It was mentioned generally, at various sewing-classes and other mild functions during Lent, that Julian Gerard was very attentive, all of a sudden, to Elizabeth Van Vorst. Some people, less accurate or more imaginative than the rest, went so far as to announce the engagement as an actual fact.

"And, if so, it's all Eleanor Van Antwerp's doing," Mrs. Hartington observed in private to her intimate friends. "She was determined to make the match from the beginning. I saw the way she threw the girl at his head at a dinner in the country, but I never for a moment thought she would succeed—with Julian Gerard of all men, who is so desperately afraid of being taken in."

Julian Gerard, by that time, had well-nigh forgotten that such a fear had ever disturbed him, or if he did remember it, it was to regard it, so far as Elizabeth was concerned, as profanation. Since that evening at the opera, his remorseful fancy had placed her on a pinnacle, which she found at times, it must be confessed, a little difficult to maintain. It was his misfortune and hers, that he could never view her in the right perspective, never realize that she was neither a saint nor the reverse, but merely a woman, and painfully human at that.

But since he chose to consider her a saint, she did her best to live up to the character. She kept Lent strictly that year as she had never done before, went to church morning and evening, denied herself bonbons and other luxuries, and worked with unskilled fingers but great diligence at certain oddly-constructed garments which were doled out to her and other young women every week as a Lenten penance, and incidentally for the good of the poor. If in most cases the actual penance fell to the lot of their maids, why, the poor were none the wiser, and certainly much the better clothed. But Elizabeth insisted on putting in all the painful stitches in the hard, coarse stuff herself, and looked very pretty bending over it, as Mr. Gerard thought when he came in one day and found her thus employed.

It pleased him, of course. He did not attach much importance, himself, to these things—this constant church-going, these small penances; yet, manlike, it seemed to him right and fitting that she should regard them differently. And then it was pleasant, after service, to meet her in the vestibule. How many incipient love affairs have been helped along, brought to a climax perhaps, by the convenient afternoon service, and the sauntering walks home in the lingering twilight!

To Elizabeth there was an indefinable charm in those ever-lengthening Lenten days, rung in and out to the music of church bells, and marked, as the season advanced and Easter approached, by the growing green of the grass, and the budding shoots of the trees, and the intangible feeling of spring in the air. That sense of dread, of impending misfortune, which had been for a short time almost unbearable, was lulled to sleep as by an opiate. She did not think of the past or the future, she simply drifted from day to day, and each of these was pleasanter than the last.

For one thing, she had grown hardened, indifferent almost to the constant meeting with Paul Halleck. She had kept her word and obtained for him all the invitations in her power, until he no longer needed her help. He was a great success. Mrs. Van Antwerp's informal little musicale had been only the first of a series of more elaborate ones, at which Halleck was often the chief attraction. Young girls admired him extremely. Elizabeth could hear him talking to them, just as he had once talked to her, about Swinburne and Rossetti and the last word in Art, and she saw that, like herself, they thought him very brilliant. It was an admiration which had tangible results, since it led to an interest in music, and a desire to take singing-lessons from the talented young barytone. Before long, he took a studio in Carnegie, near D'Hauteville's, and furnished it luxuriously, on the strength of his new prosperity. He was very much the fashion and absorbed in his success, and seldom had the time, or perhaps the inclination, to encounter Elizabeth's unflattering indifference. So for the most part he left her alone, to her intense relief.

One incident, a chance word, in a retrospect of that time, afterwards stood out in Elizabeth's mind, though at the moment it seemed to make but a slight impression.

It was one Sunday afternoon when a number of people, Paul Halleck among them, had dropped in to afternoon tea, and the conversation happened to turn upon palmistry. Elizabeth did not proffer her own experience. She listened silently to what the others said on the subject.

"I can't say I have implicit faith in it," observed Mrs. Bobby. "I was told by a fortune-teller that I should marry a dark man, who would beat me and treat me horribly; and as you see, I've married a fair man—who treats me pretty well on the whole."

Bobby, who was leaning against the mantel-piece his tea-cup in his hand, smiled serenely.

"Don't boast too soon, Eleanor," he said, lazily, "there's no knowing what brutal tendencies I may develop yet."

Mrs. Hartington, who was seated near him on a low chair, looked up into his face with a sympathetic smile. "Are you one of those long-suffering husbands who turn at last, Mr. Van Antwerp?" she asked, sweetly. "It would be good discipline, I think, for Eleanor not to have her own way always."

Bobby looked down at her coolly for a moment with his calm blue eyes. "No doubt, it would be good discipline for all of us, Mrs. Hartington," he said, in his pleasant, clear-cut tones, "but as my wife's way and mine are generally the same, I'm afraid I'm not likely to inflict it."

Mrs. Hartington looked down with an injured air, adding another to her list of grievances against her dear friend and neighbor, Eleanor Van Antwerp.

"I should never go to a common fortune-teller, my dear," she observed in a louder tone, for the benefit of the assembled company. "Yours was probably just an ignorant person. But I did go to ——, who, you know, charges a small fortune, and he told me the most extraordinary things. I have perfect confidence in him; every one I know thinks him quite infallible."

"Do they?" said Paul Halleck, suddenly turning from the piano. He shrugged his shoulders. "I devoutly hope you are mistaken," he said. "—— read my hand in Paris, and told me some very unpleasant things; among others that I was probably destined to a violent death. This year of my life, by the way—the twenty-seventh—was to be my fatal year."

He spoke half laughingly, but the words produced an effect. There was a general exclamation of horror, and Elizabeth, who was pouring tea, dropped the cup that she held in her hand. Julian Gerard, who was standing behind her, bent down to recover the fragments.

"It's odd," he said, as he placed them absently on the table, "his year of danger and yours seem to correspond." The words rose involuntarily to his lips, and an instant later he wished them unspoken.

She flushed a little, then grew pale. "Oh, I'm sorry you remembered that nonsense," she said. "I don't really believe in these things." But her hand trembled as she poured out the tea, glancing furtively at Halleck as she did so.

He was enjoying the sensation that his announcement had created. "Yes," he was saying, "if I live to be a year older, I am safe; but till then—Heaven knows what danger threatens me!" He shrugged his shoulders with a light laugh. The prediction did not seem to trouble him greatly. Elizabeth wondered if he had not invented it, for the sake of the effect. And then, involuntarily, the thought crossed her mind—what if it were really true, and the prediction were fulfilled? Such things had been known to happen—there might be something in it.... Quick as lightning the thought flashed through her mind of all that his death might mean to her—the merciful release, the solution of all difficulties.... Just for a moment the idea lingered, while the others talked, and she shuddered.

"You are quite pale," said Gerard, fixing his eyes upon her. He was still sensitive to any sign of feeling which Halleck seemed to arouse in her. "I believe you are really superstitious. These things seem to frighten you."

"Am I superstitious?" She looked up at him dreamily. "Perhaps I am. It would be nice, I think, if there were something in it, if one could tell what is going to happen. One could act accordingly. I should like, for instance"—her voice sank—"I should like to look into the future one year, and see what fate has in store for me."

"If I had any control over fate"—Gerard crushed back the impetuous words that followed. Not yet—the moment was not propitious. Besides, he was not sure of her. There was still at times something in her manner that was baffling, uncertain.—And just then Paul Halleck sauntered up and bent over her in that intimate manner which still annoyed Gerard's fastidious taste, even though he had long since convinced himself that he had no cause to fear him as a rival.

"Did you hear ——'s terrible prediction, Miss Van Vorst?" Paul asked, smiling, "and aren't you sorry for my untimely fate?"