By slow degrees he had learned--partly from his own observation, partly from the old man's occasional fanatic outbursts--that the strange chapel with its metal symbol and marble floor was not the outcome of a private whim, but the manifestation of a creed that boasted a small but ardent band of followers.

He had learned that--to themselves, if not to the world--these devotees were known as the Mystics; that their articles of faith were preserved in a secret book designated the Scitsym, which passed in rotation each year from one to another of the six Arch-Mystics, remaining in the care of each for two months out of the twelve.

He had discovered that London was the Centre of this sect; and that its fundamental belief was the anticipation of a mysterious prophet--human, and yet divinely inspired--by whose coming the light was to extend from the small and previously unknown band across the whole benighted world.
He had learned all these things.

He had been stirred to a passing awe by the discovery that his uncle was, in his own person, actually one of the profound Six who formed the Council of the sect and to whom alone the secrets of its creed were known; and for three successive years his interest and curiosity had been kindled when Andrew Henderson travelled to England and returned with the Arch-Councillor--an old blind man of seventy--who invariably spent one day and night mysteriously closeted with his host and then left, having deposited the sacred Scitsym with his own hands in the tall iron safe that stood in Henderson's study.

But that annual excitement had lessened with time.