“It would have been a terrible sin!” said the boy, with a slight shudder.  “But God prevented you from committing it.”

“But I’m a thief still, and a coward, for I sneaked away in the night, fearing to meet Sophie’s eyes, and afraid to tell the professor what I was and what I had done.  I left all the burden of my sins to be borne by women and an infirm old man, and I am going, with a stolen fortune, to forget I ever had a heart or a soul.”

“Are you going, and do you think you can forget?” asked the boy, with a smile.

“Don’t you give me up yet?” returned Bressant, trembling.  “What is left for me?”

“Why, every thing is left for you!” exclaimed the boy, his smile brightening in his eyes.  “You seem to forget that you haven’t gone off with any stolen money yet!  You must begin at the next station, and devote your whole life—­no less will answer—­to redeeming yourself.  Only be sure not to delay, and not to hesitate.”

Bressant looked at his companion, and thought there was something divine and unearthly almost in his manner, and especially in the light that came from his gray eyes.

“As for the stolen money,” the boy continued, “all you have to do about that is, to let it alone; it is safe, and will be cared for.  But you must go straight to the Parsonage.  Your marriage-day is Sunday; be sure you are there by noon.  It may be you will not find Sophie there; but she will leave a gift for you, at any rate, and you must be in time to claim it.”

“But how can I ask Sophie’s forgiveness, and the professor, and Cornelia?”

“Trust wholly in Sophie,” returned the other, with an accent of loving reproof, “never doubt her love and forgiveness.  You must make your peace with the professor as best you can; but perhaps he has found that to forgive in himself which will enable him to be more charitable to you.  As for Cornelia, she and you must recompense each other for the evil you have mutually wrought upon each other.”

“How recompense each other?” questioned Bressant, in surprise; “it was not a high nor a true love that we felt for each other; it was a love of the passions and senses.”

“Therefore let it be the work of your lives—­a work of penitence and punishment—­to elevate and refine your love, which has been degraded, until it become worthy of the name of love in its highest sense.  You have lowered each other, and now each must help to raise the other up.  The work can be delegated to no one else.”

“But Sophie,” murmured Bressant, pressing his hand over his eyes.

“Sophie is lost to you,” responded his companion, with a tremulous sigh.  “Perhaps if you had kept yourself pure and true through all temptations, she might have been yours.  But you failed, and every failure must bring its loss.  The air of such a love as that is too fine for you to breathe now; you could not be happy nor at ease; but do not grieve for her—­only mourn for your own deterioration, and strive faithfully, and with constant effort, to make it good.  Sophie—­she will be happier, and better cared for, than, as your wife, she could ever have been.”