A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell (1917) Part I

A Jury of Her Peers

When Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen scarf. As she hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that called her away—it was probably farther from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted.
She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then the sheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too—adding, with a grin, that he guessed she was getting scary and wanted another woman along. So she had dropped everything right where it was.
"Martha!" now came her husband's impatient voice. "Don't keep folks waiting out here in the cold."
She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined the three men and the one woman waiting for her in the big two-seated buggy.
After she had the robes tucked around her she took another look at the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the county fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn't seem like a sheriff's wife. She was small and thin and didn't have a strong voice. Mrs. Gorman, sheriff's wife before Gorman went out and Peters came in, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the law with every word. But if Mrs. Peters didn't look like a sheriff's wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff—a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into Mrs. Hale's mind, with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of them was going to the Wrights' now as a sheriff.
"The country's not very pleasant this time of year," Mrs. Peters at last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be talking as well as the men.
Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up a little hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing it did not make her feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees. The men were looking at it and talking about what had happened. The county attorney was bending to one side of the buggy, and kept looking steadily at the place as they drew up to it.
"I'm glad you came with me," Mrs. Peters said nervously, as the two women were about to follow the men in through the kitchen door.
Even after she had her foot on the door-step, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not cross that threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn't cross it now was simply because she hadn't crossed it before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, "I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster"—she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright. And then there was always something to do and Minnie Foster would go from her mind. But now she could come.
The men went over to the stove. The women stood close together by the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney, turned around and said, "Come up to the fire, ladies."
Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped. "I'm not—cold," she said.
And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even so much as looking around the kitchen.
The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it was the sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a fire for them, and then Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove, unbuttoned his outer coat, and leaned his hands on the kitchen table in a way that seemed to mark the beginning of official business. "Now, Mr. Hale," he said in a sort of semi-official voice, "before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning."
The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.
"By the way," he said, "has anything been moved?" He turned to the sheriff. "Are things just as you left them yesterday?"
Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn rocker a little to one side of the kitchen table.
"It's just the same."
"Somebody should have been left here yesterday," said the county attorney.
"Oh—yesterday," returned the sheriff, with a little gesture as of yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of. "When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy—let me tell you, I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by to-day, George, and as long as I went over everything here myself—"
"Well, Mr. Hale," said the county attorney, in a way of letting what was past and gone go, "tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning."
Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things that would just make things harder for Minnie Foster. He didn't begin at once, and she noticed that he looked queer—as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made him almost sick.
"Yes, Mr. Hale?" the county attorney reminded.
"Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes," Mrs. Hale's husband began.
Harry was Mrs. Hale's oldest boy. He wasn't with them now, for the very good reason that those potatoes never got to town yesterday and he was taking them this morning, so he hadn't been home when the sheriff stopped to say he wanted Mr. Hale to come over to the Wright place and tell the county attorney his story there, where he could point it all out. With all Mrs. Hale's other emotions came the fear now that maybe Harry wasn't dressed warm enough—they hadn't any of them realized how that north wind did bite.
"We come along this road," Hale was going on, with a motion of his hand to the road over which they had just come, "and as we got in sight of the house I says to Harry, 'I'm goin' to see if I can't get John Wright to take a telephone.' You see," he explained to Henderson, "unless I can get somebody to go in with me they won't come out this branch road except for a price I can't pay. I'd spoke to Wright about it once before; but he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet—guess you know about how much he talked himself. But I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, and said all the women-folks liked the telephones, and that in this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing—well, I said to Harry that that was what I was going to say—though I said at the same time that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—"
Now, there he was!—saying things he didn't need to say. Mrs. Hale tried to catch her husband's eye, but fortunately the county attorney interrupted with:
"Let's talk about that a little later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that, but I'm anxious now to get along to just what happened when you got here."
When he began this time, it was very deliberately and carefully:
"I didn't see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up—it was past eight o'clock. So I knocked again, louder, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I wasn't sure—I'm not sure yet. But I opened the door—this door," jerking a hand toward the door by which the two women stood, "and there, in that rocker"—pointing to it—"sat Mrs. Wright."
