ives to which
they had been called, and by sheer cumulative effect could have exerted a
moral pressure on the war-lust of Germany that would have been
irresistible.

Yet, like a bull that sees red, the nations had rushed madly at each
other, thirsting to gore each other's vitals with their horns. Men of
peaceful vocations were at that very moment slaughtering their
brother-men. It was wrong--hideously wrong!

And the charge of responsibility could not be laid at the door of those
idiots of Emperors. Their crime was evil enough, but the responsibility
for war was with the people who allowed themselves to be led to murder by
a mad, jingoistic patriotism. Supposing that when Europe was mobilising,
the people of Great Britain had sent a message to the Germans: 'Brothers,
justice must be done and malefactors punished. Fearing nothing but the
universal conscience, we refuse to fight with you, but demand in
humanity's name that you join with us in establishing the permanent
supremacy of Right.' Some such message as that coming from a Power
steeped in a great past would have been ashes to smother the smouldering
flames of world-war.

But there was no machinery for such a thing. There was no method by
which the great heart of one country could speak with that of another.
Our obsolete diplomatic envoys, the errand-boys of international
politics, were mere artifices, tending to cement rather than to dispel
the mutual distrust of nations. What, then, stood in the way of
world-understanding? What was the cause of the blindness which permitted
men to be led like dumb cattle to the slaughter?

_Ignorance_.

That was the answer to it all. It was ignorance that kept a nation
unaware of its own highest destiny; it was ignorance that fomented
trouble among the peoples of the earth. Suffering, sickness, crime,
tyranny, war, were all growths whose roots were buried in ignorance and
sucked its vile nourishment.

An impetuous wave of loyalty towards his own country swept over Austin
Selwyn at the thought. Other peoples had declared war on each other:
America by her silence had declared war on Ignorance. He felt a sudden
shame for his previous doubts. He saw clearly that his great
continent-country was a rock to which the other baffled, despairing
nations might cling when disaster overtook them.

And as he was joined by Elise Durwent, the American swore an eternal oath
of vengeance against Ignorance.

IV.

With her