given her no warning), he was in bed,
and looking as ill as ever she had seen him. His small head was like a
skull covered with parchment. He made the slightest of signs to her to
come nearer--and again. She went close to the bed. Mewks sat down at
the foot of it, out of sight. It was a great four-post-bed, with
curtains.

"I'm glad you're come," he said, with a feeble grin, all he had for a
smile. "I want to have a little talk with you. But I can't while that
brute is sitting there. I have been suffering horribly. Look at me, and
tell me if you think I am going to die--not that I take your opinion
for worth anything. That's not what I wanted you for, though. I wasn't
so ill then. But I want you the more to talk to now. _You_ have a bit
of a heart, even for people that don't deserve it--at least I'm going
to believe you have; and, if I am wrong, I almost think I would rather
not know it till I'm dead and gone!--Good God! where shall I be then?"

I have already said that, whether in consequence of remnants of
mother-teaching or from the movements of a conscience that had more
vitality than any of his so-called friends would have credited it with,
Mr. Redmain, as often as his sufferings reached a certain point, was
subject to fits of terror--horrible anguish it sometimes amounted
to--at the thought of hell. This, of course, was silly, seeing hell is
out of fashion in far wider circles than that of Mayfair; but denial
does not alter fact, and not always fear. Mr. Redmain laughed when he
was well, and shook when he was suffering. In vain he argued with
himself that what he held by when in health was much more likely to be
true than a dread which might be but the suggestion of the disease that
was slowly gnawing him to death: as often as the sickness returned, he
received the suggestion afresh, whatever might be its source, and
trembled as before. In vain he accused himself of cowardice--the thing
was there--_in him_--nothing could drive it out. And, verily, even a
madman may be wiser than the prudent of this world; and the courage of
not a few would forsake them if they dared but look the danger in the
face. I pity the poor ostrich, and must I admire the man of whose kind
he is the type, or take him in any sense for a man of courage? Wait
till the thing stares you in the face, and then, whether you be brave
man or coward, you will at all events care little about courage or
cowardice. The nearer a man is to being a true man