ordinary table-knife. I dragged the box to the man's feet, put them upon it, caught hold of the knife, and cut him down.

"He was a small man, and fell limply back into my arms, nearly knocking me over the box, but I managed to support him, and staggered down on to the floor.

"Then I got the rope from round his neck, and tried to restore breathing by Hall's method—you know, one can use this method by oneself. It is really the basis of all methods, and is used very successfully in cases of drowning."

"What did you do then?" Marjorie asked.

"As soon as he began to breathe again I rushed downstairs. In a room at the bottom of the stairs, which was lit by a little cheap paraffin lamp there was a horrid old woman, an evil-looking young man, and several children. The old woman was frying some dreadful sort of fish for supper, and I was nearly stifled.

"To cut a long story short, I sent the children out for a cab, made the young fellow come upstairs, and together we brought down the man, who was in a semi-conscious state. No questions were asked because, as you know, or at least, as is a fact, a nurse's uniform commands respect everywhere. I took the man straight to the hospital and managed to hush the matter up, and to arrange with the house surgeon. Of course I could not tell the doctors everything, but they trusted me and nothing was said at all. The man was discharged as cured a few days ago. The poor fellow had attempted his life in a fit of temporary madness. He was very nearly starving. There is no doubt at all about it. He proved it to the satisfaction of the hospital authorities."

"And have you found out who he is?"

"He is a friend of Joseph's—a comrade in his poverty, a journalist called Hampson, and the garret was where Joseph and he had lived together."

"Extraordinary is not the word for all this," Marjorie interrupted. "It almost frightens me to hear about it."

"But even that is not all. When I got back to the hospital after seeing the would-be suicide in safe keeping, I went straight to my own ward.

"Joseph was awake. He turned to me as I entered, smiled, and said in a sort of whisper, 'Inasmuch.' I could hear no more.

"From that time his mind seemed to lapse into the same state—a state of complete blank. He is waiting."

"For what?"

"Ah, here comes the most strange part of it all. I have received an extraordinary letter from Lluellyn. My brother has strange psychic powers, Marjorie—powers that have often been manifested in a way which the world knows nothing of, in a way which you would find it impossible to believe. In some way my brother has known of this man's presence in the hospital. Our minds have acted one upon the other over all the vast material distance which separates us. He wrote to me: 'As soon as the man Joseph is recovered, send him to me. He will question, but he will come. The Lord has need of him, for he shall be as a great sword in the hand of the Most High.'"

Marjorie Kirwan shivered.

"You speak of mystical things," she said. "They are too deep for me. They frighten me. Mary, you speak as if something was going to happen! What do you mean?"

"I speak as I feel, dear," Mary answered, with a deep-ringing certainty in her voice. "How or why, I do not know, but a marvellous thing is going to happen! I feel the sense of it. It quickens all my life. I wait for that which is to come. A new force is to be born into the world, a new light is to be kindled in the present darkness. The lonely mystic of the mountain and the strange-eyed man who has come into my life are, even now, in mysterious spiritual communion. This very afternoon Joseph goes to Lluellyn. I said good-bye to him before I left the East End. What will be the issue my poor vision cannot tell me yet."

Through the hum the maiden of the world heard Mary's deep, steadfast voice.

"Something great is going to happen. Now is the acceptable hour!"

It was utterly outside her experience. It was a voice which chilled and frightened her. She didn't want to hear voices like this.

Even as Mary spoke, Marjorie Kirwan heard a change in her voice. The brougham was quite still, and the long string of vehicles which were passing in the other direction were motionless also.

Mary was staring out of the window at a hansom cab that was its immediate vis-à-vis.

Two men were in the cab.

One of them, a small, eager-faced man flushed with excitement, was bowing to Mary.

The other, taller, and very pale of face, was looking at the hospital nurse with the wildest and most burning gaze the society girl had ever seen.

"Who are they?" Marjorie whispered, though even as she asked she knew.

"The man I saved from death," Mary answered, in a low, quivering voice, "and the man Joseph—Joseph!"

She sank back against the cushions of the carriage in a dead faint.

CHAPTER III

NEARER

Joseph turned to his companion.

His face was white and worn by his long illness, but now it was suddenly overspread with a ghastly and livid greyness.

He murmured something far down in his throat, and at the inarticulate sound, Hampson, who had been bowing with a flush of gratitude to Mary, turned in alarm.

He saw a strange sight, and though he—in common with many others—was to become accustomed to it in the future, he never forgot his first impression.

Joseph's head had sunk back against the cushions of the cab. His mouth was open, the jaw having fallen a little, as though he had no control of it.

In a flash the terrible thought came to the journalist that his friend was in the actual throes of death.

Then, in another second or two, just as the block in the traffic ceased, and the cab moved on again, he knew that Joseph lived. The eyes which at first were dark and lustreless—had seemed to be turned inward, as it were—suddenly blazed out into life. Their expression was extraordinary. It appeared to Hampson as if Joseph saw far away into an illimitable distance. So some breathless watcher upon a mountain-top, who searched a far horizon for the coming of a great army might have looked. A huge eagle circling round the lonely summit of an Alp might have such a strange light in its far-seeing eyes.

At what was the man looking? Surely it was no narrow vision bounded by the bricks and mortar, the busy vista of the London Strand!

Then, in a flash, the journalist knew.

Those eyes saw no mortal vision, were not bounded by the material circumstance of place and time. They looked into the future.

It was thus that Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah looked when the word of the Lord came to him.

Unconsciously Hampson spoke a verse from Holy Writ:—

"Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth."

Then Joseph began to speak, and never had his friend heard a man speak in this fashion.

The lips moved very little. The fixed far-off light remained in the eyes, the face did not change with the word's as the face of an ordinary man does.

"I hear a voice; and the voice says to me, 'Thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.' The words, which seemed to come from a vast distance, though they were very keen, vibrant and clear, dropped in tone, and ceased for a moment. Then once more they began—

"And I see the woman Mary and the one that was with her. They are with me upon an hill-top. And they are as maids that have forgotten their ornaments, and as brides that have not remembered their attire. And below us I see great cities and busy markets, the movements of multitudes, and the coming and going of ships. And I see that the maid and I and those others who are with us upon the mountain pray to God. And God touches my mouth, and I go down from the hill and those