commonly supposed capable-- be that of destruction? Don't you see the
instant result of a war-limiting ordinance of the kind I advocate?
Suppose the peoples and the rulers declared in their wisdom that
soldiers and war material should be contraband of the air-- and
suppose that airships do become vehicles of practical utility-- what a
farce would soon be all the grim fortresses, the guns, the giant steel
structures now designed as floating hells! Humanity has yet time to
declare that the flying machine shall be as harmless and serviceable
as the penny post. I believe it can be done. Come now, Mr. Theydon, I
think you've caught on to my scheme-- will you help?"

Help! Here was a man expounding a new evangel, which might, indeed, be
visionary and impracticable, but was none the less essentially noble
and Christian in spirit, yet Theydon was debating whether or not he
should give testimony which would bring to that very room a couple of
detectives whose first questions would make clear to Forbes that he
was suspected of blood-guiltiness!

The notion was so utterly repellent that Theydon sighed deeply; his
host not unnaturally looked surprised.

"Of course, such a revolutionary idea strikes you as outside the pale
of common sense," he began, but the younger man stayed him with a
gesture. Here was an opportunity that must not be allowed to pass. No
matter what the cost-- if he never saw Evelyn Forbes or her father
again-- he must dispel the waking nightmare which held him in such an
abnormal condition of uncertainty and foreboding.

"Now that your daughter is gone I may venture to speak plainly," he
said. "I told you that, I felt the need of a brandy and soda at