"Very well!" he said. "I understand! But there is no need for you to trouble. All our arrangements are made--have been made for months. We attend the Gathering to-night; and afterwards, when h.e.l.lier Crescent is quiet, we go--as un.o.btrusively as we came. You see I give you the key to our plans; you are free to frustrate them, if you think fit. I don't believe I had any real hope of merciful judgment when I came here--women are not merciful when they are robbed of their illusions. But I confess I hoped for justice. I thought that you might hate me--"

"Hate you?" she cried. "Hate you? We only hate what we respect. I don't hate you. I only despise you with all my heart. I want you to go before I despise myself as well!" Her own cruel disillusioning--her own unbearable sense of loss--swept over her afresh; her voice rose again, and again broke hysterically. With an uncontrolled movement of grief and mortification she turned away from him and threw herself upon a couch, burying her face in the pillows.

For several minutes she cried tempestuously; then through the storm of her angry tears she caught the sound of a closing door. With a start she sat up and looked about her.

The faint relic of daylight still showed through the curtains of the window; the firelight still played pleasantly on the untouched tea-table and the fragile furniture; but the room was empty. The Prophet was gone.

CHAPTER VIII

When she realized this fact, Enid rose from her seat with a murmur of dismay. In her sharply feminine sense of loss, she took one involuntary step towards the door; but almost as the step was taken, her anger, her shattered faith a.s.sailed her anew, and, with a fresh burst of tears she turned and flung herself back upon the couch.

For a long time she lay with her face among the pillows; then, at last, as her angry sobs died out and the violence of her grief subsided, she sat up, wiped her eyes, and glanced at her dripping handkerchief.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WITH A FRESH BURST OF TEARS, SHE TURNED AND FLUNG HERSELF UPON THE COUCH"]

At sight of the handkerchief--a mere wisp of wet cambric--her sense of injury stung her afresh, and once more her lips began to quiver; but fate had decided against further tears. Before her grief had gathered force, the bell of the hall-door sounded once more long and loudly; and hard upon the sound the door of the room opened.

With a start of confusion she sprang to her feet, and turned to confront Norris, standing at a discreet distance, with an apologetic manner and downcast eyes.

"Mr. Bale-Corphew, ma'am," she murmured, as Enid looked at her. "I told him you were not at home; but he said he would wait till whenever he could see you, it didn't matter how long."

With a little cry of dismay and annoyance, Enid put her hands to her disordered hair.

"Oh, how stupid of you!" she cried, tremulously. "You know I can't see him. You know I won't see him. Tell him I'm out--ill--anything you can think of--" But her voice suddenly faltered, and her words ended in a gasp, as she glanced from the servant to the door, which had abruptly reopened, displaying the face and figure of Bale-Corphew himself.

Without hesitation he had entered the room; and without hesitation he walked straight towards her.

"Forgive me!" he exclaimed. "I know this must seem unpardonable; but the occasion is without precedent. May I speak with you alone?"

In the moment of his entry, and during his hurried greeting, Enid had mastered her agitation. She looked at him now with an attempt at calmness.

"Certainly, if you have anything to say."

In the excitement under which he was obviously laboring, he did not observe the coldness of the granted permission. He waited with ill-concealed impatience until Norris had withdrawn, then he turned to her afresh.

"Mrs. Witcherley!" he cried, "you see before you an outraged man!"

He made the announcement fiercely and theatrically; but, to any ear, it would have been evident that, below the instinctive desire for dramatic effect, his voice trembled with genuine agitation--his speech was charged with violent feeling. To Enid, watching him with surprise and curiosity, it was patent at a glance that some circ.u.mstance, strange in its occurrence or vital in its issue, had shaken him to the base of his emotional nature. And as she looked at him her own coldness, her own humiliation, suddenly forsook her.

"What is it?" she cried, involuntarily. "What is it? Something has happened?"

For one moment his answer was delayed--held back by the torrent of words that rushed to his lips; then, at last, as his tongue freed itself, he threw out his hands in a fierce gesture.

"Outrage! Outrage and sacrilege!" he cried. "We have been duped--deceived--tricked. We, the Chosen--the Elect!"

"Duped? Deceived?" She echoed the words, faintly. "What do you mean?

What has happened?"

"Everything! Everything!" Again he threw out his hands. "This man that we have called Prophet--this man that we have bent the knee to--he is nothing; nothing--" Once more emotion overpowered his words.

"Nothing?" Enid's voice was indistinct, her tongue dry.

"--Nothing but an impostor! An impostor! A thief!"

He spoke loudly--even violently. To his listener it seemed that his voice rang out, filling the room, filling the street outside, filling the whole world. As she had done in the Prophet's presence, she raised her hands and pressed them over her ears. But, even through her fingers, his tones came loud and penetrating.

"An impostor!" he cried, again. "A liar! A blasphemer!"

Her hands dropped from her face.

"Stop! Stop!" she cried, weakly.

But he was beyond appeal.

"You must hear!" he cried. "It is ordained. You have been the unwitting instrument by which the man has fallen."

"I? I? The instrument?" She stared at him with wide eyes and a white face.

"Yes, you!" He stepped to her side. "Without you, suspicion would never have been aroused. Without you, he might have carried out his base designs. It was the power of the Unseen that guided me on the day I entered the Presence Room and found you alone with him." He spoke hurriedly and disjointedly, but as the last word left his lips another expression crossed his face, as though a new suggestion pa.s.sed through his mind.

"Did you see nothing strange in that Audience?" he demanded. "Did you see nothing strange in the fact that he--a Prophet of Sublime Mysteries--should hold your hand, as any man of the earth might hold it?" He bent still closer, jealousy and suspicion darkening his face.

Enid glanced at him fearfully. "No! No!" she said, sharply. "I--saw nothing strange. He was the Prophet."

Bale-Corphew's face relaxed.

"Ah!" he said, slowly. "I believe you. But, if _you_ were blind, _I_ saw." He paused and pa.s.sed his handkerchief over his face. Cold as the day was, drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead.

"I saw. And from that hour the man was lost."

"Lost?"

"Yes, lost." He laughed excitedly; and to Enid the laugh sounded singularly unpleasant, sharp, and cruel. "From that day we have watched him--we, the Six. We have watched him and his friend--the dog who has dared to desecrate the name of Precursor. We have watched them night and day; we have seen them, listened to them hour after hour, while they believed themselves un.o.bserved--?"

"And what do you know? What have you learned?" There was a strange faintness in the tone of her voice.

"Everything. Only yesterday we touched the key-stone of their scheme.

To-night--this very night--they have planned an escape. They will attend as usual in the Place; they will fool us as they have fooled us before; and then, when the house is quiet--when the Six are at rest, exhausted by prayer and meditation--they will accomplish their vile work. They will plunder the Treasury of the Unseen!"

"Oh no! No!" With a swift movement she turned to him.

He looked at her for an instant, of silence, and then again the unpleasant, excited laugh escaped him.

"You are right," he cried, suddenly. "What you say is right. There will be no plunder. The Treasury of the Unseen will remain inviolate!"