The faint voice ceased an instant. The fluttering spirit rallied, and resumed: "I have reason to know that daughter was married. I have reason to know she had a child--whether boy or girl I can not tell. To that child the inheritance of hatred and revenge will fall; that child, some inward prescience tells me, will wreak deep and awful vengeance for the past. Beware of the grandchild of Zenith, the gypsy--beware, Olivia, for yourself and your son!"
"Is this all?" Olivia said, in a constrained, hard voice.
"All I have to say to you--the rest is for Everard. My son, on the night of your birth an Eastern astrologer came to this house and cast your horoscope. He gave that horoscope to me at day-dawn and departed, and from that hour to this I have neither seen nor heard of him. Before reading your future in the stars he looked into my palm and told me the past--told me the story of Zenith and her wrongs--told me what no one under heaven but myself knew. My boy, the revelation of that night has blighted my life--broken my heart! The unutterable horror of your future has brought my gray hairs to the grave. Oh, my son! what will become of you when I am gone?"
"What was it, papa?" the lad asked. "What has the future in store for me?"
A convulsive spasm distorted the livid face; the eye-balls rolled, the death-rattle sounded. With a smothered cry of terror Lady Kingsland lifted the agonized head in her arms.
"Quick, Jasper--the horoscope! Where?"
"My safe--study--secret spring--at back! Oh, God, have mercy--"
The clock struck sharply--twelve. A vivid blaze of lambent lightning lighted the room; the awful death-rattle sounded once more.
"Beware of Zenith's grandchild!"
He spoke the words aloud, clear and distinct, and never spoke again.
* * * * * * Many miles away from Kingsland Court, that same sultry, oppressive midsummer night a little third-rate theater on the Surrey side of London was crowded to overflowing. There was a grand spectacular drama, full of transformation scenes, fairies, demons, spirits of air, fire, and water; a brazen orchestra blowing forth, and steam, and orange-peel, and suffocation generally.
Foremost among all the fairies and nymphs, noted for the shortness of her filmy skirts, the supple beauty of her shapely limbs, her incomparable dancing, and her dark, bright beauty, flashed La Sylphine before the foot-lights.
The best danseuse in the kingdom, and the prettiest, and invested with a magic halo of romance, La Sylphine shone like a meteor among lesser stars, and brought down thunders of applause every time she appeared.
The little feet twinkled and flashed; the long, dark waves of hair floated in a shining banner behind her to the tiny waist; the pale, upraised face--the eyes ablaze like black stars! Oh, surely La Sylphine was the loveliest thing, that hot June night, the gas-light shone on!