to him. Here he had caught the far-off kindling visions of that rarely human Galilean, with his rarely human group about him, trudging over the hills, sitting by the side of the sea, teaching, healing, helping. Here he had caught the vision of himself following, afar off, two thousand years behind, but following—teaching, healing, helping—in His name.
The telephone rang, its sharp, metallic jingle shocking the very atmosphere into apprehensive tremors. Yet instantly recalled to himself and to the new height on which he stood, Hampstead lifted the receiver with a firm hand and replied in an even, measured voice: "The Sentinel?—Yes—Yes—No—There is nothing to say—Absolutely!—I do."
The receiver was hung up. The only change in Hampstead's voice from the beginning to the end of this conversation, the larger part of which had taken place upon the other end of the line, was a deepening gravity of utterance. In a few moments the 'phone rang again. It was The Press. The papers all had the story now. The Oakland offices of the San Francisco papers were also clamoring. Each wanted to know what the minister had to say to the damning discovery of the diamonds in his box.
For them all Hampstead had the same answer: "I have nothing to say—yet." Some of the inquisitors cleverly attempted to draw the clergyman out by suggesting that there was plenty of opportunity for a countercharge that the diamonds had been planted in his box, since it was improbable in the last degree that a man of ordinary intelligence would conceal stolen diamonds in a safe deposit box held in his own name, the key to which he carried in his own pocket; but the self-controlled man at the other end of the telephone fell into no such trap. To direct attention to an inquiry as to who had visited his vault, or might have visited it, during the time since the
