One evening Victor sat in his laboratory. The sun had set, and the moon was just rising from the sea. There was not enough light to work by, so he sat idle, wondering whether to stop for the night or press on without rest and finish sooner.
As he sat there, a train of thought came to him. It was about what the work he was doing would lead to.
Three years earlier he had been busy in the same way. He had made a fiend, and its unmatched cruelty had laid waste his heart and filled it for ever with the bitterest remorse.