It beats
combination safes hollow. It would have taken all Scotland Yard
to have dragged this letter from the rack."
"That is really--it?" Catherine demanded breathlessly.
"It is the packet," he assured her, "which you handed to me for
safe keeping at Maltenby."
They drove almost in silence to the Bishop's house, where it had
been arranged that Julian should spend the night. The Bishop left
the two together before the fire in his library, while he
personally superintended the arrangement of a guest room.
Catherine came over and knelt by the side of Julian's chair.
"Shall I beg forgiveness for the past," she whispered, "or may I
not talk of the future, the glorious future?"
"Is it to be glorious?" he asked a little doubtfully.
"It can be made so," she answered with fervour, "by you more than
by anybody else living. I defy you--you, Paul Fiske--to impugn
our scheme, our aims, the goal towards which we strive. All that
we needed was a leader who could lift us up above the localness,
the narrow visions of these men. They are in deadly earnest, but
they can't see far enough, and each sees along his own groove. It
is true that at the end the same sun shines, but no assembly of
people can move together along a dozen different ways and keep the
same goal in view."
He touched the packet.
"We do not yet know the written word here," he reminded her.
"I do," she insisted. "My heart tells me. Besides, I have had
many hints. There are people in London whose position forces them
to remain silent, who understand and know.
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