ter, nor friend, will be near to administer food, or
medicine, or comfort; yet you can talk calmly; can be thus considerate
of others--of me; whose guilt has been so deep, and who has merited so
little at your hands!

"Wretched coward! Thus miserable as I am and expect to be, I cling to
life. To comply with your heroic counsel, and to fly; to leave you thus
desolate and helpless, is the strongest impulse. Fain would I resist it,
but cannot.

"To desert you would be flagitious and dastardly beyond all former acts;
yet to stay with you is to contract the disease, and to perish after
you.

"Life, burdened as it is with guilt and ignominy, is still dear--yet you
exhort me to go; you dispense with my assistance. Indeed, I could be of
no use; I should injure myself and profit you nothing. I cannot go into
the city and procure a physician or attendant. I must never more appear
in the streets of this city. I must leave you, then." He hurried to the
door. Again, he hesitated. I renewed my entreaties that he would leave
me; and encouraged his belief that his presence might endanger himself
without conferring the slightest benefit upon me.

"Whither should I fly? The wide world contains no asylum for me. I lived
but on one condition. I came hither to find what would save me from
ruin,--from death. I find it not. It has vanished. Some audacious and
fortunate hand has snatched it from its place, and now my ruin is
complete. My last hope is extinct.

"Yes, Mervyn! I will stay with you. I will hold your head. I will put
water to your lips. I will watch night and day by your side. When you
die, I will carry you by night to the neighbouring field; will bury you,
and water your grave with those tears that are due to your incomparable
worth and untimely destiny. Then I will lay myself in your bed, and wait
for the same oblivion."

Welbeck seemed now no longer to be fluctuating between opposite
purposes. His tempestuous features subsided into calm. He put the
candle, still lighted, on the table, and paced the floor with less
disorder than at his first entrance.

His resolution was seen to be the dictate of despair. I hoped that it
would not prove invincible to my remonstrances. I was conscious that his
attendance might preclude, in some degree, my own exertions, and
alleviate the pangs of death; but these consolations might be purchased
too dear. To receive them at the hazard of his life would be to make
them odious.

But, if he