The Secret Power by Marie Corelli

A scientist in the Egyptian desert has found the force behind matter itself, and a woman who understands it better than he does intends to decide what is done with it. Corelli outsold Wells, Kipling and Conan Doyle combined and was Queen Victoria's favourite; she wrote this in 1921, with the war just over, and the argument — that we will be given the power to destroy ourselves before we are fit for it — was not a common one then.