urse not! Neither
have I. But you must know in a general way what the process is. Well,
this has been the exact opposite!

"First, I stared at the heap of grave-mold as it shaped itself into
_bones_, a skeleton.

"I watched the coming of hair, a yellow tangle of it sprouting from
the bare round skull, until--oh, God!--the flesh began making itself
before my eyes! I couldn't bear any more. I stayed away--didn't come
to the office for five days."

The tube slipped from his sweating, slick fingers. Panting, Asa Gregg
fumbled in the dark until he found it.

Exhaustion, not self-control, flattened his voice to a deadly
monotone. "I tried to think of a way out. If I could fish the corpse
out of the tank! But I couldn't smuggle it out of the plant--alone.
You know that, and so do I. Besides, what would be the use? If acid
can't kill her, nothing can.

"That's why I can't have the lid cemented on. It wouldn't do any good,
either! Until three days ago, she hadn't the least color, looked as
white as a ghost in the vat. A naked ghost, because there's been no
resurrection for her clothing....

"I've watched her limbs grow rosy! Her lips are scarlet! Her eyes are
bright--they opened yesterday--and her breasts were rising and
falling--oh, almost imperceptibly--but that was last night.

"And tonight--I swear it--her lips moved! She muttered my name! She
turned--she'd been lying on her side--over onto her back!"

The record would be badly blurred. His hand shook violently, bobbled
the tube against his lips. Gregg braced his elbow against the desk.

"She isn't dead," he choked. "She's only asleep ... not very soundly
asleep.... She's waking up!"

The invisible needle quivered as it traced several noises. There was
his tortured breathing, and the clawing of his fingernails rattling
over the desk. The drawer clicked as it opened.

The loud click was the cocking of the revolver.

"_Soon she's going to get out of that vat!_" Gregg bleated.
"Jeannette, forgive me--God, forgive me--but I will not--I cannot--I
dare not stay here to see her then!"

* * * * *

The sound of the shot brought the watchman stumbling along the
corridor. He crashed against the office door. It banged open in a
shower of falling frosted glass. The watchman's flashlight severed the
darkness, and printed its white circle on the face of Asa Gregg.

He had fallen back into the chair, a blackish gout of blood running
from th