It was Le Geyts first luncheon-party since his second marriage.  Big-bearded, genial, he beamed round on us jubilant.  He was proud of his wife and proud of his recent Q.C.-ship.  The new Mrs. Le Geyt sat at the head of the table, handsome, capable, self-possessed; a vivid, vigorous woman and a model hostess.  Though still quite young, she was large and commanding.  Everybody was impressed by her.  “Such a good mother to those poor motherless children!” all the ladies declared in a chorus of applause.  And, indeed, she had the face of a splendid manager.

I said as much in an undertone over the ices to Miss Wade, who sat beside me—­though I ought not to have discussed them at their own table.  “Hugo Le Geyt seems to have made an excellent choice,” I murmured.  “Maisie and Ettie will be lucky, indeed, to be taken care of by such a competent stepmother.  Don’t you think so?”

My witch glanced up at her hostess with a piercing dart of the keen brown eyes, held her wine-glass half raised, and then electrified me by uttering, in the same low voice, audible to me alone, but quite clearly and unhesitatingly, these astounding words: 

“I think, before twelve mouths are out, Mr. Le Geyt will have murdered her!”

For a minute I could not answer, so startling was the effect of this confident prediction.  One does not expect to be told such things at lunch, over the port and peaches, about one’s dearest friends, beside their own mahogany.  And the assured air of unfaltering conviction with which Hilda Wade said it to a complete stranger took my breath away.  Why did she think so at all?  And if she thought so why choose me as the recipient of her singular confidences?

I gasped and wondered.

“What makes you fancy anything so unlikely?” I asked aside at last, behind the babel of voices.  “You quite alarm me.”

She rolled a mouthful of apricot ice reflectively on her tongue, and then murmured, in a similar aside, “Don’t ask me now.  Some other time will, do.  But I mean what I say.  Believe me; I do not speak at random.”

She was quite right, of course.  To continue would have been equally rude and foolish.  I had perforce to bottle up my curiosity for the moment and wait till my sibyl was in the mood for interpreting.

After lunch we adjourned to the drawing-room.  Almost at once, Hilda Wade flitted up with her brisk step to the corner where I was sitting.  “Oh, Dr. Cumberledge,” she began, as if nothing odd had occurred before, “I was so glad to meet you and have a chance of talking to you, because I do so want to get a nurse’s place at St. Nathaniel’s.”

“A nurse’s place!” I exclaimed, a little surprised, surveying her dress of palest and softest Indian muslin; for she looked to me far too much of a butterfly for such serious work.  “Do you really mean it; or are you one of the ten thousand modern young ladies who are in quest of a Mission, without understanding that Missions are unpleasant?  Nursing, I can tell you, is not all crimped cap and becoming uniform.”