“I am going back to be demon to my pastor,” the letter went on, “to lead him—not astray, I trust, but back to health. Please keep all this in absolute confidence, for I have not given even a hint of it to my uncle. Whenever you visit the States, be sure to come and visit me, for no one will be more welcome from the Old Country than yourself.
“By-the-bye, dear friend, apropos of your remark anent the presence of a woman to make tea for you, keep the subject well before yourself, and when you see the lady who can really satisfy all your ideals, propose quickly, secure her, and—happy thought—do America by way of a honey-moon, and come and see me.
“Yours most sincerely,
“Madge Finisterre.”
He smiled as he laid down the letter. For a moment all the bright, piquant personality of the writer filled his vision. Then, with a swiftness and completeness that was almost startling, her face vanished from his mental picturing, and Zillah Robart, in all her radiant loveliness, took the place in his thought and vision.
For a brief while he was absorbed in his new vision. The sudden entrance of Ralph Bastin dispelled his dreaming.
After a few moments’ talk, Bastin cried, quite excitedly, “I say, Tom, those pars of yours about the Jews are the talk of all London—our London, I mean, of course.”
Without breaking the confidence reposed in him by Cohen, Tom Hammond told his friend what he had recently discovered as to the Jewish work on the materials for the New Temple.
“That’s strange, Tom,” returned Bastin. “I dropped in now as much as anything to tell you that last night I met Dolly Anstruther—you remember her, don’t you?—the little Yorkshire girl that was learning sculpture when we were staying at Paris with Montmarte.
“She has just come back from Italy, where she has been three years. She told me how startled she was to hear from several sources about this New Temple business. She said she visited a very large studio in Milan, and saw the most magnificent pillar she had ever seen. She asked the great artist what it was for, and he said, ‘It is a pillar for the New Temple at Jerusalem.’