She stopped and looked at him inquiringly. But he made no reply, and after a moment she continued, placing her hand fondly upon his shoulder as she spoke.
"Our plan is to terrify the rulers into submission. We must not shrink from killing, and killing suddenly and unexpectedly, till they abandon the wickedness of their Ways. They must never know what it is to feel safe. And we see to it that they do not. Death waits for them at the street corner, on their travels, at their own doorsteps. They never know at what moment the bomb may not be thrown, or the pistol fired. It is sad that explosives are so unreliable. There are many difficulties. You would not believe the obstacles that we find placed in our path at every turning. And for those who are suspected there is Siberia, and the mines. But it is worth it. It is worth anything to feel that one is working and risking all for one's country, and one's fellow-countrymen. It is an honour to belong to a band of such noble men and women. But now and then one is admitted who turns out to be unworthy. Yes, even such a cause as ours has traitors to contend with. And your uncle, Lord Ashiel, was one of them."
"What," said Mark incredulously, "Uncle Douglas a Nihilist? Nonsense. It's impossible."
"He was, really. For he joined the 'Friends of Man' when he was at the British Embassy at Petersburg long years ago; and no sooner had he been initiated than he turned round and denounced the society and all its works. Worse still, he declared his intention of hindering it from carrying out its programme. He would have been got rid of there and then, but as ill-luck would have it he had, by an unheard-of chain of accidents, become possessed of an important document belonging to the society. It was, indeed, a list of the principal people on the executive committee that fell into his hands, and he took the precaution of sending it to England, with instructions that if anything happened to him it should be forwarded to the Russian Police, before he made known his ridiculous objections to our programme. Here, as you will understand, was a most impossible situation with which there was apparently no means of coping.
"For years that one man hampered and frustrated our entire organization. He was practically able to dictate his own terms, for he announced his intention of publishing the list of names if we carried out any important project, and no device could be contrived to stop his being as good as his word. The tyrant has walked unscathed except by mere private enterprise, and the government we could have caused to crumble to the ground has flourished and continued to work evil as before. We have been crippled, paralysed in every direction. It was only last year that there seemed reason to think that Lord Ashiel had removed the document from the Bank of England where it had for so long been guarded, and there appeared to be a possibility that he now kept it in his own house. If that were so, there seemed a good chance of getting hold of it, and how proud I am, Mark, to think that it was I who was chosen to make the attempt!