, 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 passed 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 passed 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