Every one in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs. Hale's mind that that rocker didn't look in the least like Minnie Foster—the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side.
"How did she—look?" the county attorney was inquiring.
"Well," said Hale, "she looked—queer."
"How do you mean—queer?"
As he asked it he took out a note-book and pencil. Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make trouble.
Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too.
"Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And kind of—done up."
"How did she seem to feel about your coming?"
"Why, I don't think she minded—one way or other. She didn't pay much attention. I said, 'Ho' do, Mrs. Wright? It's cold, ain't it?' And she said, 'Is it?'—and went on pleatin' at her apron.
"Well, I was surprised. She didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to sit down, but just set there, not even lookin' at me. And so I said: 'I want to see John.'
"And then she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh.
"I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little sharp, 'Can I see John?' 'No,' says she—kind of dull like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. Then she looked at me. 'Yes,' says she, 'he's home.' 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked her, out of patience with her now. ''Cause he's dead,' says she, just as quiet and dull—and fell to pleatin' her apron. 'Dead?' says I, like you do when you can't take in what you've heard.
"She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and forth.
"'Why—where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say.
"She just pointed upstairs—like this"—pointing to the room above.
"I got up, with the idea of going up there myself. By this time I—didn't know what to do. I walked from there to here; then I says: 'Why, what did he die of?'
"'He died of a rope round his neck,' says she; and just went on pleatin' at her apron."
Hale stopped speaking, and stood staring at the rocker, as if he were still seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before. Nobody spoke; it was as if every one were seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before.
"And what did you do then?" the county attorney at last broke the silence.
"I went out and called Harry. I thought I might—need help. I got Harry in, and we went upstairs." His voice fell almost to a whisper. "There he was—lying over the—"
"I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs," the county attorney interrupted, "where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story."
"Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked—"
He stopped, his face twitching.
"But Harry, he went up to him, and he said, 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So we went downstairs.
"She was still sitting that same way. 'Has anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No,' says she, unconcerned.
"'Who did this, Mrs. Wright?' said Harry. He said it businesslike, and she stopped pleatin' at her apron. 'I don't know,' she says. 'You don't know?' says Harry. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' 'Yes,' says she, 'but I was on the inside.' 'Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I didn't wake up,' she said after him.
"We may have looked as if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I sleep sound.'
"Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe that weren't our business; maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner or the sheriff. So Harry went fast as he could over to High Road—the Rivers' place, where there's a telephone."
"And what did she do when she knew you had gone for the coroner?" The attorney got his pencil in his hand all ready for writing.
"She moved from that chair to this one over here"—Hale pointed to a small chair in the corner—"and just sat there with her hands held together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone; and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me—scared."
At sound of a moving pencil the man who was telling the story looked up.
"I dunno—maybe it wasn't scared," he hastened; "I wouldn't like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't."
He said that last with relief, and moved a little, as if relaxing. Every one moved a little. The county attorney walked toward the stair door.
"I guess we'll go upstairs first—then out to the barn and around there."
He paused and looked around the kitchen.
"You're convinced there was nothing important here?" he asked the sheriff. "Nothing that would—point to any motive?"
The sheriff too looked all around, as if to re-convince himself.
"Nothing here but kitchen things," he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.
The county attorney was looking at the cupboard—a peculiar, ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the upper part of it being built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard. As if its queerness attracted him, he got a chair and opened the upper part and looked in. After a moment he drew his hand away sticky.
"Here's a nice mess," he said resentfully.
The two women had drawn nearer, and now the sheriff's wife spoke.
"Oh—her fruit," she said, looking to Mrs. Hale for sympathetic understanding. She turned back to the county attorney and explained: "She worried about that when it turned so cold last night. She said the fire would go out and her jars might burst."
Mrs. Peters' husband broke into a laugh.
"Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrying about her preserves!"
The young attorney set his lips.
"I guess before we're through with her she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Hale's husband, with good natured superiority, "women are used to worrying over trifles."
The two women moved a little closer together. Neither of them spoke. The county attorney seemed suddenly to remember his manners—and think of his future.
"And yet," said he, with the gallantry of a young politician, "for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies?"
The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the roller towel—whirled it for a cleaner place.
"Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?"
He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink.
"There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm," said Mrs. Hale stiffly.
"To be sure. And yet"—with a little bow to her—"I know there are some Dickson County farm-houses that do not have such roller towels." He gave it a pull to expose its full length again.
"Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be."
"Ah, loyal to your sex, I see," he laughed. He stopped and gave her a keen look. "But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too."
Martha Hale shook her head.
"I've seen little enough of her of late years. I've not been in this house—it's more than a year."
