t little, and every time he woke the thought was
heavy upon him that on the other side of a narrow wall the holiest man
he knew was wrestling in darkness of soul, and that he had added to the
bitterness of the agony.

[Illustration: Wrestling in darkness of soul.]

CHAPTER XX.

THE WOUNDS OF A FRIEND.

Winter has certain mornings which redeem weeks of misconduct, when the
hoar frost during the night has re-silvered every branch and braced the
snow upon the ground, and the sun rises in ruddy strength and drives
out of sight every cloud and mist, and moves all day through an expanse
of unbroken blue, and is reflected from the dazzling whiteness of the
earth as from a mirror. Such a sight calls a man from sleep with
authority, and makes his blood tingle, and puts new heart in him, and
banishes the troubles of the night. Other mornings winter joins in the
conspiracy of principalities and powers to daunt and crush the human
soul. No sun is to be seen, and the grey atmosphere casts down the
heart, the wind moans and whistles in fitful gusts, the black clouds
hang low in threatening masses, now and again a flake of snow drifts in
the wind. A storm is near at hand, not the thunder-shower of summer,
with warm rain and the kindly sun in ambush, but dark and blinding
snow, through which even a gamekeeper cannot see six yards, and in
which weary travellers lie down to rest and die.

The melancholy of this kind of day had fallen on Saunderson, whose face
was ashen, and who held Carmichael's hand with such anxious affection
that it was impossible to inquire how he had slept, and it would have
been a banalite to remark upon the weather. After the Rabbi had been
compelled to swallow a cup of milk by way of breakfast, it was evident
that he was ready for speech.

"What is it, Rabbi?" as soon as they were again settled in the study.
"If you did not . . . like my sermon, tell me at once. You know that I
am one of your boys, and you ought to . . . help me." Perhaps it was
inseparable from his youth, with its buoyancy and self-satisfaction,
and his training in a college whose members only knew by rumour of the
existence of other places of theological learning, that Carmichael had
at that moment a pleasing sense of humility and charity. Had it been a
matter of scholastic lore, of course neither he nor more than six men
in Scotland could have met the Rabbi in the gate. With regard to
modern thought, Carmichael knew that