By eight o’clock he knew that he had lost the election, but that, too, seemed relatively unimportant.  He was not thinking coherently, but certain vague ideas floated through his mind.  There was a law of compensation in the universe:  it was all rot to believe that one was paid or punished in the hereafter for what one did.  Hell was real, but it was on earth and its place was in a man’s mind.  He couldn’t get away from it, because each man carried his own hell around with him.  It was all stored up there; nothing he had done was left out, and the more he put into it the more he got out, when the time came.

This was his time.

Ross and Doyle, with one or two others, found him there at nine o’clock, an untasted meal on the table, and the ends of innumerable cigarettes on the hearth.  In the conference that followed he took but little part.  The Russian urged immediate action, and Doyle by a saturnine silence tacitly agreed with him.  But Louis only half heard them.  His mind was busy with that matter of hell.  Only once he looked up.  Ross was making use of the phrase:  “Militant minority.”

“Militant minority!” he said scornfully, “you overwork that idea, Ross.  What we’ve got here now is a militant majority, and that’s what elected Hendricks.  You’re licked before you begin.  And my advice is, don’t begin.”

But they laughed at him.

“You act like a whipped dog,” Doyle said, “crawling under the doorstep for fear somebody else with a strap comes along.”

“They’re organized against us.  We could have put it over six months ago.  Not now.”

“Then you’d better get out,” Doyle said, shortly.

“I’m thinking of it.”

But Doyle had no real fear of him.  He was sulky.  Well, let him sulk.

Akers relapsed into silence.  His interest in the conspiracy had always been purely self-interest; he had never had Woslosky’s passion, or Doyle’s cold fanaticism.  They had carried him off his feet with their promises, but how much were they worth?  They had failed to elect him.  Every bit of brains, cunning and resource in their organization had been behind him, and they had failed.

This matter of hell, now?  Suppose one put by something on the other account?  Suppose one turned square?  Wouldn’t that earn something?  Suppose that one went to the Cardews and put all his cards on the table, asking nothing in return?  Suppose one gave up the by-paths of life, and love in a hedgerow, and did the other thing?  Wouldn’t that earn something?

He roused himself and took a perfunctory part in the conversation, but his mind obstinately returned to itself.  He knew every rendezvous of the Red element in the country; he knew where their literature was printed; he knew the storehouses of arms and ammunition, and the plans for carrying on the city government by the strikers after the reign of terrorization which was to subdue the citizens.