“Yes!  I believe you are inspired by the devil.”

“Shall I go on?”

“Yes—­I think so.  Yes, go on, please.”

“You came home.  Your mother died.  Your father married again.  You disliked your stepmother—­you considered she ill treated you.”

“She did!”

“I won’t dispute it.  At all events you had your revenge.  You pretended to commit suicide, and wrote several letters—­to the police amongst others—­declaring that you were about to drown yourself owing to the cruelty of your stepmother.  And so cleverly did you manage it, that every one believed you were drowned, and blamed your stepmother accordingly.  Changing your name to Lilian Rosenberg you came direct to London.  For some time you worked in a milliner’s shop in Beauchamp Gardens, and then you set up as a manicurist in Woodstock Street.  Among your clients was the wife of the Vicar of St. Katherine’s, Kew, who took a great liking to you—­you have extraordinary personal magnetism.  Unable, however, to do more than pay your way at legitimate manicuring you—­”

“That will do,” Lilian Rosenberg cried, a faint flow of colour pervading her cheeks.  “That will do!  Explain the verses.”

“As you will!” Kelson said, “but mind, I don’t insist on the necessity of your paying the slightest heed to my explanation.  According to the usual method of interpreting dreams, the valley of flowers is symbolical of innocence and self-restraint—­of that path in life with which the goody-goodies say every young lady should be satisfied.

“The hunter is representative of the love of change and excitement; the horse—­of self-indulgence.  The misty moon means ruin, the metamorphosis into the crawling phantasm—­death.  Leave the path of virtue, and give way to self-indulgence and a craving for everlasting change and excitement, and a miserable ending will be your mead—­and has been the mead of all others who have done the same thing.”

“Then the dream is a warning?”

Kelson was about to reply, when the door opened, and Hamar, with an apology for intruding, beckoned to him.

He spoke with him for several moments relative to a matter of some consequence, and then, glancing at Miss Rosenberg, and drawing Kelson still further aside, whispered, “Let me caution you again, Matt.  On no account let your soft feelings with regard to the other sex get the better of you.  Remember it is imperative for us to do evil not good—­to lead our clients into temptation, not out of it.  I am doing my best to follow the injunctions of the Unknown, but we must all work in harmony—­that is the most vital point in our compact, and you know if we do not keep the compact something frightful will happen to us.  I can’t impress this fact on you too much.  Only yesterday I had to pull you up for giving good advice to a lady.  Damn your good advice, give bad—­bad advice, I say; anything that will do people harm—­no matter whether they are ugly or pretty—­and if you are not jolly well careful, pretty girls will be your—­and our—­undoing.  I see you have a pretty girl here now—­and from what I can read in her face, she is not a saint.  Rub it in to her—­rub it into her well—­persuade her to be a bigger sinner still.  Now I can’t wait to say more, I must go.”