After a pause Mary spoke: "How strange it is, Mrs. King, that Political Economy was once actually looked upon as a Liberal science, was stigmatized as Revolutionary by the Tories, and now it is clearly seen to be quite the reverse."

"That is it!" exclaimed Catherine. "Political Economy is the cleverest snare the capitalists ever set for the unsuspecting people. It professes to be so Liberal, so philanthropical, and tries to persuade the workers that capital is their best friend without whose a.s.sistance they would starve. It is one great organized lie invented by the rich to delude the poor. The Political Economists, though favourable to the rights of property in all else, questioned the tenure of land and undermined the old sanction that supported that right. This science has been a useful weapon against the landed proprietors, but it is useless against the capitalists. Its arguments are specious enough. It does not appeal to first principles, to ancient sanction as the landowners do. It does not try to prove that the manufacturer has a _right_ to his vast gains, so disproportionate to those of the real workers, but it sets to work to try and prove that such a system is positively _good_ for the labourers, _better_ indeed than any other system would be."

"Do you think, Mrs. King, that there will soon be any really Radical alterations in the tenure of land?" asked the pupil.

"Mary, I know it," replied the teacher with a voice of conviction, "I know it. The general election that is coming will give us an enormous majority in the House of Commons. The moderate Liberals are struck with panic, foreseeing what will happen. The timid leaders of that party feel that they will be powerless to stem the tide. In a few months a bill will be driven through Parliament that will astonish the world."

"But then there is the House of Peers," suggested Mary. "Will the Lords let the bill through?"

"The Lords!" exclaimed Catherine with a contemptuous laugh. "Don't talk to me about the Lords, they will be too frightened about their skins to dare to offer a long resistance to the will of the people. Now, Mary, the most important clauses of this great measure will be to the following effect: any alienation of real property by sale, gift, testament, or otherwise shall be void unless it be to an immediate descendant of the holder, except when under certain circ.u.mstances the land courts shall sanction or command a sale for the public good. In failure of any descendant or of such sanction of the land court, the land will become the property of the State on the holder's decease--you understand?"

"I understand," said Mary rather disappointed, for she expected to hear something far more startling than this. "But it is not much, even a moderate like Mill proposed nearly as much as that."

"Mary," continued Catherine King looking steadfastly at the girl, "it does not sound much, but nevertheless it is the death-blow to property.

I too would like to see all the old tyrannies swept away at once, but that cannot be, the country is not ripe enough for that. Now, Mary, you must remember that there are two methods by which politicians bring about their ends.

"The first method is that which all the world sees and hears--the open action--agitation--the press--debate--culminating in an Act of Parliament.

"The second method is secret--this is the work in the dark that, going far beyond the timid public opinion as represented by Parliament, dares great things.

"So we of this Sisterhood, and hundreds of similar a.s.sociations all over Europe, are ever on the watch.

"Our allies--the politicians that work openly, that employ the _first_ method--prepare the way for us, loosen the foundations of tyranny in Parliament. Then we come--we that employ the _second_ method, and complete their work.... Now follow me. This will be the result of this new Bill. Unless a landed proprietor have children, his estate will lapse to the State on his death."

She paused, and the eyes of the two women met.

Mary had never before seen such an expression in the bright black eyes of Catherine King. Their pupils were dilated. They blazed with a fierce intensity of purpose, of pa.s.sionate thought. They were the eyes of a madwoman, but a madwoman with a terrible method in her madness.

She continued in slow, deliberate tones: "Now, after this Act is pa.s.sed, supposing that the Secret Societies such as ours come in and _prevent the landed proprietors from leaving children_, what will happen? In a generation or two all the land will be in the hands of the people. Do you follow me?"

"I think so," replied Mary, in a low voice.

Catherine proceeded: "Such a scheme may sound impracticable to you at first, but it is anything but that. We have gone thoroughly into it. It does not, to begin with, necessitate nearly so many _removals_ of heirs as you would imagine. You would be surprised to find what a very large proportion of the land would be recovered by the people in the s.p.a.ce of a few years by no more than say thirty well-selected _removals_. A little study of the pages of Debrett would soon convince you of this.

The object of our Society is to a.s.sist the working of the coming Act of Parliament by effecting these removals, do you know _how_?"

Mary had antic.i.p.ated for many months a revelation of this kind. She was not taken by surprise, but she turned very pale and said: "How, Mrs.

King?"

The dreaded moment had come at last, and she felt even as if she was going to die as she listened to her mistress, who spoke again in calm but thrilling tones.

"Mary, I know you well enough to trust you now. When you were enrolled some months ago as a member of our Sisterhood, you were informed what would be the penalty of disclosing what was told to you."

"Death," said Mary, looking up with a brave smile. "It is death, I know that."

"I do not mention this because I in any way doubt you. I believe in you as in my own self. If you are not true, no one in the whole world is.

But it is my duty to remind you of your promise and the consequences of treason before I reveal to you the secrets of the Inner Circle. Now the time has come, and you shall know our immediate plan. You already know how far-spreading our organization is. You know that we have been training nurses--nurses for the sick and nurses for children--and domestic servants of all cla.s.ses. You know how we have scattered these over the country, and how many there are now at our disposition, provided with excellent characters and entirely devoted to our cause.

