He is nervous, almost
hysterical; his thin classical features are distorted and tense, as
though he were undergoing actual physical pain. And indeed to his
sensitive nature, the events of the night are sufficient to unnerve his
mind and body.
He is to meet Carl Metz and Hendrick Stahl in the morning, to start for
the East.
"The syndicate of annihilation is now incorporated," he observes, half
aloud. "I am no longer the promoter; now I assume a place as one of the
avengers of the people. God alone knows how repugnant this plan for
physical vengeance is to me, yet it is better than to permit a storm of
anarchy to come upon us. And the conditions that exist cannot long
continue."
Although every man has been called upon to make a personal sacrifice
there is none who makes a greater one than he. It is not alone the
relinquishment of his position in the world as a patient and industrious
worker; his sacrifice of love; the obliteration of his hope for
preferment, but the extinction of life itself at an age when all men
cherish it most highly.
Nevins is in the heyday of manhood; his forty years and six having been
spent in the perfection of his mental and physical forces. He is
equipped with a quick, perceptive brain that grasps the intricacies of a
problem almost intuitively; his logic is profound. Years of study have
made his mind a storehouse of knowledge.
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