patent joy, the childish faith, and the rude wickedness so pardonable
because so frankly brutal--had worked upon him. The elemental spirit of
it all had so invaded his nature, breaking through the crust of old habit
to the new man, that, when he fell before his temptation, and his body
became saturated with liquor, the healthy natural being and the growing
natural mind were overpowered by the coarse onslaught, and death had
nearly followed.

It was his first appeal to a force outside himself, to an active
principle unfamiliar to the voluntary working of his nature, and the
answer had been immediate and adequate. Yet what was it? He did not
ask; he had not got beyond the mere experience, and the old questioning
habit was in abeyance. Each new and great emotion has its dominating
moment, its supreme occasion, before taking its place in the modulated
moral mechanism. He was touched with helplessness.

As he sat beside Narcisse Dauphin's bedside, one evening, the sick man on
his way to recovery, there came to him the text of a sermon he had once
heard John Brown preach: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friend." He had been thinking of Rosalie and
that day at Vadrome Mountain. She would not only have died with him, but
she would have died for him, if need had been. What might he give in
return for what she gave?

The Notary interrupted his thoughts. He had lain watching Charley for a
long time, his brow drawn down with thought. At last he said:

"Monsieur, you have been good to me." Charley laid a hand on the sick
man's arm.