Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 3.djvu/256

246 from his forehead, at the thoughts of what he sees, or thinks he sees before him. If I withdraw my hand for a moment, it distresses him:—

"'Stay with me, Helen,' he says; 'let me hold you so: it seems as if harm could not reach me while you are here. But death will come—it is coming now—fast, fast!—and—Oh, if I could believe there was nothing after!'

"'Don't try to believe it, Arthur; there is joy and glory after, if you will but try to reach it!'

"'What, for me?' he said, with something like a laugh. 'Are we not to be judged according to the deeds done in the body? Where's the use of a probationary existence, if a man may spend it as he pleases, just contrary to God's decrees, and then go to Heaven with the best—if the vilest sinner may win the reward of the holiest saint, by merely saying, 'I repent?'

"'But if you sincerely repent—'

"'I can't repent; I only fear.'