CHAPTER I.
A small, shiny, pink card lay on the round table in Sylvia Bailey's sitting-room at the Hotel de l'Horloge in Paris.
She had become quite accustomed to finding one or more cards--cards from dressmakers, cards from corset-makers, cards from hairdressers--lying on her sitting-room table, but there had never been a card quite like this card.
Although it was pink, it looked more like a visiting-card than a tradesman's advertisement, and she took it up with some curiosity.

It was inscribed "Madame Cagliostra," and underneath the name were written the words "_Diseuse de la Bonne Aventure_," and then, in a corner, in very small black letters, the address, "5, Rue Jolie, Montmartre." A fortune-teller's card?
What an extraordinary thing! Like many pretty, prosperous, idle women, Sylvia was rather superstitious.

Not long before this, her first visit to Paris, a London acquaintance had taken her to see a noted palmist named "Pharaoh," in Bond Street.

She had paid her guinea willingly enough, but the result had vaguely disappointed her, and she had had the feeling, all the time she was with him, that the man was not really reading her hand.
True, "Pharaoh" had told her she was going abroad, and at that time she had no intention of doing so.

The palmist had also told her--and this was really rather curious--that she would meet, when abroad, a foreign woman who would have a considerable influence on her life.