sort of impression that he could have been far more thankful had he
not known the object of the kindnesses so unworthy. Next to
Wingfold's and his sister's, the face he always welcomed most was
that of the gate-keeper--indeed I ought hardly to say NEXT to
theirs; for if the curate was to him as a brother, Polwarth was like
a father in Christ. He came every day, and every day, almost till
that of his departure, Leopold had something to ask him about or
something to tell him.

"I am getting so stupid, Mr. Polwarth!" he said once. "It troubles
me much. I don't seem to care for anything now. I don't want to hear
the New Testament: I would rather hear a child's story--something
that did not want thinking about. If I am not coughing, I am
content. I could lie for hours and hours and never think more than
what goes creeping through my mind no faster than a canal in
Holland. When I am coughing,--I don't think about anything then
either--only long for the fit to be over and let me back again into
Sleepy Hollow. All my past life seems to be gone from me. I don't
care about it. Even my crime looks like something done ages ago. I
know it is mine, and I would rather it were not mine, but it is as
if a great cloud had come and swept away the world in which it took
place. I am afraid sometimes that I am beginning not to care even
about that. I say to myself, I shall be sorry again by and by, but I
can't think about it now. I feel as if I had handed it over to God
to lay down where I should find it again when I was able to think
and be sorry."

This was a long utterance for him to make, but he had spoken slowly,
and with frequent pauses. Polwarth did not speak once, feeling that
a dying man must be allowed to ease his mind after his own fashion,