Bergan and Doctor Remy walked home from the church, as they had gone thither¹, side by side; yet, for a considerable time, neither spoke². If not altogether congenial spirits, they were on sufficiently³ easy and familiar terms, in virtue⁴ of their almost daily association, to allow each to pursue his own train of thought, on occasion, without reference to the other.

To Bergan, Mr. Islay's sermon had been interesting and effective, not only for what it contained, but for what it suggested. Naturally, therefore, his mind was now busy in following out those suggestions to the point where they bore upon his own experience, and unfolded their lessons for his own soul.

But Dr. Remy's thoughts had long since strayed away from any channel into which the sermon was calculated to lead them. There had been some brief moments, during its delivery, to be sure, when he had shrunken inwardly, iron-nerved though he were, from the deep, sharp probing of certain of its sentences; and there had been a single instant, perhaps, wherein he had been made dimly to see, or to suspect, that his own life and character—much as he had prided himself upon being the independent artificer of them both—were really the results to which he had been holden by the cords of former, half-forgotten sins. But he had made haste to shake himself free from both the idea and its effect, with one smile of scorn at his own folly⁵, and another at what he chose to consider the weak superstition⁶ of the clergyman and his awed⁷, interested flock. He thanked God—using the phrase in a vague, general sense which, perhaps, was only equivalent to thanking himself—that he was not as these men were. And no sooner was he in the open air than he set his busy mind to the consideration of his own projects. Some clue to its workings may perhaps be afforded by the question with which he finally broke the silence.

"Have you ever had the yellow fever, Arling?"

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