and turned his face for some minutes to the wall.

This was the second night on which Leonard had watched by his bedside,
and Burley's state had grown rapidly worse. He could not last many days,
perhaps many hours. But he had evinced an emotion beyond mere delight at
seeing Leonard again. He had since then been calmer, more himself. "I
feared I might have ruined you by my bad example," he said, with a touch
of humour that became pathos as he added, "That idea preyed on me."

"No, no; you did me great good."

"Say that,--say it often," said Burley, earnestly; "it makes my heart
feel so light."

He had listened to Leonard's story with deep interest, and was fond of
talking to him of little Helen. He detected the secret at the young
man's heart, and cheered the hopes that lay there, amidst fears and
sorrows. Burley never talked seriously of his repentance; it was not in
his nature to talk seriously of the things which he felt solemnly. But
his high animal spirits were quenched with the animal power that fed
them. Now, we go out of our sensual existence only when we are no longer
enthralled by the Present, in which the senses have their realm. The
sensual being vanishes when Ave are in the Past or the Future. The
Present was gone from Burley; he could no more be its slave and its king.

It was most touching to see how the inner character of this man unfolded
itself, as the leaves of the outer character fell off and withered,--a
character no one would have guessed in him, an inherent refinement that
was almost womanly; and he had all a woman's abnegation of self. He took
the cares lavished on him so meekly. As the features of the old man