David was alone in the vestry. He could hear old Jabez Bones bustling about in the church, putting out the lamps, occasionally knocking down books, and picking them up again; doing in appearance three times as much as he accomplished in reality. David took up the pen. He did not hurry. The rhythmic panting of the engine still reached him, faintly, across the snowy mounds. He did not intend to arrive at the lich-gate until that dream-motor had glided noiselessly out of sight. As he bent over the book to make the entry, the vestry door was pushed softly open. He heard no sound; but a subtle fragrance of violets suddenly surrounded him. David looked up. Framed in the Gothic arch of the narrow doorway, her large grey eyes fixed upon him in unwonted gentleness, stood his Lady of Mystery. David was so completely taken by surprise, that he forgot to rise to his feet. He dropped his pen, but still sat on the high vestry stool, and gazed at her in speechless wonderment. "I have come," said his Lady of Mystery, and her low-pitched voice was full of music; "I have come to bring you my gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh." "Not to me," said David. "You must not bring them to me. You must bring them to the King." "I must bring them to you," she said, "because I know no other way. I have sought the Christ, and found HIM not. I had lost my way in the dreary darkness of the desert. To-night you have cleared my sky. Once more I see the shining of the Star. You have shown me that I have these three gifts to offer. But I must bring them to you, David Rivers, because you are the most Christlike man I have ever known, and you stand to me for your King." "I cannot stand for my King," said David, unconscious of the light in his own eyes, or the divine radiance reflected on his face. "I am but His messenger; the voice in the wilderness, crying: 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.'" The Lady of Mystery moved a step nearer, and laid one hand on the vestry table. She bent toward him. Two wax candles, in brass candle-sticks, stood upon the table, on either side of the vestry book, providing the only illumination. In the light of these, they looked into one another's faces. "You have certainly prepared His way in my heart to-night," she said, "and I believe you are going to make straight for me the tangle of my life. Only, first of all, you must know who I am. Has anybody told you? Do you know?" "Nobody has told me," said David, "and I do not know." "What have you called me, to yourself, all these weeks?" "My Lady of Mystery," answered David, simply; wondering how she knew he had called her anything. She smiled, and there seemed to be twenty wax candles in the vestry, rather than two.