to the Kingdom. What is this speck we call
life? Mark," he continued, taking up a pebble and dropping it into the
water, "it is like the bubble that rises to burst, or the sound of my
voice that dies as soon away. Thereon waste I not a thought, except to
prepare me for the coming of my Lord."

"You think, then, this solitary life the best preparation you can make
for the next?"

"Yes," said Holden; "I work not my own will. Can the clay say to the
potter, what doest thou? Behold, I am in the hand of One wiser and
mightier than I. Nor hath he left me without duties to perform. I am
one crying in the wilderness, and though the people heed not, yet must
the faithful witness cry. I have a work to perform, and how is my soul
straitened until it be done? Canst thou not thyself see, by what
hath happened to-day, some reason why the solitary is upon his lonely
island? Had he loved the crowded haunts of men, a fellow-being had,
perhaps, perished."

The allusion to the occurrence of the morning recalled the doctor's
attention to the purpose for which he had left the chamber, and which
he had forgotten, in listening to the talk of the enthusiast. He
now directed the conversation to the subject of the wound, and heard
Holden's account. He became convinced, both from his statement, and
from a few words Pownal himself had dropped, as well as from the sight
of the gun which Holden had picked up, and found just discharged, that
the wounding was accidental, and occasioned by the young man's own
fowling-piece. Having satisfied himself on this point, the doctor,
with his companion, re-entered the hut. It was only to give a few
parting directions to Bernard, to enjoin quiet upon his patient, and
to take leave of him, which he did, in the words of his favorite--

"Fare thee well!
The elements be kind to thee, and make
Thy spirits all of comfort."

CHAPTER III.

Ici il fallut que j'en divinasse plus qu'on ne m'en disoit.
MEMOIRES DE SULLY.

A week after the events narrated in the preceding chapters, a small
company was collected in a parlor of one of the houses of Hillsdale.
It consisted of a gentleman, of some fifty years of age; his wife, a
fine-looking matron, some years his junior; their daughter, a bright
blue-eyed flaxen-haired girl, rounding into the most graceful form of
womanhood, and a young man, who is not entirely a stranger to us.

The judgment of the doctor, respecting the wound of Pownal--for it i