"Tell me, are you a great believer in the sanctity of human life ?" "What a question!" she murmured.

"My own life, at any rate, seems to me to be a terribly important thing." "Suppose you had a friend," I said, "who was one night attacked in a quiet spot by a man who sought his life, say, for the purpose of robbery.

Your friend was the stronger and easily defended himself.
Then he saw that his antagonist was a man of ill repute, an evildoer, a man whose presence upon the earth did good to no one.

So he took him by the throat and deliberately crushed the life out of him.

Was your friend a murderer ?" She smiled at me--that quiet, introspective smile which I knew so well.
"Does the end justify the means?
No, of course not.