“Uncle Stanley! You don’t expect me to believe that? It shows how little you know of us both if you think....” Her voice became tinged with doubt, and tears, too, came into it. The evidence was too clear. Only Nordenholt could have carried out such a gigantic scheme. And possibly she read the truth in my face as well. For a moment she seemed frozen, a rigid and silent statue. All the flush had left her cheeks and above the softness of her furs her features seemed as though carved in marble. When she spoke again, she seemed to be trying to convince herself. “Did Uncle Stanley suggest it? I can’t believe it. It’s impossible. He couldn’t do a thing like that. You don’t know him. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. I know he couldn’t.” Even in that moment of tension, I could not help reflecting how little a woman can know of a man’s mind. Half our mental processes are shut off from them, as probably half of theirs are closed books to us. The great barrier of sex divides us; and our outlook upon the world can never be the same. This girl had been in close communion with Nordenholt through most of her life; and yet she failed to recognise at once as his handiwork the greatest achievement to which he had put his powers. She wavered on her feet. I stepped forward to catch her but she struck aside my hand. Then she seated herself on a bank. I looked away; and when I saw her again she was sitting, her face buried in her hands, while her fragile figure shook with suppressed sobbing. “Elsa,” I said, “you don’t understand. It’s come upon you suddenly; and you’ve been swept off your feet by it. But it was all for the best. It had to be done.” She looked up. On her face, still wet with tears, I saw only contempt and bitterness. “It had to be done?” she echoed. “Do you mean that forty millions of people _had_ to be robbed of their food and left to starve? Can’t you see what it means, or are you made of stone? Think of men seeing their mothers dying; think of lovers watching their sweethearts starve; and the children in their mothers’ arms. And you, _you_ say calmly that ‘It had to be done.’ You aren’t a machine. You had the right to choose. And you chose _that_!” “You don’t understand,” I repeated wearily. Somehow the strain of the situation seemed to have robbed me of my forces. “No, I don’t understand. How can I, when it means that the men I thought most of in the world turn out to be nothing but murderers on a gigantic scale? I can’t believe it, even yet. Is it ... is it all a mistake? Oh! I want to wake up out of this nightmare; I want to wake up. Tell me it’s a nightmare and not real.” Her voice sounded almost like that of a terrified child in the dark. “It’s no nightmare,” I said. “Try to see what it meant. There wasn’t enough food for us all. Somebody had to die if the rest were to be saved.”