“I’ve done,” he said. “I’ll be satisfied. It is too horrible to go on.”
He crossed to the old man, who was now sleeping quite peacefully, and had raised his hand to shake him and bid him rise and help, but his hand stopped within a few inches of the old sexton’s shoulder, and he stepped back with an ejaculation full of anger.
“Coward! idiot!” he exclaimed. “That ignorant old boor sleeps as calmly as a child among these grisly relics of mortality, and you, enlightened by science, educated, a seeker after wisdom, shrink and shiver and dare do no more.
“No,” he added, after a pause; “it is too horrible. There is a something holds me back.
“And fame—the praise of men? And love? The kisses of Leo? Her bright looks—her pride in the man she will call husband? Horace North, are you going mad? Pause? Now? When there is triumph waiting, and a little further research will teach me all I want—maybe give me the great success?
“No; not if fifty guardian angels barred my way. I will win now in spite of all.”
The coward fit of shrinking had gone, and, with a laugh full of contempt for himself, he took a step to the table and snatched the white cloth from the great stone slab.