is stomach would survive all the
rest of him." That which in Burley survived the last was his quaint,
wild genius. He looked wistfully at the still flame of the candle: "It
lives ever in the air!" said he.

"What lives ever?"

Burley's voice swelled, "Light!" He turned from Leonard, and
again contemplated the little flame. "In the fixed star, in the
Will-o'-the-wisp, in the great sun that illumines half a world, or the
farthing rushlight by which the ragged student strains his eyes,--still
the same flower of the elements! Light in the universe, thought in
the soul--Ay, ay, go on with the simile. My head swims. Extinguish the
light! You cannot; fool, it vanishes from your eye, but it is still in
the space. Worlds must perish, suns shrivel up, matter and spirit both
fall into nothingness, before the combinations whose union makes that
little flame which the breath of a babe can restore to darkness,
shall lose the power to form themselves into light once more. Lose the
power!--no, the necessity: it is the one Must in creation. Ay, ay, very
dark riddles grow clear now,--now when I could not cast up an addition
sum in the baker's bill! What wise man denied that two and two made
four? Do they not make four? I can't answer him. But I could answer a
question that some wise men have contrived to make much knottier." He
smiled softly, and turned his face for some minutes to the wall.

This was the second night on which Leonard had watched by his bedside,
and Burley's state had grown rapidly worse. He could not last many days,
perhaps many hours. But he had evinced an emotion beyond mere delight
at seeing Leonard again. He had since then been calmer, more himself. "I
feared I might have ruined you by my bad example," he said, with a touch
of humour that became pathos as he added, "That idea preyed on me."

"No, no; you did me great good."

"Say that,--say it often," said Burley, earnestly; "it makes my heart
feel so light."

He had listened to Leonard's story with deep interest, and was fond
of talking to him of little Helen. He detected the secret at the young
man's heart, and cheered the hopes that lay there, amidst fears and
sorrows. Burley never talked seriously of his repentance; it was not in
his nature to talk seriously of the things which he felt solemnly. But
his high animal spirits were quenched with the animal power that fed
them. Now, we go out of our sensual existence only when we are no longer
enthralled by th