"And why was that? You didn't like her?"
"I liked her well enough," she replied with spirit. "Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then—" She looked around the kitchen.
"Yes?" he encouraged.
"It never seemed a very cheerful place," said she, more to herself than to him.
"No," he agreed; "I don't think any one would call it cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the home-making instinct."
"Well, I don't know as Wright had, either," she muttered.
"You mean they didn't get on very well?" he was quick to ask.
"No; I don't mean anything," she answered, with decision. As she turned a little away from him, she added: "But I don't think a place would be any the cheerfuler for John Wright's bein' in it."
"I'd like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs. Hale," he said. "I'm anxious to get the lay of things upstairs now."
He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men.
"I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right?" the sheriff inquired. "She was to take in some clothes for her, you know—and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday."
The county attorney looked at the two women whom they were leaving alone there among the kitchen things.
"Yes—Mrs. Peters," he said, his glance resting on the woman who was not Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood behind the sheriff's wife. "Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us," he said, in a manner of entrusting responsibility. "And keep your eye out Mrs. Peters, for anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive—and that's the thing we need."
Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a show man getting ready for a pleasantry.
"But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?" he said; and, having delivered himself of this, he followed the others through the stair door.
The women stood motionless and silent, listening to the footsteps, first upon the stairs, then in the room above them.
Then, as if releasing herself from something strange, Mrs. Hale began to arrange the dirty pans under the sink, which the county attorney's disdainful push of the foot had deranged.
"I'd hate to have men comin' into my kitchen," she said testily—"snoopin' round and criticizin'."
"Of course it's no more than their duty," said the sheriff's wife, in her manner of timid acquiescence.
"Duty's all right," replied Mrs. Hale bluffly; "but I guess that deputy sheriff that come out to make the fire might have got a little of this on." She gave the roller towel a pull. "Wish I'd thought of that sooner! Seems mean to talk about her for not having things slicked up, when she had to come away in such a hurry."
She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not "slicked up." Her eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. The cover was off the wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag—half full.
Mrs. Hale moved toward it.
"She was putting this in there," she said to herself—slowly.
She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home—half sifted, half not sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left things half done. What had interrupted Minnie Foster? Why had that work been left half done? She made a move as if to finish it,—unfinished things always bothered her,—and then she glanced around and saw that Mrs. Peters was watching her—and she didn't want Mrs. Peters to get that feeling she had got of work begun and then—for some reason—not finished.
"It's a shame about her fruit," she said, and walked toward the cupboard that the county attorney had opened, and got on the chair, murmuring: "I wonder if it's all gone."
It was a sorry enough looking sight, but "Here's one that's all right," she said at last. She held it toward the light. "This is cherries, too." She looked again. "I declare I believe that's the only one."
With a sigh, she got down from the chair, went to the sink, and wiped off the bottle.
"She'll feel awful bad, after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer."
She set the bottle on the table, and, with another sigh, started to sit down in the rocker. But she did not sit down. Something kept her from sitting down in that chair. She straightened—stepped back, and, half turned away, stood looking at it, seeing the woman who had sat there "pleatin' at her apron."
The thin voice of the sheriff's wife broke in upon her: "I must be getting those things from the front room closet." She opened the door into the other room, started in, stepped back. "You coming with me, Mrs. Hale?" she asked nervously. "You—you could help me get them."
They were soon back—the stark coldness of that shut-up room was not a thing to linger in.
"My!" said Mrs. Peters, dropping the things on the table and hurrying to the stove.
Mrs. Hale stood examining the clothes the woman who was being detained in town had said she wanted.
"Wright was close!" she exclaimed, holding up a shabby black skirt that bore the marks of much making over. "I think maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. I s'pose she felt she couldn't do her part; and then, you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively—when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls, singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was twenty years ago."
With a carefulness in which there was something tender, she folded the shabby clothes and piled them at one corner of the table. She looked up at Mrs. Peters and there was something in the other woman's look that irritated her.
"She don't care," she said to herself. "Much difference it makes to her whether Minnie Foster had pretty clothes when she was a girl."
Then she looked again, and she wasn't so sure; in fact, she hadn't at any time been perfectly sure about Mrs. Peters. She had that shrinking manner, and yet her eyes looked as if they could see a long way into things.
"This all you was to take in?" asked Mrs. Hale.
"No," said the sheriff's wife; "she said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want," she ventured in her nervous little way, "for there's not much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. If you're used to wearing an apron—. She said they were in the bottom drawer of this cupboard. Yes—here they are. And then her little shawl that always hung on the stair door."
She took the small gray shawl from behind the door leading upstairs, and stood a minute looking at it.
Suddenly Mrs. Hale took a quick step toward the other woman.
"Mrs. Peters!"
"Yes, Mrs. Hale?"
"Do you think she—did it?"
A frightened look blurred the other thing in Mrs. Peters' eyes.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, in a voice that seemed to shrink away from the subject.
"Well, I don't think she did," affirmed Mrs. Hale stoutly. "Asking for an apron, and her little shawl. Worryin' about her fruit."

