present condition of things might be made to continue indefinitely.
Since death was to-day no nearer than it had been seven years ago, there
was no reason why it might not be guarded against during seven years
more, and if during seven, why not during ten, twenty, fifty? She had
for a helper a physician of consummate practical skill--a man whose
interest in the result of the trial was, if anything, more keen than
her own; a friend, above all, whom she believed she might trust, and who
appeared to trust her.

But in the course of their great experiment they had together made
rules by which they had mutually agreed to be bound. They had of late
determined that the old man must not be disturbed in his profound rest
by any question tending to cause a state of mental activity. The test of
a very fine instrument had proved that the shortest interval of positive
lucidity was followed by a slight but distinctly perceptible rise
of temperature in the body, and this could mean only a waste of the
precious tissues they were so carefully preserving. They hoped and
believed that the grand crisis was at hand, and that, if the body did
not now lose strength and vitality for a considerable time, both would
slowly though surely increase, in consequence of the means they were
using to instill new blood into the system. But the period was supreme,
and to interfere in any way with the progress of the experiment was to
run a risk of which the whole extent could only be realised by Unorna
and her companion.

She hesitated therefore, well knowing that her ally would oppose her
intention with all his might, and dreading his anger, bold as she was,
almost as much as she feared the danger to the old man's life. On the
other hand, she had a motive which the physician could not have, and
which, as she was aware, he would have despised and condemned. She had a