Helen, for her own part, was only too eager to hear what the emissary of the Council of Seven had to say to her husband. Having learned so much already, she had now a burning desire to know all. Nevertheless, her hope was small that a way of escape from a terrible dilemma could be found. LIII As far as the grim matter now in hand was concerned, Hierons was the soul of business. Perhaps he may have realized that if his task were not instantly performed he might not be able to accomplish it. When Helen entered the room, the American at once opened the ball. “I am desired by the Council of Seven to say this: As soon as the death of Saul Hartz has been accomplished, the Society will consider its immediate aim to have been achieved. It will no longer seek the world’s peace on its present lines. In fact, it proposes at once to annul its constitution; as a corporate body it will cease to be.” “The Society is about to disband?” said John Endor, quickly. “Yes,--as soon as Saul Hartz, the world’s arch enemy, is dead. The transactions of the last few days have convinced some of the Society’s deepest thinkers that the cause of humanity as a whole will be best served by the Friends of Peace going to work in other ways.” “There I am with it,” said Endor. “Yet, may I ask, what does it propose to do with the strange and terrible secrets it possesses?--secrets which, it seems to me, must always imperil the very thing it has been called into being to safeguard.” “Before the Society passes out of existence,” said Hierons, “it will appoint certain trustees; and to these, under strict legal forms, will be intrusted the great discoveries, so dangerous to mankind, which it has been the first function of our Society to control.” Endor, keenly following every word, expressed his approval. “In the first place, as you may know,” Hierons went on, “it was because of the discoveries made by certain chemists and scientists, among whom I have the honor to count myself, that the Society of the Friends of Peace was first called into being. From the outset we realized that having had the good luck or the ill luck--one hesitates to say which--to evoke such powers, it became our duty to control them rigidly. For that purpose, we formed ourselves into a kind of International Conscience, on lines not dissimilar to the ill-starred League of Nations, which failed, as one is bound to believe, mainly because of the short-sighted policy of my own country. That, however, is still a sore subject upon which we won’t enter here. To return to our Society, it was born when some of us realized that the science of destruction had become such a dire menace to mankind that something must be done to keep its latest achievements out of the hands of any one particular government.” “For the reason, I presume,” said Endor, “that no individual government, in such a world as the present, could be trusted to wield such powers rightly?” “Quite so.” “One is interested to know that.”