"I can't believe," said Enid, "that fear will vanquish love." She blushed suddenly and rosily, as if embarrassed by her own words. "That is probably beside the point," she resumed. "What I began to say was that the sight of my stepfather's writing—why is it reversed like that?—the sight, anyway, has brought things back into my mind."
"What things?" Jager demanded eagerly. "Come into the house, Miss Mandifer, and tell us."
"Oh, not into the house," she demurred at once. "It's dark in there—damp and cold. Let's go out here, to the seat under the tree."
She conducted them to the bench whither Lanark had accompanied her the day before.
"Now," Jager prompted her, and she began:
"I remember of hearing him, when I was a child, as he talked to his son Larue and they thought I did not listen or did not comprehend. He told of these very things, these views he has written. He said, as if teaching Larue, 'Fear is stronger than love; where love can but plead, fear can command.'"
"A devil's doctrine!" grunted Jager, and Lanark nodded agreement.
"He said more," went on Enid. "He spoke of 'Those Below,' and of how they 'rule by fear, and therefore are stronger than Those on High, who rule by weak love.'"
"Blasphemy," commented Jager, in his beard.
"Those statements fit what I remember of his talk," Lanark put in. "He spoke, just before we fought the guerrillas, of some great evil to come from flouting Those Below."