Gregory could not believe himself the haggard wretch that Mr. Walton had found two hours since. Then he was ready to welcome death as a deliverer. Insane man! As if death ever delivered any from evil but the good! But so potent had been the sweet wine of Annie's ministry that his chilled and benumbed heart was beginning to glow with a faint warmth of hope and comfort. Morbidness could no more exist in her presence than shadows on the sunny side of trees. With her full knowledge of the immediate cause of his suffering, and with her unusual tact, she had applied balm to body and spirit at the same time. The sharp, cutting agony in his head had been charmed away. The paroxysm had passed, and the dull ache that remained seemed nothing in comparison--merely the heavy swell of the departed storm. He forgot himself, the source of all his trouble, in thinking about Miss Walton. The plain girl, as he had at first regarded her, with a weak, untried character that he had expected to topple over by the breath of a little flattery, now seemed divinely beautiful and strong. She reminded him of the graceful, symmetrical elm, which, though bending to the tempest, is rarely broken or uprooted. He hardly hoped that she would give him credit for the real state of his mind which had led to his ready promise of secrecy. To the counterfeiter's wretched companion he had seemed the weakest and meanest of cowards, and if the story were generally known he would appear in the same light to the world. To his intensely proud nature this would be intolerable. And why should it not be known? If Miss Walton chose to regard his choice as one of cowardice, how could he prove, even to her, that it was not? Moreover, his low estimate of human nature led him to believe that even Annie would use him as a dark background for her heroism; and he well knew that when such a story is once started, society's strongest tendency is to exaggerate man's pusillanimity and woman's courage. He shuddered as he saw himself growing blacker and meaner in every fireside and street corner narration of the strange tale, till at last his infamy should pass into one of the traditions of the place. A man like Gregory could not long have endured such a prospect. He would have died, either by every physical power speedily giving way under mental anguish, or by his own hand; or, if he had lived, reason would have dropped its sceptre and become the sport of wild thoughts and fancies.