“You can’t see the lines,” I said.  “It’s too dark.”

“I see with my night eyes,” she answered, as a witch might have answered.  “And I feel.  I have the quick touch of the blind.  I can feel the pores in a flower-petal.”

Impressed, I let her hold my hand in one of her lean claws while she lightly passed the spread fingers of the other down the length of mine from the tips to the joining with the palm, and then along the palm itself, up and down and across.  It was like having a feather drawn over my hand.

“You have foreign blood in your veins,” she said.  “You are not all French.  But you have the charm of the Latin girl.  You can make men love you.  You make them love you whether you wish or not, and whether they wish or not.  Sometimes that is a great trouble to you.  You are anxious now, for many reasons.  One of the reasons is a man, but there is more than one who loves you.  You make one of them unhappy, and yourself unhappy, too.  The man you ought to love is young and handsome, and dark—­very dark.  Do not think ever of marrying a fair man.  You are on a journey now.  Something very unexpected will happen to you at the end—­something to do with a man, and something to do with a woman.  Be careful then, for your future happiness may depend on your actions in a moment of surprise.  You are not rich, but you have a lucky hand.  You could find things hidden if you set yourself to look for them.”

“Hidden treasure?” I asked, laughingly, and venturing to break in because she was speaking slowly now, as if she had come to the end of her string of prophecies.

“Perhaps.  Yes.  If you looked for the hidden treasure here, you might be the one to find it after all these hundreds of years.  Who knows?  These things happen to the lucky ones.”

“Well, if I believed that I’d been born for such luck, I’d try to come back some day, and have a look,” I said.  “I should begin in this house, I think.”

“It is never so lucky to return for things as to try and get them at the right time,” the old woman pronounced.  “If you would like to wait till my sons come—­”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I said.  “I must go now.”

“If you would at least do me a favour, for the good fortune I have told you so cheap,” she begged.  “I, who in my day have had as much as two louis from great ladies who would know their fortune!”

“What is the favour?” I asked.

“Oh, it is next to nothing.  Only to go down to the foot of the stairs in the cellar below this, and pick up my rosary, which I dropped, and which I know is lying there.”

“It’s too dark,” I said.  “I couldn’t see to find it—­and you said your sons were coming soon.”

“Not soon enough, for when you are gone, and I am alone, I should like to pray at the time of vespers.  And it is not so dark as you think.  Besides, this will be the test of the fortune I have just told you.  If it’s true that you have the lucky hand for finding you will put it on the rosary in an instant.  That will be a sign you can find anything.  Unless you are afraid, mademoiselle—­”