The idea was bewildering. Leo had bidden her suitor distinguish himself as the price at which her love was to be won; and the more he thought, the more the idea shone out, dazzling him by its intense light—shining into the dark places of his soul.
What was his theory? That if a hale, hearty man were suddenly cut off by some accident, and apparently dead, could he arrest decay, Nature herself would repair the injury done, even as a fractured bone rapidly knits together and becomes stronger than before.
Here, then, was a hale, hearty man suddenly cut down; he was the medical man in attendance, and the opportunity served for restoring this man to life. Why should he not make his first essay now?
The idea grew more terrible in its intensity hour by hour. It was his chance if he would grasp it. Impious? No, not more so than performing an operation or trying to save a sufferer from death. But he was dead.
“What we call dead,” muttered North; “but why not suspended animation? For her sake, for my own fame, to achieve a success such as the world has not heard of before, I must—I will make the essay.”
“But how?”
“And suppose I make him live once more—what then?”
The idea blinded him, and he covered his eyes to think.