Author, Susan Glaspell

A GypsyProphecy by Bram Stoker

A Gipsy Prophecy

By

Bram Stoker

"I really think," said the Doctor, "that, at any rate, one of us

should go and try whether or not the thing is an imposture."

"Good!" said Considine. "After dinner we will take our cigars

and stroll over to the camp."

Accordingly, when the dinner was over, and the La Tour finished,

Joshua Considine and his friend, Dr. Burleigh, went over to the

east side of the moor, where the gipsy encampment lay. As they were

leaving, Mary Considine, who had walked as far as the end of the

garden where it opened into the laneway, called after her husband:

"Mind, Joshua, you are to give them a fair chance, but don't give

them any clue to a fortune-and don't you get flirting with any of the

gipsy maidens-and take care to keep Gerald out of harm."

For answer Considine held up his hand, as if taking a stage oath,

and whistled the air of the old song, "The Gipsy Countess." Gerald

joined in the strain, and then, breaking into merry laughter, the

two men passed along the laneway to the common, turning now and then

to wave their hands to Mary, who leaned over the gate, in the

twilight, looking after them.

It was a lovely evening in the summer; the very air was full

of rest and quiet happiness, as though an outward type of the

peacefulness and joy which made a heaven of the home of the young

married folk. Considine's life had not been an eventful one. The

only disturbing element which he had ever known was in his wooing

of Mary Winston, and the long-continued objection of her ambitious

parents, who expected a brilliant match for their only daughter.

When Mr. and Mrs. Winston had discovered the attachment of the young

barrister, they had tried to keep the young people apart by sending

their daughter away for a long round of visits, having made her

promise not to correspond with her lover during her absence. Love,

however, had stood the test. Neither absence nor neglect seemed

to cool the passion of the young man, and jealousy seemed a thing

unknown to his sanguine nature; so, after a long period of waiting,

the parents had given in, and the young folk were married.

They had been living in the cottage a few months, and were just

beginning to feel at home. Gerald Burleigh, Joshua's old college

chum, and himself a sometime victim of Mary's beauty, had arrived a

week before, to stay with them for as long a time as he could tear

himself away from his work in London.

When her husband had quite disappeared Mary went into the house,

and, sitting down at the piano, gave an hour to Mendelssohn.

It was but a short walk across the common, and before the cigars

required renewing the two men had reached the gipsy camp. The place

was as picturesque as gipsy camps-when in villages and when business

is good-usually are. There were some few persons round the fire,

investing their money in prophecy, and a large number of others,

poorer or more parsimonious, who stayed just outside the bounds but

near enough to see all that went on.

As the two gentlemen approached, the villagers, who knew Joshua,

made way a little, and a pretty, keen-eyed gipsy girl tripped up and

asked to tell their fortunes. Joshua held out his hand, but the girl,

without seeming to see it, stared at his face in a very odd manner.

Gerald nudged him:

"You must cross her hand with silver," he said. "It is one of the

most important parts of the mystery." Joshua took from his pocket a

half-crown and held it out to her, but, without looking at it, she

answered:

"You must cross the gipsy's hand with gold."

Gerald laughed. "You are at a premium as a subject," he said.

Joshua was of the kind of man-the universal kind-who can tolerate

being stared at by a pretty girl; so, with some little deliberation,

he answered:

"All right; here you are, my pretty girl; but you must give me a

real good fortune for it," and he handed her a half sovereign, which

she took, saying:

"It is not for me to give good fortune or bad, but only to read

what the Stars have said." She took his right hand and turned it palm

upward; but the instant her eyes met it she dropped it as though it

had been red hot, and, with a startled look, glided swiftly away.

