orphew! The idea is absurd!"

"Undeniable, nevertheless. I have deduced the story. The lady is
a widow--no relations--too much freedom--vague aspirations after
the ideal. She has sounded society and found it too shallow;
sounded philosophy and found it too deep; and upon her horizon
of desires and disappointments has loomed the colossal presence of
Bale-Corphew--enthusiast, mystic, leader of a fascinatingly unorthodox
sect. What is the result? The lady--too feminine to be truly modern, too
modern to be wholly womanly--is viewing life through new glasses, and by
their medium seeing Horatio invested with a halo otherwise invisible."

The Prophet remained quiet and silent; then he rose slowly from his seat
and walked round the table. "Devereaux," he said, laconically, "only the
Prophet is going to wear a halo here."

The Precursor's sharply marked, expressive eyebrows went up in quick
comment.

"Can even a latter-day Prophet afford autocracy?"

For a space the Prophet made no response; then he took a step forward
and laid his hand impressively on his friend's shoulder.

"Devereaux," he said, in a new voice--a voice that unconsciously held
something of the command that had marked it in the chapel--"the Prophet
of the Mystics has come to rule. He has not come to follow the laws that
others--that men like Bale-Corphew--have seen fit to make. He has come
to be a law unto himself!"

CHAPTER V

It is astonishing in how short a space of time a man of vigorous
character can make his personality felt. On the night of his mysterious
advent, the Prophet had found his people in a condition of mental
chaos--as liable to repudiate as to accept the seeker for their
confidence; but before one month had passed he had, by domination of
will, so moulded this neurotic mass of humanity that his own position
had gradually and insensibly merged from suppliant into that of
autocrat. Without a murmur of doubt or dissension the Mystics had
proclaimed him their king.

On the last day of the thirty he sat alone in his room--the room in
which he and the red-haired Precursor had held their private council on
the night of his coming. The heavy purple curtains that shielded the
windows were partly drawn, throwing a subdued, almost a devotional,
light over the wide, imposing apartment and across the ebony table, on
which rested the sacred Scitsym, surrounded by an array of smaller and
more ancient books, several rolls of parchment, a nu