welcome for a month or two each year in Lincoln's Inn. His quaint, learned letters, his enthusiasm for his work had become part of the journalist's life. They were recurring pleasures. And now he was gone!
Now it was all over. Never more would he hear the quiet voice, hear the water-pipe bubble in the quiet old inn as night gave way to dawn. . . .
His brain whirled with the sudden shock. He grew very pale, waiting to hear more.
"We know little more," said the Consul, with a sigh. "A cable from the central office of the Society has just stated the fact and asked me to take official charge of everything here. We were just about to begin sealing up the rooms when you came. There are many important documents which must be seen to. Mr. Forbes, poor Hands's assistant, is away on the shores of the Dead Sea, but we have sent for him by the camel garrison post. But it will be some weeks before he can be here, probably."
"This is terribly sad news for me," said Spence at length. "We were, of course, the dearest friends. The months when Hands was in town were always the pleasantest. Of course, lately we did not see so much of each other; he had become a public character. He was becoming very depressed and unwell, terrified, I almost think, at what was going on in the world owing to the discovery he had made, and he was going away to recuperate. But I knew nothing of this!"
"I am sorry," said the Consul, "to have to tell you of such a sad business, but we naturally thought that somehow you knew—though, of course, in point of time that would hardly be possible, or only just so."
"I am in the East," said Spence, giving an explanation that he had previously prepared if it became necessary to account for his presence—"I am here on a
