ndered awkward by an ugly little thread of
something like truth and justice, which showed here and there along its
course.

"They've taught me to love; did they think they could stop there? that I
shouldn't learn to lie, as well? and to hate, and be revengeful? and to
be afraid? Was I so bad when I came here, that all this has made me no
worse? I was happy, at any rate; my brain was clear; my mind had no
fear, and no weariness--it was like an athlete; my blood was cool. Look
at me now! Am not I ruined by this patching and mending? I can do no
work. When I think, it's no longer of how I might become great, and
wise, and powerful--of nothing inspiring--nothing noble; but all about
these petty, heated, miserable affairs, that have twisted themselves
around me, and are choking me up. I don't ask myself, any more, whether
my name will be as highly honored and as long remembered as the
Christian Apostles', and Mohammed's, and Luther's. My only question is,
whether I'm to turn out more of a fool, or of a liar! And _I_ love
Sophie Valeyon! I'm to be her husband."

The young man came to a sudden stop, and slowly lifted his head. Through
the sullen, unhappy, and resentful cloud that darkened his eyes, there
glimmered doubtfully a light such as can be reflected only from what is
most divine in man. It was a strange moment for it to appear, for at no
time had Bressant's moral level been so low as now; but, happily, the
phenomenon is by no means without precedent in human nature. God is
never ashamed to declare the share He holds in a sinner's heart, however
black the heart may be.

"No, no!" said he; and, as he said it, the first tears that he had ever
known glistened for a moment in his eyes; "such as I am, I must never
marry her."

The point on which this sudden and momentous resolve turned was so
subtle and delicately evanescent as scarcely to be susceptible of
clearer portrayal. To be consistent, the weight of his revengeful
sentiments should have been directed upon Sophie, for she it was who had
played the most effective part in changing his nature, and swerving him
from his cold but sublime ambitions. By teaching Bressant love, she
had, by implication, done him deadly injury, yet was the love itself so
pure and genuine as to prompt him to resign its object; he being
rendered unworthy of her by that same moral dereliction which she
herself had occasioned.

But the very quality which enables us to do a noble deed dulls ou