Choose the answer.

Read the passage from "The Tell-Tale Heart":

...I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the d-mned spot. Which best explains how this action provokes the speaker to murder the old man?'

The eye, which the speaker hates, becomes separate and distinct from the man himself, whom the speaker says he loves.

The speaker realizes that the old man's eyes are open, which means that the old man would be able to tell everybody who attacked him.

The speaker realizes that the old man is afraid, and he wants to put the old man out of his misery.

The old man's glassy eye makes the speaker think that he's dead already.