Lifting the curtain of the large tent, which occupied the centre of

the camp, she disappeared within.

"Sold again!" said the cynical Gerald. Joshua stood a little

amazed, and not altogether satisfied. They both watched the large

tent. In a few moments there emerged from the opening not the young

girl, but a stately looking woman of middle age and commanding

presence.

The instant she appeared the whole camp seemed to stand still. The

clamour of tongues, the laughter and noise of the work were, for a

second or two, arrested, and every man or woman who sat, or crouched,

or lay, stood up and faced the imperial looking gipsy.

"The Queen, of course," murmured Gerald. "We are in luck to-night."

The gipsy Queen threw a searching glance around the camp, and then,

without hesitating an instant, came straight over and stood before

Joshua.

"Hold out your hand," she said in a commanding tone.

Again Gerald spoke, sotto voce: "I have not been spoken to in that

way since I was at school."

"Your hand must be crossed with gold."

"A hundred per cent at this game," whispered Gerald, as Joshua

laid another half sovereign on his upturned palm.

The gipsy looked at the hand with knitted brows; then suddenly

looking up into his face, said:

"Have you a strong will-have you a true heart that can be brave

for one you love?"

"I hope so; but I am afraid I have not vanity enough to say 'yes.'"

"Then I will answer for you; for I read resolution in your

face-resolution desperate and determined if need be. You have a

wife you love?"

"Yes," emphatically.

"Then leave her at once-never see her face again. Go from her now,

while love is fresh and your heart is free from wicked intent. Go

quick-go far, and never see her face again!"

Joshua drew away his hand quickly, and said, "Thank you!" stiffly

but sarcastically, as he began to move away.

"I say!" said Gerald, "you're not going like that, old man; no use

in being indignant with the Stars or their prophet-and, moreover, your

sovereign-what of it? At least, hear the matter out."

"Silence, ribald!" commanded the Queen, "you know not what you do.

Let him go-and go ignorant, if he will not be warned."

Joshua immediately turned back. "At all events, we will see this

thing out," he said. "Now, madam, you have given me advice, but I

paid for a fortune."

"Be warned!" said the gipsy. "The Stars have been silent for long;

let the mystery still wrap them round."

"My dear madam, I do not get within touch of a mystery every day,

and I prefer for my money knowledge rather than ignorance. I can get

the latter commodity for nothing when I want any of it."

Gerald echoed the sentiment. "As for me I have a large and

unsaleable stock on hand."

The gipsy Queen eyed the two men sternly, and then said, "As you

wish. You have chosen for yourself, and have met warning with scorn,

and appeal with levity. On your own heads be the doom!"

"Amen!" said Gerald.

With an imperious gesture the Queen took Joshua's hand again,

and began to tell his fortune.

"I see here the flowing of blood; it will flow before long; it is

running in my sight. It flows through the broken circle of a severed

ring."

"Go on!" said Joshua, smiling. Gerald was silent.

"Must I speak plainer?"

"Certainly; we commonplace mortals want something definite. The

Stars are a long way off, and their words get somewhat dulled in the

message."

The gipsy shuddered, and then spoke impressively. "This is the

hand of a murderer-the murderer of his wife!" She dropped the hand

and turned away.

Joshua laughed. "Do you know," said he, "I think if I were you I

should prophesy some jurisprudence into my system. For instance, you

say 'this hand is the hand of a murderer.' Well, whatever it may be

in the future-or potentially-it is at present not one. You ought

to give your prophecy in such terms as 'the hand which will be a

murderer's,' or, rather, 'the hand of one who will be the murderer

of his wife.' The Stars are really not good on technical questions."

The gipsy made no reply of any kind, but, with drooping head and

despondent mien, walked slowly to her tent, and, lifting the curtain,

disappeared.

Without speaking the two men turned homewards, and walked across

the moor. Presently, after some little hesitation, Gerald spoke.

"Of course, old man, this is all a joke; a ghastly one, but still

a joke. But would it not be well to keep it to ourselves?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, not to tell your wife. It might alarm her."

