that she would die on a certain day, and she did die."

"There's no effect without a cause," said the doctor. "If there's
a death there must be a cause for it. But as for predicting it
there's nothing very marvellous in that. All our ladies--all our
females, in fact--have a turn for prophecies and presentiments."

"Just so, but my lady, doctor, was quite a special case. There was
nothing like the ladies' or other females' presentiments about her
prediction and her death. She was a young woman, healthy and clever,
with no superstitions of any sort. She had such clear, intelligent,
honest eyes; an open, sensible face with a faint, typically Russian
look of mockery in her eyes and on her lips. There was nothing of
the fine lady or of the female about her, except--if you like--
her beauty! She was graceful, elegant as that birch tree; she had
wonderful hair. That she may be intelligible to you, I will add,
too, that she was a person of the most infectious gaiety and
carelessness and that intelligent, good sort of frivolity which is
only found in good-natured, light-hearted people with brains. Can
one talk of mysticism, spiritualism, a turn for presentiment, or
anything of that sort, in this case? She used to laugh at all that."

The doctor's chaise stopped by a well. The examining magistrate and
the doctor drank some water, stretched, and waited for the coachman
to finish watering the horses.

"Well, what did the lady die of?" asked the doctor when the chaise
was rolling along the road again.

"She died in a strange way. One fine day her husband went in to her