What should he do? Saul Hartz was still Saul Hartz, a being of volcanic will. And that will had now become a creative force which seemed to transcend that of men. In the mind of John Endor it was a symbol. Here for one wrought upon by the fires of imagination was the embodiment of the spirit that denied. But if there was a God in the world, and the first weeks of marriage, a time of rare happiness and sanity, had taught him that surely there must be, He must be left to deal with this monster in His own way, at His own time. If Endor himself and the secret society to which he was pledged usurped terrible functions which his conscience could never approve, they, too, must sink to the level of the thing they sought to destroy. John Endor knew now that he was on the horns of an inescapable dilemma. The body of fanatics and visionaries whose will he had sworn to do would not be in the least likely to release him from his vows. It was not the way of such a camarilla. Once a member, always a member. Before God he would have to assume full responsibility for its acts. And that knowledge was a viper in his breast. How could he hope to keep every nerve braced for the fight with such a horror eating out his very life! A little consideration of a state of affairs which hardly bore thinking about brought home to John Endor that there could be only one course for him now. At all costs, he must cut loose from this _Vehmgericht_. Likely enough it could only be done at the price of life itself. But done it must be. XLII Minds there are of a psychic quality which seem to anticipate events. John Endor had this sort of mind. It hardly surprised him, therefore, when, on the morning after his resolve had been made, he found among his letters one summoning him to a meeting of the Council of Seven. His inner consciousness, it almost seemed, had grown aware that some such ukase was on its way. The time and place appointed were the Sunday following at an old house in Kent. Roland Holles was the owner of the house. And in the name of the Society, he urged upon Endor in a private note the supreme importance of the occasion. In no circumstances must he fail to appear. It so happened that Endor had another week-end engagement. But with everything at stake, there was but one thing to do. The prior engagement, of importance in its way, simply had to be broken. Helen, therefore, had to go to Cloudesley alone; she had, moreover, to make the best excuses she could for the eleventh hour default of her eminent husband. And this was the more unfortunate because a number of political and social big-wigs were foregathering at this famous week-end trysting place in the Midlands in the hope of meeting the new Home Secretary.