Have you ever wondered--have you ever guessed what all this was for?...

I can see by your face that you have done so.... At the proper time the secret is revealed to each of these, even as I now reveal it to you. We seek to find places for these sisters in different capacities, but chiefly as nurses in the houses of the wealthy landowners--_especially those houses in which the heirs are yet to be born, or are children_. Do you understand?"

"I think so."

"For the means, we have to thank Sister Jane--a method safe, impossible of detection, by which the life that is in the way of social good can be extinguished, painlessly too.... Yes, it is more like sleep than death;"

and when she spoke of death the woman's voice became tender, the fire of her eyes was dimmed, as a far-away look came into them, and she sighed.

It seemed as if she was envying the peaceful fate of the babies she was devoting to an early grave. No wonder that she felt weary at times beneath all that weight of fierce thought, of subtle plot, of disappointment. Death was no gloomy shadow to this poor distracted mind.

Then she pulled herself together again, and said, in a dreamy voice: "Mary, these Christians believe that their merciful G.o.d killed all the first-born of the Egyptians in one night because they had enslaved his people and would not let them go. But that slavery was as nothing to that of the down-trodden millions of Europe."

The young girl felt as if her heart was becoming cold and dead within her, but her will was not hers, and she believed altogether in the righteousness of the cause. She _knew_ that it was her _duty_ to become one of the a.s.sa.s.sins--to save humanity by being a baby-killer.

So, Mary--Mary! Heavens! what a name for a child-murderer!--bowed her head meekly, and said in a low, pa.s.sionless voice--a voice that was without modulation, sounding automatic, as if from one in a trance, one not knowing the sense of what she said:

"I will do all you say ... you have me ... body and soul."

Catherine looked at the white fixed features, and felt a keen pang of compunction. She came to her senses for a moment.... What was this thing she was doing? ... sacrificing this poor girl--this one creature that she loved.... But then she loved her creed still better; and there was none who could be so useful to the cause as this her pupil; so she stifled her emotion, and said in a voice grave and collected as ever, while she rose from her chair:

"To-morrow, Mary, you shall receive full instructions from the Inner Circle. Sister Eliza will explain to you what you have to do."

"I will do all that I am ordered," replied the girl in the same strange absent tone as before. "Yes, all ... anything...."

Then suddenly the nature of her duties rose to her mind with such appalling distinctness that for the moment she was overwhelmed by the horror of the vision.

She rose quickly from her chair and paced up and down the room, her face quite colourless, one hand pressed to her painfully working heart....

Then, with a cry which seemed full of all the anguish that humanity is capable of, she threw herself at the feet of her mistress, who stood looking at her with a stern sadness. She lay there on the ground, her head hidden in her hands, and the piteous words came out between her choking sobs.

"Oh, why was I ever born?... Why were any men or women ever born? Let me die at once; life is too horrible.... Oh, mistress! Oh, mother! you say you love me; kill me now then; kill me at once, and spare me this life--this terrible life."

But Catherine had now steeled her heart. She hardly heard the pitiful pleading. Her soul was filled with a wild enthusiasm as she thought of her long-matured schemes, now so soon to bear fruit. She was possessed with the _idea_ ... she stood there at her full height; a stately figure, with her face illumined by the inspiration, having a n.o.bility, a glory in it, such as even saints and martyrs have worn. Her thoughts were too exalted just then for her to pay heed to the victim at her feet, and she said nothing, offered no consolation.

After this wild first burst of anguish had partly pa.s.sed, another mood seized the girl. She leaped to her feet, and with eyes aflame with hate, and teeth set, exclaimed:

"Oh! oh! if there is a G.o.d how I hate him--no man, no devil could be as cruel as He is! Why has He made all this misery? Why has He created us at all? He has arranged things so that in order to save mankind from still worse suffering we have to kill innocent children. Oh, mother! we had better all die at once and leave the world to wild beasts."

Then her former mood returned again, and she threw herself upon the sofa, weeping bitterly, and her whole body was convulsed with grief and despair.

Catherine King had foreseen that such a mental struggle would come to Mary when the "secret of the aim" was put before her clearly for the first time. Her experience in other cases led her to hail this paroxysm as a favourable symptom.

All the initiated had to go through this agony when the supreme moment came. This was usually the last, shortest, but fiercest struggle between the old nature and the new--the old nature of religious instincts, Christian sympathies and pities, and the new nature that sought to break through all the tyrannies, to be free of G.o.d, of evil and remorse.

It was an unnatural contest that would rend the poor spirit that engaged in it until the new nature had gained the victory, then the angel that is with every soul that is born on earth would go away from it and for ever, leaving it alone, without _conscience_, free to carry out without scruple whatsoever _Reason_ should order.

So Catherine, familiar with the great crisis through which the girl was pa.s.sing, said nothing, but quietly left the room, as she knew was the wisest thing to be done, leaving the victim to fight with her agony by herself, and little doubting what the result would be.

CHAPTER VIII.