"Impossible. You have made a solemn pledge to another--a man. Do you deny that it is a man?"

"No. I deny nothing that is the truth," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "I dare not tell you the truth for--for that man's sake!"

"You apparently think a great deal of him!" exclaimed Farquhar, with rising anger.

"He is my friend--my best friend, as you will some day learn."

"And you actually tell me this, Gwen!" he cried, staring at her. "You-- whom I've loved so truly!"

"I am telling you the truth," she replied, in a voice again strangely calm. "You need entertain no jealousy of him. He is my friend--my devoted friend--nothing more."

"And you stay from home for days, and on returning tell me this!" he exclaimed, his brows contracted in fierce anger. "What is this fellow's name?" he demanded.

"I am not at liberty to tell you," she responded, "believe me if you will--if not,"--and she shrugged her shoulders without concluding her sentences.

"I have a right to know," he blurted forth.

She realised the effect her words had had upon him. She saw his fierce jealousy and his dark suspicion. Yet what more could she say in the hideous circ.u.mstances. She was now the innocent victim of a silence imposed upon her by the man who had been her protector. How could she betray him into the hands of his enemies? Ah! her situation was surely one of the most difficult and maddening in which a girl had ever found herself.

To tell Frank Farquhar the truth would be to rouse his mad jealousy to a great pitch. He would seek out Mr Mullet, face him, and create a scene which must inevitably bring down upon her friend and protector the vengeance of those who held him so helpless in their unscrupulous hands.

Hence she foresaw the inevitable. It was as plain as it was tragic.

Her refusal to give satisfactory replies to Frank's most natural questions had aroused his darkest suspicion. He, on his part, discerned in her determination a deliberate attempt to mislead him. During his absence she had changed towards him, changed in a most curious way that held him mystified.

"You appear, Gwen, to be utterly unconcerned and careless as to whether I believe you or not," he said gravely, after a few moments' silence.

"Well, I would like now to speak quite plainly and openly."

"Speak," she said, "I am all attention." She was struggling valiantly with herself.

Her coolness was feigned. Ah! what would she give if she were at liberty to tell Frank the whole strange and ghastly truth!

"I have put to you a question which you refuse to answer," he said in a low, hard voice. "You have admitted that, by this silence of yours, you are protecting another man. Well--in that case I can only say that I must leave you in future to your friend's protection. I hope he loves you better--better than I!"

"Leave me!" she gasped in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "You--you will leave me!

Ah! no--no Frank,"--she shrieked in her despair, "you can't mean that-- you won't let--"

But her lover had already turned upon his heel, and without further words he left the room--and the house.

She heard the front door slam, and then with a sudden cry of despair she flung herself upon the couch and buried her head among the silken cushions sobbing.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

INCREASES THE MYSTERY.

The morning was foggy, damp and dark in London, one of those to which dwellers in the Metropolis are so accustomed in the short December days.

In "Red Mullet's" sitting-room off Oxford Street--that same room in which Gwen Griffin had endured her imprisonment--he and Doctor Diamond were seated.

A fortnight had pa.s.sed since the red-haired man's visit to Horsford, but in accordance with a promise made he had, late the previous evening, telegraphed to the hunchback, and in response to the message the latter had left Peterborough by the up-express at nine o'clock that morning.

"Well, Doc," the tall man was saying as he lay stretched lazily in his chair smoking a cigarette. "I'm giving away my friend in order to oblige you, and I've had a lot of difficulty, as you may imagine. My friends are a pretty tough crowd, as you know. But I've fulfilled the promise I made to you, and all will be well providing that young lady, Miss Griffin, only holds her tongue."

"Then you've really obtained a copy of the doc.u.ment for me--eh!"

interrupted the ugly little man, his face brightening quickly.

"Yes. I was very nearly caught in the act of taking it. It was kept in a safe, and I had to get hold of the _key_ by a ruse. I kept it a day, and got a typed copy made. Then I retained it to its place."

"By Jove, Mr Mullet, you're a real friend!" cried the Doctor, starting up. "As you know, we've been handicapped hitherto by not knowing the context of the doc.u.ment. Ours has been all guesswork."

