Schuabe smiled horribly, a cunning smile of unutterable malice.
"He has crossed my path also," he said; "in some way, by a series of coincidences, he has become slightly involved in our lives. Leave the matter to me. So small a thing as the fanaticism of one obscure youth is nothing to trouble us. I will see to his future. But he shall live to know what is coming to the world. Then--it is easy enough. He thwarted _me_ one night also."
They were silent for a minute or two. Sir Robert lifted a long glass to his lips. His hand shook with passion, and the ice in the liquid clinked and tinkled.
"Everything is now ready," he said at last, glancing at Schuabe. "Every detail. Ionides knows what he has to do when he receives the signal. He is a mere tool, and knows and cares nothing of what will happen. He is to direct the excavators in certain directions, that is all. It will be three months, so I calculate, after we have set the machinery in motion, before the blow will fall. It rests with you now to begin."
"The sign shall go at once," said Schuabe. His eyes glittered, his mouth worked with emotion.
"It is a letter with a single sign on it."
"Before the day dawns we will send the broken cross to Jerusalem."
In the winter, two or three weeks before Christmas, Gortre asked Father Ripon for a ten days' holiday, and went to Walktown to spend the time with Mr. Byars and Helena. Christmas itself could be no time of vacation for him,--the duties of St. Mary's were very heavy,--so he snatched a respite from work before the actual time of festival.
Harold Spence was left alone in the chambers at Lincoln's Inn. The journalist found himself discontented, lonely, and bored. He had not realised before how much Basil's society had contributed to his happiness during the past few months. It had grown to be a necessity to him gradually, and, as is the case with all gradual processes, the lack of it surprised him with its sense of incompleteness and loss.
He had spent a hard summer and autumn over very uncongenial work. For months there had been a curious lull and calm in the news-world. Yet day by day the _Daily Wire_ had to be filled. Not that there was any lack of material,--even in the dullest season the expert journalist will tell one that his difficulty is what to _leave out_ of his paper, not what to _put in_,--but that the material was uninteresting and dull.