in rare hours we see the hidden depths of the soul, over
which we have floated in heedless unconsciousness so long, and catch a
glimpse of the hills and the valleys of those untravelled regions.

Charles sat very still with his chin in his hands. His mind did not
work. It looked right down to the heart of things.

There is, perhaps, no time when mental vision is so clear, when the mind
is so sane, as when death has come very near to us. There is a light
which he brings with him, which he holds before the eyes of the dying,
the stern light, seldom seen, of reality, before which self-deception
and meanness, and that which maketh a lie, cower in their native
deformity and slip away.

And death sheds at times a strange gleam from that same light upon the
souls of those who stand within his shadow, and watch his kingdom
coming. In an awful transfiguration all things stand for what they are.
Evil is seen to be evil, and good to be good. Right and wrong sunder
more far apart, and we cannot mistake them as we do at other times. The
debatable land stretching between them--that favorite resort of
undecided natures--disappears for a season, and offers no longer its
false refuge. The mind is taken away from all artificial supports, and
the knowledge comes home to the soul afresh, with strong conviction that
"truth is our only armor in all passages of life," as with awed hearts
we see it is the only armor in the hour of death, the only shield that
we may bear away with us into the unknown country.

Charles shuddered involuntarily. His decision of the afternoon to keep
secret what Raymond had told him was gradually but surely assuming a
different aspect. What was it, after all, but a suppression of truth--a
kind of lie? What was it but doing evil that good might come?

It was no use harping on the old string of consequences. He saw that he
had resolved to commit a deliberate sin, to be false to that great
principle of life--right for the sake of right, truth for the love of
truth--by which of late he had been trying to live. So far it had not
been difficult, for his nature was not one to do things by halves, but
now--

Old voices out of the past, which he had thought long dead, rose out of
forgotten graves to urge him on. What was he that he should stick at
such a trifle? Why should a man with his past begin to split hairs?

And conscience said nothing, only pointed, only showed, with a clearness
that allowed of no mistake, t