Read the following lines from “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

“Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed! –tear up the planks! Here, here! –It is the beating of his hideous heart!”

What does the beating heart symbolize in the excerpt above?
A)The narrator’s guilt

B)The murder of the old man

C)The police identifying the culprit

D)The old man’s vulture eye