I sat for a few minutes in silence, thinking that as Mr Crasweller had banished Eva, he would begin. But he said nothing, and would have remained silent had I allowed him to do so. "Crasweller," I said, "it is certainly not well that you and I should quarrel on this matter. In your company I first learned to entertain this project, and for years we have agreed that in it is to be found the best means for remedying the condition of mankind." "I had not felt then what it is to be treated as one who was already dead." "Does Eva treat you so?" "Yes; with all her tenderness and all her sweet love, Eva feels that my days are numbered unless I will boldly declare myself opposed to your theory. She already regards me as though I were a visitant from the other world. Her very gentleness is intolerable." "But, Crasweller, the convictions of your mind cannot be changed." "I do not know. I will not say that any change has taken place. But it is certain that convictions become vague when they operate against one's self. The desire to live is human, and therefore God-like. When the hand of God is felt to have struck one with coming death, the sufferer, knowing the blow to be inevitable, can reconcile himself; but it is very hard to walk away to one's long rest while health, and work, and means of happiness yet remain." There was something in this which seemed to me to imply that he had abandoned the weak assertion as to his age, and no longer intended to ask for a year of grace by the use of that falsehood. But it was necessary that I should be sure of this. "As to your exact age, I've been looking at the records," I began. "The records are right enough," he said; "you need trouble yourself no longer about the records. Eva and I have discussed all that." From this I became aware that Eva had convinced him of the baseness of the falsehood. "Then there is the law," said I, with, as I felt, unflinching hardness. "Yes, there is the law,--if it be a law. Mr Exors is prepared to dispute it, and says that he will ask permission to argue the case out with the executive." "He would argue about anything. You know what Exors is." "And there is that poor man Barnes has gone altogether out of his mind, and has become a drivelling idiot." "They told me yesterday that he was a raging lunatic; but I learn from really good authority that whether he takes one part or the other, he is only acting." "And Tallowax is prepared to run amuck against those who come to fetch him. He swears that no one shall lead him up to the college."