He prepared his discourse with extreme care. A natural wish to make a good first impression animated him; but, as he sat late on the Saturday night, finally arranging his notes, he began to be conscious of new and surprising thoughts about the coming event. Earlier in the evening he had been talking to Hands, but the archæologist had gone to bed and left him alone.
The day had been a gloomy one. A black pall of fog fell over London at dawn, and had remained all day, almost choking him as he said evensong in the almost empty church.
All day long he had felt strangely overweighted and depressed. A chance paragraph in an evening paper, stating that Mr. Schuabe, M.P., had returned from a short Continental trip, started an uneasy and gloomy train of thought. The memory of the terrible night at Walktown recurred to him with a horrible sense of unreality, the picture blurred somewhat, as if the fingers of the disease which had struck him down had already been pressing on his brain when he had been alone with the millionaire. Much of what he remembered of that dread interview must have been delusion. And yet in all other matters he was sane and unprejudiced enough. Many times he had met and argued with unbelievers. They had saddened him, but no more. Why was it that this man, notorious atheist as he was, filled him with a shuddering fear, a horror for which he had no name?
Then also, what had been the significance of the incident at Dieppe—its true significance? Sir Robert Llwellyn had also inspired him with a feeling of utter loathing and abhorrence, though perhaps in a less degree. There was the sudden glimpse of Schuabe's signature on the letter. What was the connection between the two men? How could the Antichristian be in friendly communion with the greatest Higher Critic of the time?
He recalled an even more sinister occurrence, or so it had seemed to him. Two days after his first introduction to Llwellyn and the dinner at the Pannier d'Or he had seen him enter the Paris train with Schuabe himself, who had just arrived from England. He had said nothing of the incident to Mr. Byars or Helena. They would have regarded it as ordinary enough. They knew nothing of what had passed between him and Schuabe. The deliberate words of Sir Robert at the restaurant recurred to him again and again, taking possession of his brain and ousting all other thoughts. What new discoveries was the Professor hinting at?
What did the whole obsession of his brain mean?
Curiously enough, he felt certain that these thoughts were in no way heralds of a new attack of brain fever. He knew this for a certainty. It seemed as if the persistent whisperings within him were rather the results of some spiritual message, as if the unseen agency which prompted them had some definite end and purpose in view.
The more he prayed the stronger his premonitions became; added force was given to them, as if they were the direct causes of his supplications.
It almost seemed that God was speaking to him.
He had questioned Hands cautiously, trying to learn if any new and important facts bearing upon Biblical history were indeed likely to be discovered in the near future.