"The man was on his bed; his face was deathly white and damp with the dew of agony. He was speaking in that low, terrible accent of despair which some persons in moments of mental pain utter when alone, if they think that none can hear them. There is something very strange and weird in such soliloquy: as a rule we talk for effect, but in moments like these the words follow the mind, disregarding all rules of coherency or consistency. Part of the cause of this confusion is that the mind, acting more quickly than speech, leaves a sentence often unfinished. "’Oh! that I might die!’ he cried. ’Now--even now--I have no power--Vera, I shall harm you--you whom I love more than life--I have harmed you--I see it day by day--little actions show it--and, oh God! I dare not think of it--where is the end?--what can all this lead to?--misery! Oh! my mother--you who taught me to love that which is noble--to hate and scorn a weak and unmanly action--can you see me now? Do you watch me hour by hour, learning to despise and hate me?--Oh! that I could die and go to you--or if death is but the end--if there is no awakening, how peaceful to close one’s eyes and know no more! It will kill me--kill me--when every spark of good that once was in my heart is gone--But why not now? I am going mad!--Things all seem confused--right and wrong--honour and dishonour--love and hate have no meaning--Vera, when I see you, I forget--I am happy--wildly, madly happy--yet I know not why. You belong to another, and I hate him. Oh! we are friends--only friends--and love is no earthly passion, but a communion of souls--What a farce--what folly! Would a soul feel as I do? it is a mockery--there is no soul anywhere--I doubt if there is a God. We are apes, dancing for the amusement of an audience of fiends! Oh! Vera, what have I said? That there is no spirit in you--it is impossible--I am the fiend who would drive the pure angel of your spirit into hell!’ "Thus did the wretched man ramble on until, exhausted by the excitement of remorse, he lay down and fell into a troubled sleep. While watching him I was conscious of a spiritual presence beside me, and knew that there had been another witness of his agony. The spirit of a woman was present, and I saw her, as it were, bending over him, and knew that it was his mother. What unending, untiring love was here! That pure affection which Saint Paul tried to explain when writing to the Corinthians by the word [Greek: agápê], which taketh not account of evil, but covering all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things, never faileth!