“There is a verse here—” she said “—I will find it.” She turned the pages and found it. “Listen! ‘Know this and lay it to thy heart this day. Jehovah is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is none else.’ That is a power which does not confine itself to Germany or to England or France or to the Map of Europe. It is the Law of the Universe—and even Wilhelm the Second cannot bend it to his almighty will. ‘There is none else.’”
“‘There is none else’,” repeated Coombe slowly. “If there existed a human being with the power to drive that home as a truth into his delirious brain, I believe he would die raving mad. To him there is no First Cause which was not ‘made in Germany.’ And it is one of his most valuable theatrical assets. It is part of his paraphernalia—like the jangling of his sword and the glitter of his orders. He shakes it before his people to arrest the attention of the simple and honest ones as one jingles a rattle before a child. There are those among them who are not so readily attracted by terms of blood and iron.”
“But they will be called upon to shed blood and to pour forth their own. There will be young things like Donal Muir—lads with ruddy cheeks and with white bodies to be torn to fragments.” She shuddered as she said it. “I am afraid!” she said. “I am afraid!”
“So am I,” Coombe answered. “Of what is coming. What a fool I have been!”
“How long will it be before other men awaken to say the same thing?”
“Each man’s folly is his own shame.” He drew himself stiffly upright as a man might who stood before a firing squad. “I had a life to live or to throw away. Because I was hideously wounded at the outset I threw it aside as done for. I said ‘there is neither God nor devil, vice nor virtue, love nor hate. I will do and leave undone what I choose.’ I had power and brain and money. A man who could see clearly and who had words to choose from might have stood firmly in the place to which he was born and have spoken in a voice which might have been listened to. He might have fought against folly and blindness and lassitude. I deliberately chose privately to sneer at the thought of lifting a hand to serve any thing but the cold fool who was myself. Life passes quickly. It does not turn back.” He ended with a short harsh laugh. “This is Fear,” he said. “Fear clears a man’s mind of rubbish and non-essentials. It is because I am AFRAID that I accuse myself. And it is not for myself or you but for the whole world which before the end comes will seem to fall into fragments.”
“You have been seeing ominous signs?” the Duchess said leaning forward and speaking low.
“There have been affectionate visits to Vienna. There is a certain thing in the air—in the arrogance of the bearing of men clanking their sabres as they stride through the streets. There is an exultant eagerness in their eyes. Things are said which hold scarcely concealed braggart threats. They have always been given to that sort of thing—but now it strikes one as a thing unleashed—or barely leashed at all. The background of the sound of clashing arms and the thudding of marching feet is more unendingly present. One cannot get away from it. The great munition factories are working night and day. In the streets, in private houses, in the shops, one hears and recognizes signs. They are signs which might not be clear to one who has not spent years in looking on with interested eyes. But I have watched too long to see only the surface of things. The nation is waiting for something—waiting.”
“What will be the pretext—what,” the Duchess pondered.
“Any pretext will do—or none—except that Germany must have what she wants and that she is strong enough to take it—after forty years of building her machine.”