"Alarm her! My dear Gerald, what are you thinking of? Why, she

would not be alarmed or afraid of me if all the gipsies that ever

didn't come from Bohemia agreed that I was to murder her, or even

to have a hard thought of her, whilst so long as she was saying

'Jack Robinson.' "

Gerald remonstrated. "Old fellow, women are superstitious-far

more than we men are; and, also, they are blessed-or cursed-with a

nervous system to which we are strangers. I see too much of it in

my work not to realise it. Take my advice and do not let her know,

or you will frighten her."

Joshua's lips unconsciously hardened as he answered: "My dear

fellow, I would not have a secret from my wife. Why, it would be

the beginning of a new order of things between us. We have no

secrets from each other. If we ever have, then you may begin to

look out for something odd between us."

"Still," said Gerald, "at the risk of unwelcome interference, I

say again be warned in time."

"The gipsy's very words," said Joshua. "You and she seem quite

of one accord. Tell me, old man, is this a put-up thing? You told

me of the gipsy camp-did you arrange it all with Her Majesty?" This

was said with an air of bantering earnestness. Gerald assured him

that he only heard of the camp that morning; but he made fun of

every answer of his friend, and, in the process of this raillery,

the time passed, and they entered the cottage.

Mary was sitting by the piano but not playing. The dim twilight

had waked some very tender feelings in her breast, and her eyes were

full of gentle tears. When the men came in she stole over to her

husband's side and kissed him. Joshua struck a tragic attitude.

"Mary," he said in a deep voice, "before you approach me, listen

to the words of Fate. The Stars have spoken and the doom is sealed."

"What is it, dear? Tell me the fortune, but do not frighten me."

"Not at all, my dear; but there is a truth which it is well that

you should know. Nay, it is necessary so that all your arrangements

can be made beforehand, and everything be decently done and in order."

"Go on, dear; I am listening."

"Mary Considine, your effigy may yet be seen at Madame Tussaud's.

The juris-imprudent stars have announced their fell tidings that this

hand is red with blood-your blood. Mary! Mary! my God!" He sprang

forward, but too late to catch her as she fell fainting on the floor.

"I told you," said Gerald. "You don't know them as well as I do."

After a little while Mary recovered from her swoon, but only to

fall into strong hysterics, in which she laughed and wept and raved

and cried, "Keep him from me-from me, Joshua, my husband," and many

other words of entreaty and of fear.

Joshua Considine was in a state of mind bordering on agony, and

when at last Mary became calm he knelt by her and kissed her feet

and hands and hair and called her all the sweet names and said all

the tender things his lips could frame. All that night he sat by

her bedside and held her hand. Far through the night and up to the

early morning she kept waking from sleep and crying out as if in

fear, till she was comforted by the consciousness that her husband

was watching beside her.

Breakfast was late the next morning, but during it Joshua

received a telegram which required him to drive over to Withering,

nearly twenty miles. He was loth to go; but Mary would not hear

of his remaining, and so before noon he drove off in his dog-cart

alone.

When he was gone Mary retired to her room. She did not appear at

lunch, but when afternoon tea was served on the lawn, under the great

weeping willow, she came to join her guest. She was looking quite

recovered from her illness of the evening before. After some casual

remarks, she said to Gerald: "Of course it was very silly about last

night, but I could not help feeling frightened. Indeed I would feel

so still if I let myself think of it. But, after all, these people

may only imagine things, and I have got a test that can hardly fail

to show that the prediction is false-if indeed it be false," she

added sadly.

"What is your plan?" asked Gerald.

"I shall go myself to the gipsy camp, and have my fortune told

by the Queen."

"Capital. May I go with you?"

"Oh, no! That would spoil it. She might know you and guess at me,

and suit her utterance accordingly. I shall go alone this afternoon."

When the afternoon was gone Mary Considine took her way to the

gipsy encampment. Gerald went with her as far as the near edge of

the common, and returned alone.

Half-an-hour had hardly elapsed when Mary entered the drawing-room,

where he lay on a sofa reading. She was ghastly pale and was in a

state of extreme excitement. Hardly had she passed over the threshold

when she collapsed and sank moaning on the carpet. Gerald rushed to

aid her, but by a great effort she controlled herself and motioned

him to be silent. He waited, and his ready attention to her wish

seemed to be her best help, for, in a few minutes, she had somewhat

recovered, and was able to tell him what had passed.

"When I got to the camp," she said, "there did not seem to be a

soul about. I went into the centre and stood there. Suddenly a tall

woman stood beside me. 'Something told me I was wanted!' she said.

