that miserable room, as she might have done."

"She had her victuals regular," observed Mr. Whitelaw, "and the best."

"Eating and drinking won't keep any one alive, if their heart's
breaking," said Ellen; "but, thank heaven, her sufferings have come to an
end now, and I trust God will forgive your share in them, Stephen."

And then, sitting by his bedside through the long hours of that night,
she tried in very simple words to awaken him to a sense of his condition.
It was not an easy business to let any glimmer of spiritual light in upon
the darkness of that sordid mind. There did arise perhaps in this last
extremity some dim sense of remorse in the breast of Mr. Whitelaw, some
vague consciousness that in that one act of his life, and in the whole
tenor of his life, he had not exactly shaped his conduct according to
that model which the parson had held up for his imitation in certain
rather prosy sermons, indifferently heard, on the rare occasions of his
attendance at the parish church. But whatever terrors the world to come
might hold for him seemed very faint and shapeless, compared with the
things from which he was to be taken. He thought of his untimely death as
a hardship, an injustice almost. When his wife entreated him to see the
vicar of Crosber before he died, he refused at first, asking what good
the vicar's talk could do him.

"If he could keep me alive as long as till next July, to see how those
turnips answer with the new dressing, I'd see him fast enough," he said
peevishly; "but he can't; and I don't want to hear his preaching."

"But it would be a comfort to you, surely, Stephen, to have him talk to
you a little about the goodness and mercy of God. He won't tell you hard
things, I'm sure of that."

"No, I suppose he'll try and make believe that death's uncommon
pleasant," answered Mr. Whitelaw with a bitter laugh; "as if it could be
pleasant to any man to leave such a place as Wyncomb, after doing as much
for the land, and spending as much labour and money upon it, as I have
done. It's like nurses telling children that a dose of physic's pleasant;
they wouldn't like to have to take it themselves."

And then by-and-by, when his last day had dawned, and he felt himself
growing weaker, Mr. Whitelaw expressed himself willing to comply with his
wife's request.

"If it's any satisfaction to you, Nell, I'll see the parson," he said.
"His talk can't do me much harm, anyhow." Whereupon the rector of Cros