idnight and he was very tired, but it
seemed impossible to sleep with the sound of that loud, monotonous
mumbling perpetually in his ears. It was a horrible night, and John Short
never forgot it so long as he lived. Years afterwards he could not enter
the room where Goddard had lain without fancying he heard that perpetual
groaning still ringing in his ears. For many hours it continued unabated
and unchanging, never dying away to silence nor developing to articulate
words. From time to time John could hear the squire's step as he moved
about, administering the nourishment prescribed. If he had had the
slightest idea of Mr. Juxon's state of mind he would hardly have left him
even to rest awhile in the next room.

Fortunately the squire's nerves were solid. A firm constitution hardened
by thirty years of seafaring and by the consistent and temperate
regularity which was part of his character, had so toughened his natural
strength as to put him almost beyond the reach of mortal ills; otherwise
he must have broken down under the mental strain thus forced upon him. It
is no light thing to do faithfully the utmost to save a man one has good
reason to hate, and whose death would be an undoubted blessing to every
one who has anything to do with him. Walter Goddard was to Charles Juxon
at once an enemy, an obstacle and a rival; an enemy, for having attempted
his life, an obstacle, because while he lived he prevented the squire
from marrying Mrs. Goddard and a rival because she had once loved him and
for the sake of that love was still willing to sacrifice much for him.
And yet the very fact that she had loved him made it easier to be kind to
him; it seemed to the squire that, after all, in taking care of Goddard
he was in some measure serving her, too, seeing that she would have done
the same thing herself could she have been present.

Yet there was something very generous and large-hearted in the way
Charles Juxon did his duty by the sick man. There are people who seem by
nature designed to act heroic parts in life, whose actions habitually
take an heroic form, and whose whole character is of another stamp from
that of average humanity. Of such people much is expected, because they
seem to offer much; no one is surprised to hear of their making great
sacrifices, no one is astonished if they exhibit great personal courage
in times of danger. Very often they are people of large vanity, whose
chiefest vanity is not to seem vain; g