“My father’s estate was settled at last, and I had means enough to live in luxury and ease the rest of my days; but a strange inward prompting continually urged me to give up my former mode of living.  I disposed of my property, exchanging it for ready money, and one day found myself penniless, through the treachery of one who professed to be my friend.  I had not been allowed to learn his motives, and fraudulent designs, because, as I subsequently saw, my experience must be gained through toil and want, but when others were in danger of losing their material goods, I could readily discern their perils, and warn them.

“Since then, I have travelled years and years, following this light; when I did not, I have failed in my mission.  I am not understood.  This little village, to which seven years ago I found my way, has not a soul in it that knows me as anything but a ’Witch’-a diviner of events.  I have sat in halls of splendor, and revealed strange things to men and women.  I have visited the sick and down-trodden-and everywhere this power has gone with me, carrying comfort and light.  I think my earthly mission is almost over.  I seem to see a light, like the glimmer of a lamp which shines for a traveller to guide him home.”

She paused.  The story was told.  Margaret sat silent, too much occupied with her own deep thoughts, to look on the woman’s face.

It was past midnight.  The fire was out, on the hearth.  A strange stillness pervaded the room.  It grew oppressive.  Margaret rose and went towards the old woman, who seemed to have dropped asleep.  She took the withered hand in her own.  It dropped lifeless.  She was dead; the two whose lives had become as one by suffering, were parted.  Sibyl had gone to that world where the erring are forgiven.  Margaret was left to struggle on with an adverse fate, and thereby ripen for the kingdom.

The morning flooded through the narrow windows of the humble cot, and lit up the pale, dead features with a strange light.  Margaret must leave.  Though heeding the woman’s words of warning, and resolving to avoid the stranger she had met, she saw but one course before her, and that was, to go to the city and seek refuge in some hospital, during her approaching need.  She struggled with her feelings a long time at leaving the dead alone, and so irreverently, but circumstances were pressing her on; she could not do otherwise, and stepping out from the shelter, where her soul had been so deeply thrilled, she walked rapidly to the station, and sat with her veil closely drawn, awaiting the hour for the departure of the train.  It came at last, though the time seemed very long to her, the more so, as she was in constant fear of being recognized, but fortunately no one saw her whom she knew.

She trembled all over, as she took her seat in the car, and saw an elegantly dressed woman enter and look about as though in search of some one; for under the “purple and fine linen” was the stranger, the willing destroyer of hundreds of young, innocent lives.  To her relief, however, the woman passed on to another car, and Margaret felt as though all danger was over.  It gave her a respite from her fears, that was all, for she did not know that the woman’s keen eye recognized, and was quietly laying her plans to ensnare her.