Elect be missing." He continued to hold her hand, looking into her
face with his prominent dark eyes, from which flashed and glowed an
excitement that spread over his whole heavy face.

"The night of nights!" he exclaimed. "To have lived to witness it!" His
face glowed with a sudden enthusiasm; and freeing her fingers, he lifted
up his right hand. "'He shall walk into your midst--and sit above you as
a King!'" he quoted, in a loud voice. Then remembering his companion, he
lowered his tone.

"Everything is in readiness," he added, more soberly. "The Precursor
still unceasingly prophesies the Advent. Come with me into the Place.
The Gathering is all but assembled." Laying his large hand upon her arm,
he led her forward unresistingly through the groups of men and women,
and onward down a long corridor to where a curtain hid an arched
doorway.

For a moment they paused outside this door, and the man--still laboring
under some strange excitement--again raised his hand:

"Come!" he cried. "And before we leave the Place, may the Hope of the
Universe be fulfilled!" Lifting the curtain, he ushered her through the
door.

The room--or chapel--into which they stepped was large and lofty,
covered on floor and walls with sections of marble alternately black and
white; overhead swung a huge octagonal symbol in jewelled and polished
metal; and at the end farthest from the door a haze of incense clouded
what appeared to be an altar.

A concourse of people filled every corner of this vast room; and from
the crouched or upright figures rose a continuous, inaudible murmuring.

Still guiding his companion, the massively built man forced a way
between the closely packed figures. But, half-way up the room, the woman
paused and glanced at him.

"This will do," she whispered. "Not any nearer, please. Not any nearer."

His only answer was to lay his hand upon her arm, and by a persistent
pressure to draw her onward up the narrow aisle. Reaching the railed-in
space about which the incense hung, he paused in his own turn and
motioned her towards the foremost row of seats, from which the majority
of the gathering seemed to hold aloof.

With a quick, nervous gesture she deprecated the suggestion. "No! No!"
she murmured. "Let me sit behind. Please let me sit behind."

But his fingers tightened impressively upon her arm. "No," he whispered,
close to her ear. "No, I want you to be here. When the time arrives, I
want the full light to shin