For three weeks there was but the barest possibility of Robert’s recovery.  But his youth and fine constitution, aided by the skill of his physician and the unremitting care of his nurse, were at length, through God’s mercy, permitted to gain a slight advantage.  The discipline of that three weeks was a salutary though a terrible one to David.  Sometimes it became almost intolerable; but always, when it reached this point, Dr. Morrison seemed, by some fine spiritual instinct, to discover the danger and hasten to his assistance.  Life has silences more pathetic than death’s; and the stillness of that darkened room, with its white prostrate figure, was a stillness in which David heard many voices he never would have heard in the crying out of the noisy world.

What they said to him about his wasted youth and talents, and about his neglected Saviour, only his own heart knew.  But he must have suffered very much, for, at the end of a month, he looked like a man who had himself walked through the valley and shadow of death.  About this time Dr. Morrison began to drop in for an hour or two every evening; sometimes he took his cup of tea with the young men, and then he always talked with David on passing events in such a way as to interest without fatiguing the sick man.  His first visit of this kind was marked by a very affecting scene.  He stood a moment looking at Robert and then taking David’s hand, he laid it in Robert’s.  But the young men had come to a perfect reconciliation one midnight when the first gleam of consciousness visited the sick man, and Dr. Morrison was delighted to see them grasp each other with a smile, while David stooped and lovingly touched his friend’s brow.

“Doctor, it was my fault,” whispered Robert.  “If I die, remember that.  I did my best to anger Davie, and I struck him first.  I deserved all I have had to suffer.”

After this, however, Robert recovered rapidly, and in two months he was quite well.

“David,” said the minister to him one morning, “your trial is nearly over.  I have a message from Captain Laird to Robert Leslie.  Laird sails to-night; his ship has dropped down the river a mile, and Robert must leave when the tide serves; that will be at five o’clock.”

For Robert had shrunk from going again into his Glasgow life, and had determined to sail with his friend Laird at once for New York.  There was no one he loved more dearly than David and Dr. Morrison, and with them his converse had been constant and very happy and hopeful.  He wished to leave his old life with this conclusion to it unmingled with any other memories.

CHAPTER VIII.

So that evening the three men went in a coach to the Broomilaw together.  A boat and two watermen were in waiting at the bridge-stair, and though the evening was wet and chilly they all embarked.  No one spoke.  The black waters washed and heaved beneath them, the myriad lights shone vaguely through the clammy mist and steady drizzle, and the roar of the city blended with the stroke of the oars and the patter of the rain.  Only when they lay under the hull of a large ship was the silence broken.  But it was broken by a blessing.