himself, “appears to have discovered certain hidden meanings in the ‘Mishna.’ Well—one can read hidden meanings in most writings, I believe, if one wishes. Yet he seems to have come across something which amazed him—some cabalistic message very complicated and ingenious. It caused him great astonishment when he found himself able to—able to what? Ah! that’s the point,” he sighed.

Then, after another long pause, he decided that “nine ch—” meant “nine chapters,” and that the final lines of the page dealt with some declaration opening with the arrival of the Messiah.

“Yes,” he said in a hard decisive tone, straightening his crooked back as well as he was able. “There is a mystery explained here—a great and most astounding mystery.”

Chapter Four.

Concerns a Consultation.

Late that same afternoon Raymond Diamond walked up the long muddy by-road which led from Horsford station to the village, about a mile distant.

Horsford was an obscure little place, still quite out-of-the-world, even in these days of trains and motor-cars.

About four miles west of Peterborough on the edge of the fox-hunting country, it was a pleasant little spot consisting of a beautiful old Norman church, with one of the finest towers in England and one long, straggling street mostly of thatched houses.

There were only two large houses—Horsford House, at the top of the hill on the Peterborough side, and the Manor, an old seventeenth-century mansion, half-way down the village.

It was not yet dark when the Doctor, the only arrival by train, turned the corner by the Wheel Inn and entered the village. As he did so, Warr, who combined the business of publican and village butcher, wished him a cheery “Good evenin’, Doctor.”

And as the little man trudged up the long street he was greeted with many such salutes, to all of which he answered mechanically, for he was thinking—thinking deeply.

The fragrant smell of burning wood from the cottages greeted his nostrils—the smell of that quiet little village which for some years had been his home.

He breathed again in that rural peace, as a dozen cows slowly plodded past him.

At last he turned from the main 

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