A door opened into the dining room. Someone walked, almost ran, through the room, and Martha stood at the library opening.

No one in the group assembled there would ever forget the look on Martha’s face.

She was a girl whose physical beauty had long ago been marred by the bloody fist of brutal passion. But there had come to her after her redemption something infinitely more lovely than fleshly attraction. As she stood there in the opening between the curtains that parted the alcove, the look on her face was supreme in its glory of unearthly pallor and superhuman exaltation.

She stepped into the room. Mr. Maxwell faced her, as he was nearest, and Martha said, not brokenly but clearly:

“Jesus is here!”

“Here?” Mr. Maxwell whispered.

“He is come to earth again! I have seen him!”

No one in the room stirred or spoke. Martha stood, her face glowing, her eyes fixed on Mr. Maxwell. No one knew how much time had passed when he said, with what sounded like unearthly calmness, “Where did you see him, Martha?”

“At our church—tonight.”

Again a silence, deep and unmeasured. The little company took no account of time. Every eye was fixed on Martha. The girl seemed calm and at the same time her countenance spoke of profound tumult.

“Yes, Jesus is here!” she repeated in a tone so low, with an ecstasy so thrilling, that the group leaning forward in measureless excitement seemed to feel a tension break.

And the next moment, a host of questions might have poured forth, if Mr. Maxwell, his face white and a new look in his eyes, had not turned and said, “Wait! Let Martha speak. Tell us what you have seen and heard, Martha.”

Slowly, as if overwhelmed and almost stunned, but with growing eagerness, Martha began to speak. But she had not said more than a few sentences before everyone was crowding near her, asking questions, pleading for answers, bewildering her with their demands to know more.

And yet not one of them caught even the faintest glimmer of the stupendous events that were to follow Martha’s story, nor could they grasp the astounding fact, even in the faintest degree, that they were about to enter upon a succession of great experiences that would create a new sacred history for humankind, and make the heart of the world beat as it had not throbbed for two thousand years.

Chapter Two

The torrent of questions which the assembled company poured upon Martha overwhelmed her. She stood near the place where she had stopped when she entered the library and looked appealingly at Mr. Maxwell.

“I can’t answer all these questions at once,” she said slowly. “Mr. Maxwell, maybe I can’t answer some of them at all. You ask me, one at a time. Perhaps I can tell you something.”

The girl was trembling with intense excitement, and Mr. Maxwell, who was the calmest person in the room, noticed it and said, “Sit down, Martha. We will all be seated. If what Martha says is true—it does not seem possible, but—”