"And would it not be right, if, to save our country, and all our country stands for, if need be, to deluge Europe in blood? Oh, Bob, can't you see?"
"It is never right to do wrong," said Bob. "Is it right to tell a lie that truth may come? Is it right to tell a lie to save any one from pain? Is it right to commit murder to save some one from an even greater calamity? That's nothing but the old Jesuit doctrine of the end justifying the means. But, Nancy, don't let's talk anything more about it. I am tired, weary of it! You love me, I love you. Can't you let me live my own life, carry out the projects I have in my mind, and trust to Providence?"
"What right have we to trust in Providence," asked the girl passionately, "when we stand by and do nothing? Suppose at the end of this war we come off victorious, I suppose that you, who have never lifted your finger to save your country, will think it your right to enter into the benefits which others have won for you? That is your idea of Christianity, I suppose?"
"But war cannot be right."
"I don't know about war in the abstract," cried the girl, "but I do know that this war is. I am not a sophist, and I can't put into words what is in my mind. I am only an ordinary girl; but, Bob"—she raised her voice as she spoke—"if you can stand by while your country is in danger, if you can turn a deaf ear to her call, if you refuse to help, and go on working at your law books while other young men are fighting for their country's honour and safety, then—then—don't you see? We live in different worlds, we breathe different air, and—there is an end to everything."
"Have we tried to understand the German position?" said Bob. "Germany is a Christian country as much as England is; the German people are what Thomas Carlyle calls them, a brave, quiet, patient people. Are we right in attributing evil motives to them?"
"But do you not believe," cried Nancy, "that the Emperor and his ministers planned all this?—that they depended upon the neutrality of England, thinking we would stand by and see a little nation crushed? Everything proves that their object and desire is to crush England, and to dominate the world. You say you have read all about it. Surely you do not believe that Germany is going to war to crush Servia because of the assassination of an Austrian prince? You do not believe in that flimsy pretext?"
"No," said Bob, "I can't say I do."
"And have you thought of this?" said the girl. "When this war was declared, it was not at the time the Crown Prince was assassinated, but when things seemed to be favourable to the Kaiser's plans of aggression. Any one can see how everything fits in. A speech had been made in the French Senate about the unreadiness of that country for war, and then when the President and Foreign Secretary of the French Republic were staying in Russia and could not get back for days, Germany hurled out her ultimatum. War was declared at a time, too, when Russia was believed to be confronted with revolutionary strikes, and was almost bled to death by her war with Japan. It was declared at a time when England was believed to be on the eve of civil war on account of her Irish troubles, and when it seemed that she must, of necessity, remain neutral. Can't you see the fiendishness of the plot? The Kaiser and his creatures thought the time had come when they could begin the war for which they had been preparing."
"Is not that a pure hypothesis?" exclaimed Bob; nevertheless, he was struck with the girl's evident knowledge of affairs.