to be committed to writing in any form. The members of the Sacred
College, numbering twelve; the metropolitans and Patriarchs through the
entire world, numbering twenty-two; the Generals of the Religious
Orders: the Society of Jesus, the Friars, the Monks Ordinary, and the
Monks Contemplative four. These persons, thirty-eight in number, with
the chaplain of your Eminence, who shall act as notary, and my own who
shall assist him, and Ourself--forty-one all told--these persons are to
present themselves here at our palace of Nazareth not later than the Eve
of Pentecost. We feel Ourselves unwilling to decide the steps necessary
to be taken with reference to the new decree, except we first hear the
counsel of our advisers, and give them an opportunity of communicating
freely one with another. These words, as we have spoken them, are to be
forwarded to all those persons whom we have named; and your Eminence
will further inform them that our deliberations will not occupy more
than four days.

"As regards the questions of provisioning the council and all matters of
that kind, your Eminence will despatch to-day the chaplain of whom we
have spoken, who with my own chaplain will at once set about
preparations, and your Eminence will yourself follow, appointing Father
Marabout to act in your absence, not later than four days hence.

"Finally, to all who have asked explicit directions in the face of this
new decree, communicate this one sentence, and no more.

"_Lose not your confidence which hath a great reward. For yet a little
while, and, He that is to come will come and will not delay_.--Silvester
the Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God."

CHAPTER III

I

Oliver Brand stepped out from the Conference Hall in Westminster on the
Friday evening, so soon as the business was over and the
Plenipotentiaries had risen from the table, more concerned as to the
effect of the news upon his wife than upon the world.

He traced the beginning of the change to the day five months ago when
the President of the World had first declared the development of his
policy, and while Oliver himself had yielded to that development, and
from defending it in public had gradually convinced himself of its
necessity, Mabel, for the first time in her life, had shown herself
absolutely obstinate.

The woman to his mind seemed to him to have fallen into some kind of
insanity. Felsenburgh's declaration had been made a week or two after
his Accl