The Lamp of Fate

ne's complacent air of triumph. The latter knew that she had won, severed the tie which bound her brother to

accomplished, but the grim, hard-featured woman still continued to exhibit

more than usually acid speech of Catherine's, she turned on her, demanding pa

ity. "I could do no more! Is it because le bon dieu has sent me a

d her in a voice of quiet

childless-I should have t

the wreck of her life, and the very fact that both Hugh and Catherine seemed to regard the little daught

tle creature, as might have been expected from the

amazing balance and suppleness of limb. By the time she was four years old she was trying to imitate, with uncertain little fe

ilead if "petite maman" would but dance for her. The tears shining in big drops on her cheeks, her small chest still heaving with the sobs that were a passionate protest against unkind fate, Magda w

on the two unexpectedly and brought th

ave thought you would have had more self-respect

?" demanded Diane bitterly, abruptly checked in an

is sufficient," r

r it and broke. She turned and upbraided him despairingly, alternately pleading and repr

ine, anyway," he told her. And le

tormed her way to Catherine, who was com

er furiously. "What have I done that I s

ense, quivering little f

rother," she repl

But you have spoilt it all. I suppose"-a hint of the Latin Quarter element in her asse

the cupboard, a pile of fine

anyone like you to understand"-there was the familiar flavour of disparagement in her tones-"but I am thankful that my brother

dried lavender drifted out from the dark depths of the cupboard. Diane always afterwards associated the smell of la

ce of helpless rage. "I hate you-and I w

-"he will not hav

e st

do you

life together is concerne

reathlessly-"do you mean that you are

Sisters of Penitence, a community Hugh is e

dow

ine's steely glance met and held the younger woman's. "Thanks

ely small importance compared with the one outstanding, amazing f

hrewdly-"yes, you will be rid of me

once, not even the fear of Catherine'

" she exclaimed passionately. "When yo

k so?" was a

was as though the four short words contai

sion of the sisterhood, and a very few weeks sufficed to conv

e withdrew himself even more completely from his wife, sometimes avoiding her company for days at a time, and adopted a stringently ascetic mode of life, denying himself all pleasure, fasting frequently, and praying and meditating for hours at a stretch in the private chapel which was attached to Cov

erned. He was unnecessarily severe with her, and, since Diane opposed his strict ruling at

aordinary faculty for getting her own way. Servants, playmates, and governesses all succumbed

at was imaginative and delicately fanciful. Magda believed firmly in the existence of fairies and regarded flowers as each possessed of a

of life which was somewhat startling in one of her tender years, and this, too, betrayed itself in her dancing. For it is an im

ld's sharp sense of values which was her mother's Latin Quarter garnering, at the age of e

e day, dancing in her nursery, and was so carried away by the charm of the performance

her dance, and of how it had thrilled him. Beneath the veneer with which his self-enforced austerity

weakness in making such a woman his wife, he had let loose on the world a feminine thing dowered with the seductiveness of a Delilah and ba

," he told her. "It is forbidden. If you

sly sophisticated instinct of hers she realised that the man had been emotionally stirred, and divined in h

me to dance," she told her mother, wi

urt, whose effigy in stone adorned the church, and she had ever afterwards persisted in referring to her fa

he had become conscious of her power to allure. Young as she was, the instinct of conquest was awakened within her, and she proceeded to "experime

s the soul of

ected her not at all, and a few days after he had rebuked her with all the energy at his command he discovere

her to his study, where he administered a sound

an stop me from dan

d him with pas

e enough you can stop them from committing sin

g, but you couldn't make me good-not if I hated your hurting me all the time! Beca

ke being punished-if that will

e too light, and she was feeling physically and spiritu

e green, mossy sward beneath the trees. It was rather a painful process, since certain portions of her anatomy still tingled from the retributive strokes

the Fai

pirouette. A man was standing leaning against the trunk of a tree, watching her with whimsical grey eyes. Behin

arrassed and slowly lowered her foot-she had been toe-dancing-to

an of the face beneath it. It was a nice face, Magda decided, with a dogged, squarish jaw that appealed to a certain tenacity of spirit which was one of her own unchildish characteristics, and the keen dark-gre

behind them," Magda told herself. T

iry Queen?" he

im with increa

ed graciously. "T

omain," admitted the grey-eyed man. "But your woods are so

k to earth wit

artist?" she d

ded, s

rying

past him and planted hers

lly. "Me, I know. We have good pictu

grey eyes looked

he Fairy Queen were resting just there"-his finger indicated the exact point on the canvas-"tired, you know, becau

e grace of a young faun. The artist snatched up his palette; the pose she had assumed without a hint from him was inimitable-the slender limbs relax

esisted he flung

e-and to dance like th

ong, suddenly narrow eyes which, when she grew to womanhood, was

," she respo

d. It was a crooked little smile

conviction. "No.

g to fade, and he started

name?" asked

cha

at him with

Michel?" she as

tremendously exciting to find she had been talking to him all this time without knowing it!

s with that brief, o

oor devil of a painter who's got his way to make in

ntings to bring Michael Quarrington that meed of praise and reco

ter all," remarked Magda thoughtfully. "

ed down

? How do

t least Virginie says so-and she sniffs when

iously. "And who are Si

Virginie is next best to petit

y Vir

d looking at him with an odd, unch

suddenly. Then he jerked his head back. "No, I wouldn't

eyes of hers. He noticed that just at the outer corners they slanted

l

e, Saint Micha

n his lips, rather as though he were laughing at himself. Then,

tered as he strode aw