Page:The council of seven.djvu/312

 Such words seemed truly prophetic. And as they came back to Helen's mind, she was upheld by a deep faith that John and she were not to be abandoned in this hour of strife against the powers of darkness. Providence was surely at their side. It was working for them. Counsel and sympathy had come to her mysteriously, but she recognized the source whence it sprang. Behind the phenomena of appearances there was somewhere a Friend. And that Friend, whoever, whatever it might be, she felt was going to help them now.

Luncheon was a miserable and belated meal. For both it was but a hollow pretense. They were in such a febrile state of anxiety that the mere presence of food was almost unbearable. But seated at the table, crumbling bread and sipping water, Helen was able to do a certain amount of thinking. At the end of this Barmecide feast, when she rose and left the dining room, a kind of plan was already taking shape in her mind.

All the facts of the case, which with infinite difficulty she had been able to drag out of John, were now more or less clear. They were marshaled in definite order, they fell into a logical scheme. It now remained for her to act without an instant's delay upon the data she had so painfully gathered. And yet to move at all in such a matter called for rare courage, high devotion.

At his wife's entreaty, Endor went down to the