MARRIED life could not have begun more hopefully for John and Helen. They started housekeeping in a tiny but charming house in Brompton Square, the lease of which they had been able to acquire on reasonable terms. It was great fun assembling their modest household gods. These had to accord strictly with their means; therefore, a case for taste and discretion. But these were happy days. A high faith in each other had been confirmed by the ordeal through which they had just passed. Reputation was in a measure theirs before the Blackhampton election; but it was now enhanced, consolidated by a resounding victory which filled the mouth of the world.
It was glorious to be young, to be strong, to be one in dedication to a great task. Much would be demanded of them. They must prepare to live laboriously. Yet a vista had opened before their eyes. Inspiration came to them hour by hour. During the first few weeks of marriage it seemed to John Endor that God was in His Heaven after all.
For both this was a time of growth. And yet, as always, somewhere in the mind of Endor lurked a pre-vision of things to come. A dark shadow was seldom absent from his thoughts. Had it been possible, he would have blotted from his life some recent, brief, but horribly poignant passages. To none, however, is it given to undo the past. In a moment of weakness he had sunk to the level of an unclean foe. He was pledged now to return felon stroke for felon stroke. If he could but efface that hour of moral failure what would he not give!
He dare not tell Helen his secret. By locking away deep in his heart the memory of a tragic lapse he tried to stifle it. But he was never allowed to forget that it was there. Well he knew that the enemy would not yield to dictation from anybody. Saul Hartz, upheld by the power that had carried him so far, would dare the Council of Seven to its worst.
John Endor saw all that with fatal clearness. And soon there fell on him a black despair. “O ye of little faith!” was the cry torn from him in secret as each morning he opened his letters. The recoil of a famous victory was far-reaching, as each day’s post brought evidence. On every side, from quarters diverse and unexpected, squires came forth with a demand for this bold knight to lead them out to battle with the grisly monster in whose toils the country groaned.
The hour was ripe. One of his power, his inward vision, might lead them anywhere. He was beginning to make all the world see, as a Bright or a Gladstone would have done, to what a pass the nation had been brought. He had underrated the moral fiber of his countrymen. In a moment of blindness he had allowed himself to despair of the State—of that State in which he so fully believed that he was ready to make almost any sacrifice, in order to serve it.
What should he do? Saul Hartz was still Saul Hartz, a being of volcanic will. And that will had now become a creative force which seemed to transcend that of men. In the mind of John Endor it was a symbol. Here for one wrought upon by the fires of imagination was the embodiment of the spirit that denied. But if there was a God in the world, and the first weeks of marriage, a time of rare happiness and sanity, had taught him that surely there must be, He must be left to deal with this monster in His own way, at His own time. If Endor himself and the secret society to which he was pledged usurped terrible functions which his conscience could never approve, they, too, must sink to the level of the thing they sought to destroy.
John Endor knew now that he was on the horns of an inescapable dilemma. The body of fanatics and visionaries whose will he had sworn to do would not be in the least likely to release him from his vows. It was not the way of such a camarilla. Once a member, always a member. Before God he would have to assume full responsibility for its acts. And that knowledge was a viper in his breast. How could he hope to keep every nerve braced for the fight with such a horror eating out his very life!
A little consideration of a state of affairs which hardly bore thinking about brought home to John Endor that there could be only one course for him now. At all costs, he must cut loose from this Vehmgericht. Likely enough it could only be done at the price of life itself. But done it must be.