minds. All this feels to me as if it had happened in some previous
existence."

Fardet held up his wrist with a cotton bandage still round it.

"The body does not forget as quickly as the mind. This does not look
very dream-like or far away, Mrs. Belmont."

"How hard it is that some should be spared, and some not! If only Mr.
Brown and Mr. Headingly were with us, then I should not have one care in
the world," cried Sadie. "Why should they have been taken, and we
left?"

Mr. Stuart had limped on to the deck with an open book in his hand, a
thick stick supporting his injured leg.

"Why is the ripe fruit picked, and the unripe left?" said he in answer
to the young girl's exclamation. "We know nothing of the spiritual
state of these poor dear young fellows, but the great Master Gardener
plucks His fruit according to His own knowledge. I brought you up a
passage to read to you."

There was a lantern upon the table, and he sat down beside it.
The yellow light shone upon his heavy cheek and the red edges of his
book. The strong, steady voice rose above the wash of the water.

"'Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from
the hand of the enemy, and gathered them out of the lands, from the
east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. They went
astray in the wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in.
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. So they cried unto the
Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress.
He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to the city where
they dwelt. Oh that men would therefore praise the Lord for His
goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children of
men.'

"It sounds as if it were composed for us, and yet it was written two
thousand years ago," said the clergyman, as he closed the book.
"In every age man has been forced to acknowledge the guiding hand which
leads him. For my part I don't believe that inspiration stopped two
thousand years ago. When Tennyson wrote with such fervour and
conviction":--

'Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,'

"He was repeating the message which had been given to him, just as Micah
or Ezekiel, when the world was younger, repeated some cruder and more
elementary message."

"That is all very well, Mr. Stuart," said the Frenchman; "you ask me to
praise God for taking me out of danger and pain, but