to be when I was ABOUT twenty-six; it mightn't be till I was
twenty-seven; it might be while I was only twenty-five.

"And I used to tell myself it mightn't be at all. My reason rebelled
against the whole notion of palmistry, just as yours does. I despised my
faith in the thing, just as you despise yours. I used to try not to be so
ridiculously careful as I was whenever I crossed a street. I lived in
London at that time. Motor-cars had not yet come in, but--what hours,
all told, I must have spent standing on curbs, very circumspect, very
lamentable! It was a pity, I suppose, that I had no definite occupation--
something to take me out of myself. I was one of the victims of private
means. There came a time when I drove in four-wheelers rather than
in hansoms, and was doubtful of four-wheelers. Oh, I assure you, I was
very lamentable indeed.

"If a railway-journey could be avoided, I avoided it. My uncle had
a place in Hampshire. I was very fond of him and of his wife. Theirs
was the only house I ever went to stay in now. I was there for a week in
November, not long after my twenty-seventh birthday. There were other
people staying there, and at the end of the week we all traveled back to
London together. There were six of us in the carriage: Colonel Elbourn
and his wife and their daughter, a girl of seventeen; and another married
couple, the Bretts. I had been at Winchester with Brett, but had hardly
seen him since that time. He was in the Indian Civil, and was home on
leave. He was sailing for India next week. His wife was to remain in
England for some months, and then join him out there. They had been
married five years. She was now just twenty-four years old. He told me
that this was her age. The Elbourns I had never met before. They were
charming people. We had all been very happy together. The only trouble
had been that on the last night, at dinner, my uncle asked me if I still