"Well, it needn't be any more," remarked the red-haired man with a light laugh, "for here's a complete copy. You'd better read it out. It's a very remarkable statement." And he produced a typewritten ma.n.u.script which the Doctor, after clearing his throat, eagerly read as follows:

"THE TREASURE OF ISRAEL.

"Revealed by a Hebrew Cipher in the Old Testament.

"I, Peter Holmboe, graduate of Helsingfors University, in Finland, late Professor of Hebrew at St Petersburg University, and now resident at Langenfelder Stra.s.se, 17, Altona, Germany, make oath and declare as follows:

"Curious, and perhaps improbable as it may at first appear, I claim to have discovered the actual whereabouts of the hidden treasure of the Jewish Temple, which includes among other things the Ark of the Covenant, the Tablets of moses, and the enormous treasure of gold and silver known to exist before the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.

"_The Secret_.

"The secret of the place of concealment is contained in a cipher which runs through certain chapters of the Book of Ezekiel, and which clearly relates the whole story and gives absolute and most complete directions with measurements by which the spot is indicated. And not only this. The same story, in a much more abbreviated form, is, curiously enough, also repeated in the same cipher in certain chapters of Deuteronomy.

"It is a historical fact that when Nebuchadnezzar seized Jerusalem nearly the whole of the treasure of the Temple had disappeared, and it would seem that into the Book of Ezekiel the secret was incorporated, so that the treasure, which formed the war-chest of the Jews, could be recovered at the coming of the Messiah.

"Many points are, of course, highly interesting and curious. Perhaps my discovery--which, by the way, was by pure accident--will create much controversy and arouse great excitement among scholars and archaeologists. Nevertheless the cipher exists, as I am ready, under certain conditions and on certain financial considerations, to indicate its existence to any competent Hebrew scholar who may be appointed to investigate my discovery.

"_The Cipher_.

"For many years I had been greatly interested in the various astronomical, astrological and cabalistical signs and cycles so apparent in the chronology of the ancient peoples. In the Bible, and more especially during the five hundred or so years before Christ, I found evidences of the astrology that was used in the division of time, and therefore set to work, using the comparing method in order to obtain an insight into the different ciphers most universally used, and also into the methods of concealing secret messages and statements. Many of the ciphers used were highly ingenious and most difficult to decipher. The Jews in Jerusalem used them, so did the Jewish Greeks in Alexandria and the Buddhists in India, as well as the Gnostics, etc.

"I had been studying certain curious expressions in the `Mischna,'

which seemed to me to contain certain hidden meanings, when one day, in studying the Book of Ezekiel in the original, I was amazed to come across an expression which, habituated as I was to the presence of ciphers, told me at once that a hidden message was contained there.

"After countless failures through several years, I one day applied one of the earlier known cabalistic ciphers--which, by the way, is so complicated and ingenious that the whole message must be deciphered before the first word becomes apparent--and, to my intense astonishment, on making the complete decipher I found myself able to read a clean declaration (extending through nine chapters) of the secret hiding-place of the Great Treasure of Israel!

"The cipher declaration opens with an intimation of 490 years before the arrival of the Messiah, and continues as follows:

"`_The lapse of years are nearing its filling. The relief of the Doom will come in spite of all. The people's right is nearing. The Period of the Blood-Debts and that of the Suppression will lose its power_.'

"It is then stated that Moses' tablets, the archives of the Temple, the Ark of the Covenant and `the Chair of Grace between two cherubims of fine gold,' `the insignias Urim and Thummim with two rubies of extraordinary size surrounded by a mult.i.tude of other precious stones,' the `written archives of the earliest period of the Jews'

till about B.C. 600, `the great treasures of the Temple, gold and silver vessels, coined gold, and precious stones of every description'

were all `_concealed beneath the earth in a dry-room in connection with which is a series of water-tunnels_.'

"The secret declaration goes on to give the most complete details of how the treasure may be reached. It is stated that there are three entrances, one of which is impossible as it is inaccessible, being closed up by masonry in a labyrinth of caves; the second is also too difficult. But the third is accessible by draining the water and will not present much difficulty.

"The cipher continuing, declares:

"`_The tablets shall remain in their hiding-place till the arrival of the Messiah, who alone may open their place of concealment, in order that He may furnish proof of the faith, and if necessary the treasure shall provide a war fund when the Messiah conquers the world and establishes his residence in Jerusalem_.'