d 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