"And you call this justice? You call it justice to trap one man and set a hundred others loose upon him?"
But Bale-Corphew turned upon her.
"And what is this man to you?" he cried. "What spell has he cast upon you that you can forget his outrage and his blasphemy?"
Enid met the question with her new fortitude; searching Bale-Corphew's turbulent face, she answered with a certain high simplicity.
"I do not know," she said. "Once I believed that I admired him—that I looked up to him—because he was a Prophet; something higher and better than myself. Now I know that my belief was wrong and false; that it was because he is a man—because, before everything else in the world, he is a man—that I turned to him, that I relied upon him."
Bale-Corphew gave a short, cruel laugh.
"So that is it? That is the secret? He is a man? Well, I will strip him of his manhood! We have had our disillusioning; yours is to come. Here, on this sacred spot where he has been so exalted, he will bite the dust."
He paused triumphantly; and in the pause there rose again to Enid's mind the picture of one tall, white-robed figure confronting a sea of faces—all incensed—all passionately, vindictively unanimous in desire.
"Oh no!" she said, suddenly, faltering before the picture. "No! No! You cannot. You must not. Be merciful! Let him go. And if there is anything—any recompense—" But even as it was spoken, the appeal died. Somewhere in the heart of the House a solemn clock chimed the hour of eight; and as though the sound were a signal, the curtain of the chapel door was drawn softly back, and a stream of dark-robed figures poured over the empty floor.
For a moment she stood immovable before the imminence of the crucial scene; then, with a sensation of physical weakness and helplessness, she turned, moved blindly forward, and sank into a vacant seat.