Note: "Story with supernatural overtones, originally published as 'Percy and the Prophet' as the Extra Summer Number of All the Year Round (2 July 1877) under the editorship of Charles Dickens Junior. Reprinted in book form with other stories by Tauchnitz, 1877; Harpers, 1877 and 1885."—Wilkie Collins Information Pages

Synopsis: "The action takes place in 1817. The mysterious Dr Lagarde, an emigre Frenchman scratching a living in London by fortune-telling, predicts in a hypnotic trance that Percy Linwood and Captain Arthur Bervie will fight a duel over Charlotte Bowmore. Everything occurs exactly as foretold but the two men are reconciled and become friends. Percy, now engaged to Charlotte, is involved with her father's ineffectual political intrigues. Bervie warns Percy and Mr Bowmore that warrants have been issued for their arrest but when they refuse to flee the country he tricks them into leaving England by pretending to elope with Charlotte. After they have arrived safely in Paris, Percy and Charlotte are married, while Bervie fulfils his own destiny thirteen years later in finding Dr Lagarde dead in the streets of Paris, shot in the French revolution of 1830."—Wilkie Collins Information Pages