Thomas Wingfold. Volume III by George MacDonald

All that could be done for Leopold by tenderest sisterly care under / the supervision of Mr. Faber, who believed in medicine less than in / good nursing, was well supplemented by the brotherly ministrations / of Wingfold, who gave all the time he could honestly spare from his / ordinary work to soothe and enlighten the suffering youth. But it / became clearer every week that nothing would avail to entice the / torn roots of his being to clasp again the soil of the world: he was / withering away out of it. Ere long symptoms appeared which no one / could well mistake, and Lingard himself knew that he was dying. / Wingfold had dreaded that his discovery of the fact might reveal / that he had imagined some atonement in the public confession he / desired to make, and that, when he found it denied him, he would / fall into despair. But he was with him at the moment, and his / bearing left no ground for anxiety. A gleam of gladness from below / the horizon of his spirit, shot up, like the aurora of a heavenly / morning, over the sky of his countenance. He glanced at his friend, / smiled, and said,

"It has killed me too, and that is a comfort."