This latter sound appealed to something within the simple schoolmaster, who had been witnessing the demeanor of the Doctor, like a being looking from another sphere into the trouble of the mortal one; a being incapable of passion, observing the mute, hard struggle of one in its grasp.
“Friend,” said he at length, “thou hast something on thy mind.”
“Aye,” said the grim Doctor, coming to a stand before his chair. “You see that? Can you see as well what it is?”
“Some stir and writhe of something in the past that troubles you, as if you had kept a snake for many years in your bosom, and stupefied it with brandy, and now it awakes again, and troubles you with bites and stings.”
“What sort of a man do you think me?” asked the Doctor.
“I cannot tell,” said the schoolmaster. “The sympathies of my nature are not those that should give me knowledge of such men.”
“Am I, think you,” continued the grim Doctor, “a man capable of great crime?”
“A great one, if any,” said Colcord; “a great good, likewise, it might be.”
“What would I be likely to do,” asked Doctor Grim, “supposing I had a darling purpose, to the accomplishment of which I had given my soul,—yes, my soul,—my success in life, my days and nights of thought, my years of time, dwelling upon it, pledging myself to it, until at last I had grown to love the burden of it, and not to regret my own degradation? I, a man of strongest will. What would I do, if this were to be resisted?”
“I do not conceive of the force of will shaping out my ways,” said the schoolmaster. “I walk gently along and take the path that opens before me.”