' So he had grown selfish.
But he had never known it. If any one had taxed him with the vice, he
would have indignantly repelled the accusation, and conceived himself
unworthily aspersed. He never would have known it, but that being newly
risen from a bed of dangerous sickness, to watch by such another couch,
he felt how nearly Self had dropped into the grave, and what a poor
dependent, miserable thing it was.
It was natural for him to reflect--he had months to do it in--upon his
own escape, and Mark's extremity. This led him to consider which of them
could be the better spared, and why? Then the curtain slowly rose a very
little way; and Self, Self, Self, was shown below.
He asked himself, besides, when dreading Mark's decease (as all men do
and must, at such a time), whether he had done his duty by him, and had
deserved and made a good response to his fidelity and zeal. No. Short
as their companionship had been, he felt in many, many instances, that
there was blame against himself; and still inquiring why, the curtain
slowly rose a little more, and Self, Self, Self, dilated on the scene.
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