"All right," he said, "I can give you an hour now. Things are fairly easy to-night."
He got up from the writing-table and sat down by the fire. Spence took a chair opposite.
He seemed dazed. He was trembling with excitement, his face was pale with it, yet, above and beyond this agitation, there was almost fear in his eyes.
"It's a discovery in Palestine—at Jerusalem," he said in a low, vibrating voice, spreading out the thin, crackling sheets of foreign note-paper on his knee and arranging them in order.
"You know Cyril Hands, the agent of the Palestine Exploring Fund?"
"Yes, quite well by reputation," said Ommaney, "and I've met him once or twice. Very sound man."
"These papers are from him. They seem to be of tremendous importance, of a significance that I can hardly grasp yet."
"What is the nature of them?" asked the editor, rising from his chair, powerfully affected in his turn by Spence's manner.
Harold put his hand up to his throat, pulling at his collar; the apple moved up and down convulsively.
"The Tomb!" Spence gasped. "The Holy Tomb!"