Sir Thomas leant back in his chair with an abstracted gaze. He had eaten nothing, though his guest, wiser than he, had made a sufficient and recuperative meal. The little Japanese spaniel rose from his sleep before the glowing fire, and put his nose into his master's hand. Sir Thomas stroked the tiny creature absently. "The Holy Ghost?" he said, fixing his eyes upon Hampson. "What is that? Who can say?" "The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God." "I would," the young man said, with great sadness--"would that the Holy Ghost would come to me also." He had hardly finished the sentence--probably the first prayer he had ever made since he lisped "Our Father" at his mother's knee--when the door opened, and the butler entered the room. "A note, Sir Thomas," the man said. "A note from Miss Lys. The bearer awaits an answer." The young man took the note with trembling fingers and tore it open. This was what he read:-- "I saw you in the theatre to-night, and I knew that you were disturbed about me. Have no fear. I am writing this from my aunt's house, where I went immediately when we left the theatre. But I want you to come and see me here to-morrow, quite early. Would ten o'clock be too soon? I have something of the highest importance to say to you. Send back an answer to say that you can come. I have been here for an hour, and I have been thinking of you the whole time. I have a premonition about you--a happy one! "MARY." CHAPTER IX A LINK CHAPTER Joseph, his followers, and Mary Lys, had passed out of the theatre without hindrance in the dark. They encountered no one in their passage, and found themselves in Shaftesbury Avenue as people pass from one dream into another. The faces of all of them were pale and set, but no one spoke. It is a well-known fact that hardly any one attracts attention in the streets of London unless because of noise or eccentric behavior. This is quite true of the daytime, and especially true at night. So cosmopolitan is the modern Babylon, so intent upon their own business or pleasure are the inhabitants, that a Chinaman in full native costume or an admiral in full-dress would do no more than excite the merest passing regard. When, therefore, Joseph and his companions walked up the busy pleasure-street, they were almost unnoticed. A man with a soft felt hat pressed down upon his forehead, a bearded man wearing a black cloak of a somewhat peculiar cut--what was there in that? A hospital nurse and a few grave-faced men in country-clothes and obviously from the country--who was to give them any notice? It happened, therefore, that the little party were well on their way towards Oxford Street before the first member of the audience had left the Frivolity. As far as any knowledge of their whereabouts was concerned, they might have vanished into thin air.