Come with me into the Place.
The Gathering is all but assembled." Laying his large hand upon her arm, he led her forward unresistingly through the groups of men and women, and onward down a long corridor to where a curtain hid an arched doorway.
For a moment they paused outside this door, and the man--still laboring under some strange excitement--again raised his hand: "Come!" he cried.

"And before we leave the Place, may the Hope of the Universe be fulfilled!" Lifting the curtain, he ushered her through the door.
The room--or chapel--into which they stepped was large and lofty, covered on floor and walls with sections of marble alternately black and white; overhead swung a huge octagonal symbol in jewelled and polished metal; and at the end farthest from the door a haze of incense clouded what appeared to be an altar.
A concourse of people filled every corner of this vast room; and from the crouched or upright figures rose a continuous, inaudible murmuring.
Still guiding his companion, the massively built man forced a way between the closely packed figures.

But, half-way up the room, the woman paused and glanced at him.
"This will do," she whispered.

"Not any nearer, please.

Not any nearer." His only answer was to lay his hand upon her arm, and by a persistent pressure to draw her onward up the narrow aisle.