g, already had assumed tall
sapling form and had unfolded nascent branches. The bookstalls were
beginning to display both anonymous pamphlets and brochures by
well-known divines; not all of them directly attacking Mario nor openly
defending dogma, but all of them, covertly or overtly, being aimed at
him and his works. He had been inundated with correspondence from the
two hemispheres; he had been persecuted by callers of many
nationalities; a strange grey-haired woman with the inspired eyes of a
Sita who had addressed him as _Master_ and acclaimed him one long
expected, and a party of little brown men, turbaned and urbane, from
India, who spoke of the _Vishnu-Purana_, hailing him as a brother, and
whose presence had conjured up pictures of the forests of Hindustan. A
dignified Chinaman, too, armed with letters of introduction, had
presented him with a wonderful book painted upon ivory of the _Trigrams
of Fo-Hi_. But most singular visitor of all was a sort of monk, having a
black, matted beard and carrying a staff, who had gained access to the
study, Paul never learned by what means, and who had thundered out an
incomprehensible warning against "unveiling the shrine," had denounced
what he had termed "the poison of Fabre d'Olivet" and had departed
mysteriously as he had come.

There had been something really terrifying in the personality of this
last visitor, power of some kind, and Paul, whose third paper, _La
Force_, was in the press, seemed often to hear those strange words
ringing in his ears, and he hesitated even now to widen the chasm which
already he had opened and which yawned threateningly between the old
faith and the new wisdom which yet was a wisdom more ancient than the
world. He was but a common man, born of woman; no Krishna conceived of a
Virgin Devaki, nor even a Pythagoras initiate of Memphis and heir of
Zoroaster; and this night he distrusted his genius. What if he should
beckon men, like a vaporous will-o'-the-wisp, out into a morass of error
wherein their souls should perish? His power he might doubt no longer; a
thousand denunciations, a million acclamations, had borne witness to it.
And he had barely begun to speak. Truly the world awaited him and
already he bent beneath the burden of a world's desire.

* * * * *

Few pedestrians were abroad and no cabs were to be seen. Every motor-bus
appeared to be full inside, with many passengers standing, and even a
heroic mi