made me what I am, then stand aside!
Let me pass out of your lives!"

There was a great silence; then a woman's sharp cry rang out across the
chapel, as, with a savage movement, three of the Arch-Mystics sprang
upon the Prophet.

"Sacrilege! Sacrilege!" Bale-Corphew's voice rose loud and violent.

But he had calculated without his host. The fanaticism of a crowd is a
dangerous weapon with which to tamper, and the dethronement of a king is
not accomplished in a day. With the speed of light, the element he had
unloosed turned upon himself.

Again one word disentangled itself from the medley of sounds.

"The Prophet! The Prophet!" Like an ignited fuse, instinct had
been lighted in the people. The man who for months had been
exalted--honored--well-nigh worshipped--was in imminent peril!
That one thought submerged and demolished every other.

There was a forward movement--a roar--a crash--and the high, gilt
railings of the Sanctuary went down as before a storm.

To Enid, who had been borne irresistibly upward on the human tide, there
was one overpowering moment of fear and clamor, in which the cry of "The
Prophet! The Prophet!" dominated her consciousness; then, to her, the
world became suddenly and mercifully sightless, soundless, and void.

* * * * *

When at last her eyes opened--when at last her senses falteringly
returned to the consciousness of present things--she was in her own
familiar room. The atmosphere breathed of repose and peace; through the
drawn curtains the hum of London came subdued and soothing; in the room
itself the lights were modulated and the fire glowed soft and mellow,
while a faint, pungent smell of restoratives filled the air. But these
details came but vaguely to her appreciation, for the first object upon
which her glance and her ideas rested was the figure of John Henderson,
kneeling beside the couch on which she lay.

For a long, silent space she gazed bewildered into the grave face bent
over her own--striving to fathom whether this was another phase of an
extraordinarily prolonged and harassing dream, or whether it had any
bearing upon real life; then, as the pained, bewildered sensation
deepened in her mind, it was suddenly illumined by a flash of
recollection; and starting up, she caught Henderson's hand.

But before she could speak he laid his fingers gently over her eyes.

"You are not to think," he said. "To-night is past."

"But Hellier Cre