“I am sure I meant to give myself up,” said Leopold. “I had not the slightest idea they were fooling me. I know it now, but what can I do? I am so weak, I should only die on the way.” He tried to rise, but fell back in the chair. “Oh!” he sighed, “isn’t it good of God to let me die! Who knows what he may do for me on the other side! Who can tell what the bounty of a God like Jesus may be!” A vision arose before the mind’s eye of the curate:--Emmeline kneeling for Leopold’s forgiveness; but he wisely held his peace. The comforter of the sinner must come from the forgiveness of God, not from the favourable judgment of man mitigating the harshness of his judgment of himself. Wingfold’s business was to start him well in the world whither he was going. He must fill his scrip with the only wealth that would not dissolve in the waters of the river--that was, the knowledge of Jesus. It shot a terrible pang to the heart of Helen, herself, for all her suffering, so full of life, when she learned that her darling must die. Yet was there no small consolation mingled with the shock. Fear vanished, and love returned with grief in twofold strength. She flew to him, and she who had been so self-contained, so composed, so unsubmissive to any sway of feeling, broke into such a storm of passionate affection that the vexilla mortis answered from his bosom, flaunting themselves in crimson before her eyes. In vain, for Leopold’s sake, the curate had sought to quiet her: she had resented his interference; but this result of her impetuosity speedily brought her to her senses, and set her to subdue herself. The same evening Leopold insisted on dictating to the curate his confession, which done, he signed it, making him and Helen attest the signature. This document Wingfold took charge of, promising to make the right use of it, whatever he should on reflection conclude that to be; after which Leopold’s mind seemed at ease. His sufferings from cough and weakness and fever now augmented with greater rapidity, but it was plain from the kind of light in his eye, and the far look which was not yet retrospective, that hope and expectation were high in him. He had his times of gloom, when the dragon of the past crept out of its cave, and tore him afresh; but the prospect of coming deliverance strengthened him. “Do you really think,” he said once to the curate, “that I shall ever see Emmeline again?” “Truly I hope so,” answered his friend, “and could argue upon the point. But I think the best way, when doubt comes as to anything you would like to be true, is just to hide yourself in God, as the child would hide from the dark in the folds of his mother’s mantle.” “But aunt would say, if she knew, that, dying as she did, Emmeline could not be saved.”