“The fear is that it can be,” said Wygram, “and that it will be. An unlucky signalman the other day at Hellington had a lapse of memory. The London express ran into a goods train that was being shunted out of a siding. Such a thing, in normal circumstances, should never occur. By reason of it, sixteen people were killed and sixty-eight injured. Among the killed were the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Judge of the High Court. Accident, says the world. A rub of the green, say the directors of the railway company. Fate, say the newspapers. Call it what you will, but at the point the perverted mind of man has now reached, who shall say what the real cause was? Perhaps a certain very distinguished Chinese thinker now in this country might be able to throw a new light on a terrible occurrence.” At the look of horror in the eyes of the woman at his side, Wygram paused. “Mind you,” he said, “one does not for a moment accept all the implications that such a theory may open up. Let the possibility be advanced just for what it is worth. And I think”--his voice grew very gentle--“it would have been kinder, and perhaps wiser, not to have advanced such a possibility at all.” “Your studies have made you pessimistic,” said Helen, hoping this was a straw to which she might cling. “Yes, I quite think so,” Wygram agreed. “Every mind becomes subdued to that in which it works. But I do feel that human life was never exposed to so many hidden perils as to-day.” “One feels that, too,” said Helen. “Indeed,”--she shivered slightly--“the truth of that somehow strikes to one’s marrow.” As she spoke, she was sharply aware that the man at her side was looking at her with a grave curiosity. “Forgive the question,” he said, in his soft voice, “if it should seem impertinent,--but do you say that as a private member of the community, or as the wife of a man to whom so many eyes now turn in the hope that he may be able to do a great and much needed work for us all?” Girt by the thought that Saul Hartz was at another table and that no fragment of their talk was likely to reach his ear, Helen confessed that she was now haunted, not so much on her own account as on that of her husband, by a great fear. Something in her manner seemed to impress Wygram deeply. “Tell me,” he said, in a voice hardly above a whisper, “just what it is that you fear in regard to him in the near future?” “It is too vague to be put into words,” said Helen, anxiously. But again she shivered, and again Wygram looked at her with his questioning eyes. He forbore, however, from pressing the point further. So sharp was her distress that he gave the subject an adroit turn, and did not refer to it again. But this talk, all the same, made a profound impression upon Helen.