The scholar, therefore, dared not trust him; and either there was an end of the matter or he must trust Basterga, must eat his own words, and, content with the possession of something, must wait for proof of its efficacy until the die was cast! In his heart he knew this.

He knew that on the brink of the extremity to which circumstances and Basterga were slowly pushing him it might not be in his power to check himself: that he must trust, whether he would or no, and where instinct bade him place no trust.

And this doubt, this suspicion that when all was done he might find himself tricked, and learn that for nothing he had given all, added immeasurably to the torment of his mind; to the misery of his reflections when he awoke in the small hours and saw things coldly and clearly, and to the fever and suspense in which he passed his days.
He clung to one thought and got what consolation he could from it; a bitter and saturnine comfort it was.

The thought was this: if it turned out that, after all, he had been tricked, he could but die; and die he must if he made no bargain.

And to a dead man what matter was it what price he had paid that he might live! What matter who won or who lost Geneva, who lived, who died, who were slaves, who free! And again, the very easiness of the thing he was asked to do tempted him.