For, on the contrary, everything combined.

If he had had Phillis’s scruples, or Brigard’s beliefs, he would have stopped.

But, not having them, would he not be silly to draw back?

Before what should he shrink?  Why should he stop?

Remorse?  But he was convinced that intelligent men had no remorse when they came to a decision on good grounds.  It was before that they felt remorse, not after; and he was exactly in this period of before.

Fear of being arrested?  But intelligent men do not let themselves be arrested.  Those who are lost are brutes who go straight ahead, or the half-intelligent, who use their skill and cunning to combine a complicated or romantic act, in which their hand is plainly seen.  As for him, he was a man of science and precision, and he would not compromise himself by act or sentiment; there would be nothing to fear during the action, and nothing afterward.  Caffie strangled, suspicion would not fall upon a doctor, but on a brute.  When doctors wish to kill any one, they do it learnedly, by poison or by some scientific method.  Brutal men kill brutally; murder, called the assassin’s profession.

A few minutes before, he was inundated by perspiration; this word froze him.

He rose nervously, and walked up and down the room with long, unsteady steps.  The fire had long since gone out; out-of-doors the street noises had ceased, and in his brain resounded the one word that he pronounced in a low tone, “Assassin!”

Was he the man to be influenced and stopped by a word?  Where are the rich, the self-made men, the successful men, who have not left some corpses on the road behind them?  Success carries them safely, and they achieved success only because they had force.

Certainly, violence was not recreation, and it would be more agreeable to go in his way peacefully, by the power of intelligence and work, than to make a way by blows; but he had not chosen this road, he was thrown into it by circumstances, by fate, and whoever wishes to reach the end cannot choose the means.  If one must walk in the mud, what matters it, when one knows that one will not get muddy?

If Caffie had had heirs, poor people who expected to be saved from misery by inheriting his fortune, he would have been touched by this consideration, undoubtedly.  Robber!  The word was yet more vile than that of assassin.  But who would miss the few banknotes that he would take from the safe?  To steal is to injure some one.  Whom would he injure?  He could see no one.  But he saw distinctly an army of afflicted persons whom he would benefit.

A timid ring of the bell made him start violently, and he was angry with himself for being so nervous, he who was always master of his mind as of his body.

He opened the door, and a man dressed like a laborer bowed humbly.

“I beg your pardon for disturbing you, sir.”

“What do you want?”