id this with that wondrous smile of his, which cast a
brightness over the whole room, and went away. Leonard stole softly
towards the grimy window; and looking up towards the stars that shone
pale over the roof-tops, he murmured, "O Thou, the All-seeing and
All-merciful! how it comforts me now to think that, though my dreams of
knowledge may have sometimes obscured the heavens, I never doubted that
Thou wert there! as luminous and everlasting, though behind the cloud!"
So, for a few minutes, he prayed silently, then passed into Helen's
room, and sat beside her motionless, for she slept. She woke just as
Harley returned with a physician; and then Leonard, returning to his own
room, saw amongst his papers the letter he had written to Mr. Dale, and
muttering, "I need not disgrace my calling,--I need not be the mendicant
now"--held the letter to the flame of the candle. And while he said
this, and as the burning tinder dropped on the floor, the sharp hunger,
unfelt during his late anxious emotions, gnawed at his entrails. Still,
even hunger could not reach that noble pride which had yielded to
a sentiment nobler than itself, and he smiled as he repeated, "No
mendicant!--the life that I was sworn to guard is saved. I can raise
against Fate the front of Man once more."

CHAPTER XIX.

A few days afterwards, and Helen, removed to a pure air, and under the
advice of the first physicians, was out of all danger.

It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows looking over the wild
heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode daily to watch the convalescence
of his young charge: an object in life was already found. As she grew
better and stronger, he coaxed her easily into talking, and listened
to her with pleased surprise. The heart so infantine and the sense so
womanly struck him much by its rare contrast and combination. Leonard,
whom he had insisted on placing also in the cottage, had stayed there
willingly till Helen's recovery was beyond question. Then he came to
Lord L'Estrange, as the latter was about one day to leave the cottage,
and said quietly, "Now, my Lord, that Helen is safe, and now that she
will need me no more, I can no longer be a pensioner on your bounty. I
return to London."

"You are my visitor, not my pensioner, foolish boy," said Harley, who
had already noticed the pride which spoke in that farewell; "come into
the garden and let us talk."

Harley seated himself on a bench on the little lawn; Nero