Wyndham made a movement as if to speak, but the Professor checked him. ‘Of course, if the experiment is successful,’ he said, ‘I shall provide for you for life.’ ‘I hope you will not have to provide for me,’ she said. At this, a little silence fell upon the room, that seemed to chill it. The Professor broke it. ‘You agree, then?’ ‘I agree.’ She rose, and held out her hand. ‘Give me the draught.’ Wyndham started, his voice vibrating with horror. ‘No, no!’ he cried. ‘She does not understand; and’—to the Professor—‘neither do you. If this thing fails, it will mean murder. Think, I entreat you, before it is too late to think. That girl’—pointing to the young stranger, who was standing regarding him with a dull curiosity—‘she is but a child. She cannot know her own mind. She ought not to be allowed to settle so stupendous a question. Look at her!’ His voice shook. ‘Many a happier girl at her age would still be in her schoolroom. She is so young that, whatever her wrongs, her sorrows may be, she has still time before her to conquer or live them down. Professor, I implore you, do not go on with this.’ The Professor rested a contemptuous glance on him for a moment, then swept it from him, and addressed the girl. ‘You are willing?’ he said. ‘Yes.’ She spoke quite firmly, but she was looking at Wyndham. It was a strange look, made up of surprise and some other feeling hardly defined. ‘She is not all,’ broke in Wyndham again, vehemently. ‘There is you to be considered, too. If this sleep of your making terminates fatally, have you considered the consequences to yourself?’ The Professor smiled. He pointed to the girl, who stood marble-white beneath the dull gaslight. ‘Like her, I take the risk,’ he said. ‘I think I told you a little while ago that I would chance the hanging.’ His smile—a very unpleasant one—faded suddenly, and his manner grew brusque and arrogant. ‘There—enough,’ he said. ‘Stand aside, man. Do you think that now—now when at last my hour has come—I am likely to let it slip, though death itself lay before me?’ ‘For God’s sake, Professor, think yet a moment!’ said the younger man, holding him in his grasp. ‘She is young—so young!... To take a life like that!’ ‘I am going to take no life’—coldly. ‘I see now that you never had any faith in me at all.’ ‘I believe in you as no other man does,’ rejoined Wyndham hotly. ‘But surely at this supreme moment a doubt may be allowed me. If this thing were done openly in the eye of day, in sight of all men, it were well; but to try so deadly an experiment here, at midnight—with no witnesses, as it were—great heavens! you must see the pitfall you are laying for yourself. If this experiment fails——’ ‘It will not fail,’ said the Professor coldly. ‘In the meantime’—he cast a scornful glance at him—‘if you are afraid of being called as a witness, it is’—pointing to the door—‘still open to you to avoid such a disagreeability.’ Their eyes met.