--Dwelling there I have worn out my heart.--To search the tombs for
their horrible secrets; to wipe hands steeped in blood, counting them
over night after night, seeing them rise up before me imploring
forgiveness which I may not grant; to mark the writhing of the
assassin and the last shriek of his victim; to listen to appalling
noises and fearful silence, the silence of a father devouring his dead
sons; to wonder at the laughter of the damned; to look for some human
form among the livid heaps wrung and trampled by crime; to learn words
such as living men may not hear without dying; to call perpetually on
the dead, and always to accuse and condemn!--Is that living?"

"Cease!" cried Godefroid; "I cannot see you or hear you any further!
My reason wanders, my eyes are dim. You light a fire within me which
consumes me."

"And yet I must go on!" said the senior, waving his hand with a
strange gesture that worked on the youth like a spell.

For a moment the old man fixed Godefroid with his large, weary,
lightless eyes; then he pointed with one finger to the ground. A gulf
seemed to open at his bidding. He remained standing in the doubtful
light of the moon; it lent a glory to his brow which reflected an
almost solar gleam. Though at first a somewhat disdainful expression
lurked in the wrinkles of his face, his look presently assumed the
fixity which seems to gaze on an object invisible to the ordinary
organs of sight. His eyes, no doubt, were seeing then the remoter
images which the grave has in store for us.

Never, perhaps, had this man presented so grand an aspect. A terrible
struggle was going on in his soul, and reacted on his outer frame;