I held out my hand and laid a piece of silver on it. She took from

her neck a small golden trinket and laid it there also; and then,

seizing the two, threw them into the stream that ran by. Then she

took my hand in hers and spoke: 'Naught but blood in this guilty

place,' and turned away. I caught hold of her and asked her to tell

me more. After some hesitation, she said: 'Alas! alas! I see you

lying at your husband's feet, and his hands are red with blood.'"

Gerald did not feel at all at ease, and tried to laugh it off.

"Surely," he said, "this woman has a craze about murder."

"Do not laugh," said Mary, "I cannot bear it," and then, as if

with a sudden impulse, she left the room.

Not long after Joshua returned, bright and cheery, and as hungry

as a hunter after his long drive. His presence cheered his wife, who

seemed much brighter, but she did not mention the episode of the

visit to the gipsy camp, so Gerald did not mention it either. As if

by tacit consent the subject was not alluded to during the evening.

But there was a strange, settled look on Mary's face, which Gerald

could not but observe.

In the morning Joshua came down to breakfast later than usual.

Mary had been up and about the house from an early hour; but as the

time drew on she seemed to get a little nervous, and now and again

threw around an anxious look.

Gerald could not help noticing that none of those at breakfast

could get on satisfactorily with their food. It was not altogether

that the chops were tough, but that the knives were all so blunt.

Being a guest, he, of course, made no sign; but presently saw Joshua

draw his thumb across the edge of his knife in an unconscious sort

of way. At the action Mary turned pale and almost fainted.

After breakfast they all went out on the lawn. Mary was making up

a bouquet, and said to her husband, "Get me a few of the tea-roses,

dear."

Joshua pulled down a cluster from the front of the house. The

stem bent, but was too tough to break. He put his hand in his pocket

to get his knife; but in vain. "Lend me your knife, Gerald," he said.

But Gerald had not got one, so he went into the breakfast-room and

took one from the table. He came out feeling its edge and grumbling.

"What on earth has happened to all the knives-the edges seem all

ground off?" Mary turned away hurriedly and entered the house.

Joshua tried to sever the stalk with the blunt knife as country

cooks sever the necks of fowl-as schoolboys cut twine. With a little

effort he finished the task. The cluster of roses grew thick, so he

determined to gather a great bunch.

He could not find a single sharp knife in the sideboard where

the cutlery was kept, so he called Mary, and when she came, told her

the state of things. She looked so agitated and so miserable that he

could not help knowing the truth, and, as if astounded and hurt,

asked her:

"Do you mean to say that you have done it?"

She broke in, "Oh, Joshua, I was so afraid."

He paused, and a set, white look came over his face. "Mary!"

said he, "is this all the trust you have in me? I would not have

believed it."

"Oh, Joshua! Joshua!" she cried entreatingly, "forgive me," and

wept bitterly.

Joshua thought a moment and then said: "I see how it is. We

shall better end this or we shall all go mad."

He ran into the drawing-room.

"Where are you going?" almost screamed Mary.

Gerald saw what he meant-that he would not be tied to blunt

instruments by the force of a superstition, and was not surprised

when he saw him come out through the French window, bearing in his

hand a large Ghourka knife, which usually lay on the centre table,

and which his brother had sent him from Northern India. It was one

of those great hunting-knives which worked such havoc, at close

quarters with the enemies of the loyal Ghourkas during the mutiny,

of great weight but so evenly balanced in the hand as to seem light,

and with an edge like a razor. With one of these knives a Ghourka

can cut a sheep in two.

When Mary saw him come out of the room with the weapon in his

hand she screamed in an agony of fright, and the hysterics of last

night were promptly renewed.

Joshua ran toward her, and, seeing her falling, threw down the

knife and tried to catch her.

However, he was just a second too late, and the two men cried out

in horror simultaneously as they saw her fall upon the naked blade.

When Gerald rushed over he found that in falling her left hand

had struck the blade, which lay partly upwards on the grass. Some of

the small veins were cut through, and the blood gushed freely from

the wound. As he was tying it up he pointed out to Joshua that the

wedding ring was severed by the steel.

They carried her fainting to the house. When, after a while, she

came out, with her arm in a sling, she was peaceful in her mind and

happy. She said to her husband:

"The gipsy was wonderfully near the truth; too near for the real

thing ever to occur now, dear."

Joshua bent over and kissed the wounded hand.