Page:The council of seven.djvu/34

 proceeded rather heroically to do so. He was upheld, moreover, by Helen's strength of purpose, the working of her active will, of her high and keen intelligence. And yet, at the back of everything, he felt that all they did would be futile. This was only a beginning, the first turn of the wheel. Now that a cog had caught him, the devil's work would go on until his life had been crushed out. But she could not be expected to know that. And in this early phase he ought not to make any such admission, even to himself. It was weak. No matter what happened he must go down fighting.

"What's on to-night at the opera?" said Helen. Under her chair lay the discarded Evening Press. She picked it up. "The Russian ballet. He is quite likely to be there. If he is, he may not be home before midnight."

For a moment she considered the question in its various aspects. And then she said, "I'd better go there and see if I can find him."

Endor shook his head. "Looking," he said, "for a pin in a truss of hay to search for people at the opera."

"He has a box. More than once he's lent it to me. If he's there, I'll find him."

A growing sense of the futility of all they could do was now overpowering Endor. But he was forced to admire the noble zeal which was determined not to leave one thing undone.

Knowing argument to be vain, he was content merely