rouble
in the starry places too? thought Robert, as if already he had begun to
suspect the truth from afar--that save in the secret place of the Most
High, and in the heart that is hid with the Son of Man in the bosom of
the Father, there is trouble--a sacred unrest--everywhere--the moaning
of a tide setting homewards, even towards the bosom of that Father.

CHAPTER VIII. A HUMAN PROVIDENCE.

Robert kept himself thoroughly awake the whole night, and it was well
that he had not to attend classes in the morning. As the gray of the
world's reviving consciousness melted in at the window, the things
around and within him looked and felt ghastly. Nothing is liker the gray
dawn than the soul of one who has been watching by a sick bed all the
long hours of the dark, except, indeed, it be the first glimmerings of
truth on the mind lost in the dark of a godless life.

Ericson had waked often, and Robert had administered his medicine
carefully. But he had been mostly between sleeping and waking, and
had murmured strange words, whose passing shadows rather than glimmers
roused the imagination of the youth as with messages from regions
unknown.

As the light came he found his senses going, and went to his own room
again to get a book that he might keep himself awake by reading at the
window. To his surprise Shargar was gone, and for a moment he doubted
whether he had not been dreaming all that had passed between them the
night before. His plaid was folded up and laid upon a chair, as if it
had been there all night, and his Ainsworth was on the table. But beside
it was the money Shargar had drawn from his pockets.

About nine o'clock Dr. Anderson arrived, found Ericson not so much worse
as he had expected, comforted Robert, and told him he must go to bed.

'But I cannot leave Mr. Ericson,' said Robert.

'Let your friend--what's his odd name?--watch him during the day.'

'Shargar, you mean, sir. But that's his nickname. His rale name they say
his mither says, is George Moray--wi' an o an' no a u-r.--Do you see,
sir?' concluded Robert significantly.

'No, I don't,' answered the doctor.

'They say he's a son o' the auld Markis's, that's it. His mither's a
randy wife 'at gangs aboot the country--a gipsy they say. There's nae
doobt aboot her. An' by a' accoonts the father's likly eneuch.'

'And how on earth did you come to have such a questionable companion?'

'Shargar's as fine a crater as ever God made,' said Robert w