“See!” She held herself together, after her queer fashion, as a child does when thinking hard. “You remember in the letter about von Schäde, when Mr. Carey wrote: ‘he died cursing England, the English, me and mine and Thorpe. It was like the evil of this war incarnate.’ Do you think that force of emotion perished with the physical, or do you think the shattering of the physical left it free? And remember too, Karl von Schäde had studied those forces, had learnt possibly something of how to handle them. Then Violet, Violet whom he had loved, after his own fashion, and to whom he would therefore be drawn——” “But if there is any justice, here or there,” broke in North, “why should she become the brute’s instrument?” “Because she too was filled with hate. Only so could it have been possible. Think for a minute and you will see.” In his youth, North had been afflicted with spasms of stammering. One seized him now. It seemed part of the horror which was piercing the armour in which he had trusted, distorting with strange images that lucid brain of his, so that all clear train of thought seemed to desert him. He struggled painfully for a few moments before speech returned to him. “D—damn him. D—damn him. Damn him,” he said. Ruth sprang up, and laid her hand across his mouth. Fear was in her eyes. He had never thought to see her so moved, she who was always so calm, so secure. “For pity’s sake stop,” she said; “if you feel like that you must go. You must not come here again. You must keep away from her. Oh, don’t you see you are helping him? I ought not to have told you; I did not realize it might fill you with hate too.” “I’m sorry,” said North harshly. “I’m afraid anything else is beyond me.” He had given up all attempt to insist that it was impossible. The uncanny horror had him in its grip. He felt that he had bidden farewell to common sense. Ruth grew imperative. “For God’s sake, try!” she said. “Don’t hate. Don’t curse him like that. Don’t you see—you cannot overcome hate with hate; you can only add to it. I find it so hard myself not to feel as you do. But oh, don’t you see, all his life Dick Carey must have loved, in a small far-off way of course, as God loves. And everything that lived and moved and breathed came within the scope of his tenderness and his pity. And That which was himself did not perish with the physical either. That too is free—free and fighting. You can only overcome hate with love. But on a physical plane, even God Himself can only work through physical instruments.” She stopped, and looked at North imploringly. “I have your meaning,” he said more gently. Her sudden weakness moved him indescribably.