sonable
hopefulness which in a consumptive patient often increases as strength
declines.

His will was signed, and in his brother's keeping; all his affairs were
settled.

"I know," he had said to his brother, "that I have entirely brought this
illness on myself. I was perfectly well. I often think that if I had
never come here I should have been so still. I had my choice; I had my
way. But if I recover, as there seems still reason to think I may, I
hope it will be to lead a higher and happier life. Perhaps even some
day, though always repenting it, I may be able to look back on this
fault and its punishment of illness and despondency with a thankful
heart. It showed me myself. I foresee, I almost possess such a feeling
already. It seems to have been God's way of bringing me near to Him.
Sometimes I feel as if I could not have done without it."

Valentine said these words before he fell asleep that night, and Giles,
as he sat by him, was impressed by them, and pondered on them. So young
a man seldom escapes from the bonds of his own reticence, when speaking
of his past life, his faults, and his religious feelings. This was not
like Valentine. He was changed, but that, considering what he had
undergone, did not surprise a man who could hope and believe anything of
him, so much as did his open, uncompromising way of speaking about such
a change.

"And yet it seems strange," Valentine added, after a pause, "that we
should be allowed, for want of knowing just a little more, to throw
ourselves away."

"We Could hardly believe that it was in us, any of us, to throw
ourselves away," Brandon answered, "if we were always warned to the
point of prevention."

Valentine sighed. "I suppose we cannot have it both ways. If God,
because man is such a sinner, so overruled and overawed him that no
crime could be committed, he would be half-unconscious of the sin in his
nature, and would look up no more either for renewal or forgiveness. Men
obliged to abstain from evil could not feel that their nature was lower
than their conduct. When I have wished, Giles, as I often have done
lately, that I could have my time over again, I have felt consoled, in
knowing this could not be, to recollect how on the consciousness of the
fault is founded the conscious longing for pardon. But I will tell you
more of all this to-morrow," he added; and soon after that he fell
asleep.

A nurse was to have watched with him that night, but Brandon could