‘No one—no one!’ he gasped. ‘Are you mad? Do you think I would betray my failure to the world? To have them laugh—deride——’ He fell back, gasping still, but menacing the young man with his eye. By degrees the fury of his glance relaxed, and he fell into a sort of slumber, always holding Wyndham’s arm, however, as if fearing he should go. He seemed stronger, and Wyndham knelt by the bed, wondering vaguely what was going to be the end of it all, and whether it would be possible to remove the corpse outside without detection. There was Denis—Denis was faithful, and could be trusted. Presently the Professor roused from his fit of unconsciousness. He looked up at the young man, and his expression was terrible. Despair in its worse form disfigured his features. The dream of a life had been extinguished. He tried to speak, but at first words failed him, then, ‘All the years—all the years!’ he mumbled. Wyndham understood, and his heart bled. The old man had given the best years of his life to his discovery, and now—— ‘I have killed her!’ went on the Professor, after a minute or two. ‘Science has killed her,’ said Wyndham. ‘No; I, with my cursed pride of belief in myself—I have killed her,’ persisted the old man. ‘I would to God it were not so!’ He did not believe in anything but science, yet he appealed to the Creator occasionally, as some moderns still do to Jove. His lean fingers beat feebly on the blankets. ‘A failure—a failure,’ he kept muttering, his eyes fixed on vacancy. ‘I go to my grave a failure! I set my soul on it. I believed in it, and it was naught.’ He was rambling, but presently he sprang into a sitting posture, his eyes afire once more. ‘I believe in it still!’ he shouted. ‘Oh, for time, for life, to prove.... O God, if there is a God, grant me a few more days!’ He fell into a violent fit of shivering, and Wyndham gently laid him back in his bed, and covered him again with the blankets, where he lay sullen, powerless. ‘Try not to think,’ implored the young man. ‘Think—think—what else is left to me? Oh, Paul!’ He stretched out his arm and caught Wyndham. ‘That it should be a failure after all. I wish——’ He paused, and then went on: ‘I wish I had not tried it upon her; she was young. She was a pretty creature, too. She was like ... someone——’ He broke off. ‘She was a mere waif and stray,’ said Wyndham, trying to harden his voice. ‘She was no waif or stray of the sort you mean,’ said the Professor. ‘Her face—was not like that. There’—pointing to the room outside—‘go; look on her for yourself, and read the truth of what I say.’ ‘It is not necessary,’ said the young man, with a slight shudder. And again a silence fell between them. It was again broken by the Professor. ‘She was full of life,’ he said; ‘and I took it.’