“Tell me this,” she continued, without heeding his interruption.  “Do you, in your heart, believe that you are justified in going about the world preaching your hateful doctrines, seeking out the toilers only to fill them with discontent and to set them against their employers, preaching everywhere bloodshed and anarchy, inflaming the minds of people who in ordinary times are contented, even happy?  You have made yourself feared and hated in every country of the world.  You have brought America almost to the verge of revolution.  And now, just when England needs peace most, when affairs on the Continent are so threatening and every one connected with the Government of the country is passing through a time of the gravest anxiety, you intend, they say, to start a campaign here.  You say that you love the truth.  Answer me this question truthfully, then.  Do you believe that you are justified?”

He had listened to her at first with a slight, tolerant smile upon his lips, a smile which faded gradually away.  He was sombre, almost stern, when she had finished.  He seemed in some curious way to have assumed a larger shape, to have become more imposing.  His attitude had a strange and indefinable influence upon her.

She was suddenly conscious of her youth and inexperience—­bitterly and rebelliously conscious of them—­before he had even opened his lips.  Her own words sounded crude and unconvincing.

“I am not one of the flamboyant orators of the Socialist party, Lady Elisabeth,” he said, “nor am I one of those who are able to see much joy or very much hopefulness in life under present conditions.  For every word I have spoken and every line I have written, I accept the full and complete responsibility.”

“Those men who were murdered in Chicago, murdered at your instigation because they tried to break the strike—­what of them?”

He looked at her as one might have looked at a child.

“Their lives were a necessary sacrifice in a good cause,” he declared.  “Does one think now of the sea of blood through which France once purged herself?  Believe me, young lady, there is nothing in the world more to be avoided than this sentimental and exaggerated reverence for life.  It is born of a false ideal, artistically and actually.  Life is a sacrifice to be offered in a just cause when necessary.

“I imagine that this is your uncle.”

Mr. Foley was standing upon the threshold of the room, his hand outstretched, his thin, long face full of conviction.

“My niece has succeeded in discovering you, then, Mr. Maraton,” he said.  “I am glad.”

Maraton smiled as he shook hands.

“I have certainly had the pleasure of making your niece’s acquaintance,” he admitted.  “We have had quite an interesting discussion.”

Elisabeth turned away without looking towards him.

“I will leave Mr. Maraton to you, uncle,” she said.  “He will tell you that I have been very candid indeed.  We were coming face to face with Mr. Culvain, so I brought him in here.”