs, it seems. Lupus in fabula. I hear my name pronounced as I enter the door.  This is flattering to a man of my modest pretensions to social popularity.  You would like me to tell you your fortune?  Well, I am not a fortune-teller.”

“Never mind my fortune.  Will Miss Westonhaugh recover?”

“No.  She will die at sundown.”

“How do you know, since you say you are no prophet?”

“Because I am a doctor of medicine.  M.D. of Edinburgh.”

“Why can you not save her then?  A man who is a Scotch doctor, and who possesses the power of performing such practical jokes on nature as you exhibited the other night, might do something.  However, I suppose I am not talking to you at all.  You are in Thibet with Shere Ali.  This is your astral body, and if I were near enough, I could poke my fingers right through you, as you sit there, telling me you are an Edinburgh doctor, forsooth.”

“Quite right, Mr. Griggs.  At the present moment my body is quietly asleep in a lamastery in Thibet, and this is my astral shape, which, from force of habit, I begin to like almost as well.  But to be serious——­”

“I think it is very serious, your going about in this casual manner.”

“To be serious.  I warned Isaacs that he should not allow the tiger-hunt to come off.  He would not heed my warning.  It is too late now.  I am not omnipotent.”

“Of course not.  Still, you might be of some use if you went there.  While there is life there is hope.”

“Proverbs,” said Earn Lai scornfully, “are the wisdom of wise men prepared in portable doses for the foolish; and the saying you quote is one of them.  There is life yet, but there is no hope.”

“Well, I am afraid you are right.  I saw her this morning—­I suppose I shall never see her again, not alive, at least.  She looked nearly dead then.  Poor girl; poor Isaacs, left behind!”

“You may well say that, Mr. Griggs,” said the adept.  “On the whole, perhaps he is to be less pitied than she; who knows?  Perhaps we should pity neither, but rather envy both.”

“Why?  Either you are talking the tritest of cant, or you are indulging in more of your dark sayings, to be interpreted, post facto, entirely to your own satisfaction, and to every one else’s disgust.”  I was impatient with the man.  If he had such extraordinary powers as were ascribed to him—­I never heard him assert that he possessed any; if he could prophesy, he might as well do so to some purpose.  Why could he not speak plainly?  He could not impose on me, who was ready to give him credit for what he really could do, while finding fault with the way he did it.