Guly approached, and taking a low seat by the bedside, laid his face softly down beside his brother's on the pillow, and reaching over, clasped his fingers gently round one burning hand. He lay quite still, with his eyes fixed upon the sleeper's face. Who could tell, save He who knoweth all things, what thoughts were rushing through that throbbing heart, as it nestled there closer and closer, to all it held dear in that distant land? The blue eyes filled suddenly full of tears, bright and pure, even as that boy's path of life had ever been, and dropped down, one by one, upon the pillow. There was no visible cause for them, but they kept falling, those pure bright tears, till the fair cheeks over which they fell were bathed, and the pillow damped. Was there a shadow-like presentiment creeping over that young spirit then, telling him to nestle close, close, for the time was coming when those two hearts would throb no more beside each other, and that the waves of life's ocean would some day cast one upon the shore, and bear the other far out to sea? Even so! It was dim, ghost-like, and undefined; but still the shadow flitted there darkly! The sleeper turned restlessly, and uttered a plaintive moan. It was not a moan of pain, but one of sympathy; as if the grief in the heart beside him had crept into his own. He lifted one arm wearily, and it fell back upon the pillow, and the unconscious fingers lifted the rings of jetty hair from the fevered brow. That bright brow! that pale, proud brow! how it gleamed out in contrast with those glossy curls. Guly gazed upon it, then lifted his head and kissed it; and the tears, still quivering on his lashes, fell upon it--that brother's brow! Arthur opened his eyes, and gazed up steadily at the face bent over him. There was something in the expression of that face which went over his heart like a strain of touching music. He could not bear that it should be turned away from him, or that he should lose it, and he raised both hands, and, laying them among the silken curls, held it there. "Oh, Guly! Guly! do you know all?" "Dear Arthur! don't speak of this." "Yet you have sorrowed for me; you have grieved, and been silent, and unreproachful. Oh, Guly! what a wretch I am!" "Hush, Arthur! oh, don't, don't!" The tears fell down again, unrestrainedly, upon that pale brow, gleaming up from the jetty locks, and for a moment neither spoke. "I feel, Guly, as though I had taken a long leap into sin--such a long one, that I shall never get back; and everything seems at work to keep me in it. What shall I ever, ever do--I am so weak--so--so--" "Oh, Arthur, look up--look ever up. God's finger points out the way to you from the sky; trust yourself to its holy guidance, and be strong." "Guly, I can't. It seems a long while since I prayed at all--since yesterday I seem to have lived an age, and it is black, all black!"