North lit his lamp, which stood ready upon the stone table, and the yellow light filled the grim place with its soft glow once more--a pleasantly subdued light which displayed the surrounding niches and the empty coffin of the late squire, and shone softly upon gilt plate, handle, and tarnished nail, but lay in an intense ring of brightness upon the table that bore it and the sawdust around. The customary portion from the flask was poured out, and swallowed by the old sexton with a satisfied smack of the lips before he set down the glass upon a coffin-lid. "Ha! that's fine, doctor," he said with a loud laugh, as his countenance puckered into a goblin grin. "Cordial that is. Goes down into a man's toes and the tips of his fingers, and makes his heart beat. You're a clever one, doctor--a clever one, that you are. Rouse me up if you want me. I may go to sleep again--I may go to sleep." "Yes, yes, I'll call you," said North, as the old man seated himself once more in his corner with head against the wall, while before the doctor had settled the shade of his lamp to his satisfaction, a stertorous snore came from Moredock's corner, accompanied at intervals by a low moaning gasp. "How easy to produce death!" said North, in a low voice. "Science gives us the power to cause that and sleep, which is its semblance, at our will. Why should it be more difficult to produce life?" "How many nights is this?" he continued. "Ten, and I seem no nearer-- nay, further away, for--ah!" he ejaculated savagely, "there is that wretched coward shrinking again." He shivered and looked hastily round as he drew in his breath hard and with a curious catch. "Good heavens! of what am I afraid? The first amputator, the first explorer into Nature's hidden paths, where she guards her secrets so religiously--they only felt the same. Have I gone so far only to hesitate to go further?" He stood shrinking, with his hand clutching the white cloth spread over the table, and his eyes fixed on vacancy. "Am I--an experienced medical man--to be frightened by a shadow? I say that there is nothing wrong in my researches," he cried passionately, as if addressing some one in the corner of the vault. "It is for the benefit of posterity. My experiments upon this vile body here are right. "And yet I feel as if I cannot go further," he muttered, with the same abject shiver attacking him again; "as if I dared not--as if I must pause, and I have learned so much. I dare not! It is as if the hand of one's guardian angel were laid upon my breast, and a voice whispered--`Rash man, pause before it is too late!'"