nd by that very act imperilled the
entire Body. This madness, then, was the one crime which still deserved
the name. Murder, theft, rape, even anarchy itself, were as trifling
faults compared to this monstrous sin, for while these injured indeed
the Body they did not strike at its heart--individuals suffered, and
therefore those minor criminals deserved restraint; but the very Life
was not struck at. But in Christianity there was a poison actually
deadly. Every cell that became infected with it was infected in that
very fibre that bound it to the spring of life. This, and this alone,
was the supreme crime of High Treason against man--and nothing but
complete removal from the world could be an adequate remedy.

These, then, were the main arguments addressed to that section of the
world which still recoiled from the deliberate utterance of Felsenburgh,
and their success had been remarkable. Of course, the logic, in itself
indisputable, had been dressed in a variety of costumes gilded with
rhetoric, flushed with passion, and it had done its work in such a
manner that as summer drew on Felsenburgh had announced privately that
he proposed to introduce a bill which should carry out to its logical
conclusion the policy of which he had spoken.

Now, this too, had been accomplished.

II

Oliver let himself into his house, and went straight upstairs to Mabel's
room. It would not do to let her hear the news from any but his own
lips. She was not there, and on inquiry he heard that she had gone out
an hour before.

He was disconcerted at this. The decree had been signed half-an-hour
earlier, and in answer to an inquiry from Lord Pemberton it had been
stated that there was no longer any reason for secrecy, and that the
decision might be communicated to the press. Oliver had hurried away
immediately in order to make sure that Mabel should hear the news from
him, and now she was out, and at any moment the placards might tell her
of what had been done.

He felt extremely uneasy, but for another hour or so was ashamed to act.
Then be went to the tube and asked another question or two, but the
servant had no idea of Mabel's movements; it might be she had gone to
the church; sometimes she did at this hour. He sent the woman off to
see, and himself sat down again in the window-seat of his wife's room,
staring out disconsolately at the wide array of roofs in the golden
sunset light, that seemed to his eyes to be strangely beaut