He would wait a few months longer for the final result, he would select his victim, and with Unorna's help he would himself grow young again.
"And who can tell," he asked himself, "whether the life restored by such means may not be more resisting and stronger against deathly influences than before?
Is it not true that the older we grow the more slowly we grow old?
Is not the gulf which divides the infant from the man of twenty years far wider than that which lies between the twentieth and the fortieth years, and that again more full of rapid change than the third score?
Take, too, the wisdom of my old age as against the folly of a scarce grown boy, shall not my knowledge and care and forethought avail to make the same material last longer on the second trial than on the first ?" No doubt of that, he thought, as he walked briskly along the pavement and entered his own house.

In his great room he sat down by the table and fell into a long meditation upon the most immediate consequences of his success in the difficult undertaking he had so skilfully brought to a conclusion.

His eyes wandered about the room from one specimen to another, and from time to time a short, scornful laugh made his white beard quiver.

As he had said once to Unorna, the dead things reminded him of many failures; but he had never before been able to laugh at them and at the unsuccessful efforts they represented.

It was different to-day.