Page:The council of seven.djvu/317

 came into her eyes. Her impulse was to draw away from him as if he had been a thing unclean. Man of fine perceptions as he was, he yielded instantly to her emotion, not trying to combat it, but stepping back a pace with a slight bow.

"You see," he said in a low voice, "the stake we play for is the highest there is. All that we do, all that we have done, all that we hope to do, is dictated by the faith that the peace of the world depends upon us."

"Do you still believe that?" asked Helen, looking at him steadily.

He did not answer at once.

With an insurgency of feeling, an odd tightening of her throat and breast, she repeated her question.

"Yes," he said. "That is still our position."

"You honestly think," said Helen, "that evil can be met with evil? You think that murder can prevent murder?"

"In certain extreme cases," said Hierons, "we hold that view. The Church has failed, Christianity is a back number, one after another the higher moral sanctions are going by the board. Human society is very sick indeed. Only a desperate remedy can save it."

Helen looked bleakly at Hierons. But she didn't speak.

"The root of the trouble," Hierons went on, "is that it is still in the power of certain people, of one man if you like, to unchain forces more terrible than the earth has yet known. This unlucky planet of ours is enter