“Do? I’d break that infernal machine which calls itself a State, and I’d guillotine the ruffian that invented it. I cannot do that, but I can at least protest.”
Berselius, who had helped to make the machine, and who knew better than most men its strength, shook his head sadly.
“Do what you will,” said he. “If you need money my funds are at your disposal, but you cannot destroy the past.”
Adams, who knew nothing of Berselius’s dream-obsession, could not understand the full meaning of these words.
But he had received permission to act, and the promise of that financial support without which individual action would be of no avail.
He determined to act; he determined to spare neither Berselius’s money nor his own time.
But the determination of man is limited by circumstance, and circumstance was at that moment preparing and rehearsing the last act of the drama of Berselius.