of Pentecost.  We feel Ourselves unwilling to decide the steps necessary to be taken with reference to the new decree, except we first hear the counsel of our advisers, and give them an opportunity of communicating freely one with another.  These words, as we have spoken them, are to be forwarded to all those persons whom we have named; and your Eminence will further inform them that our deliberations will not occupy more than four days.

“As regards the questions of provisioning the council and all matters of that kind, your Eminence will despatch to-day the chaplain of whom we have spoken, who with my own chaplain will at once set about preparations, and your Eminence will yourself follow, appointing Father Marabout to act in your absence, not later than four days hence.

“Finally, to all who have asked explicit directions in the face of this new decree, communicate this one sentence, and no more.

“Lose not your confidence which hath a great reward.  For yet a little while, and, He that is to come will come and will not delay.—­Silvester the Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God.”

CHAPTER III

I

Oliver Brand stepped out from the Conference Hall in Westminster on the Friday evening, so soon as the business was over and the Plenipotentiaries had risen from the table, more concerned as to the effect of the news upon his wife than upon the world.

He traced the beginning of the change to the day five months ago when the President of the World had first declared the development of his policy, and while Oliver himself had yielded to that development, and from defending it in public had gradually convinced himself of its necessity, Mabel, for the first time in her life, had shown herself absolutely obstinate.

The woman to his mind seemed to him to have fallen into some kind of insanity.  Felsenburgh’s declaration had been made a week or two after his Acclamation at Westminster, and Mabel had received the news of it at first with absolute incredulity.

Then, when there was no longer any doubt that he had declared the extermination of the Supernaturalists to be a possible necessity, there had been a terrible scene between husband and wife.  She had said that she had been deceived; that the world’s hope was a monstrous mockery; that the reign of universal peace was as far away as ever; that Felsenburgh had betrayed his trust and broken his word.  There had been an appalling scene.  He did not even now like to recall it to his imagination.  She had quieted after a while, but his arguments, delivered with infinite patience, seemed to produce very little effect.  She settled down into silence, hardly answering him.  One thing only seemed to touch her, and that was when he spoke of the President himself.  It was becoming plain to him that she was but a woman after all at the mercy of a strong personality, but utterly beyond the reach of logic.  He was very much disappointed.  Yet he trusted to time to cure her.