nds met, and the well man stooped to the sick man and
kissed his cheek.

"I am Friend John Priestly," he said. "What is thy name?"

"David--David Borson--Shetland."

"David, thee is going to live. That is good news, is it not?"

"No; life is hard--cruel hard."

"Yes, but thee can say, 'The Lord is mine helper.' Thee can pray now?"

"I have no strength."

"If thee cannot speak, lift up thy hand. He will see it and answer
thee."

And David's face shadowed, and he did not lift up his hand; also, if
the whisper in his heart had been audible, John Priestly would have
heard him say, "What is the use of prayer? The Lord has cast me off."

But John did not try the strength of his patient further at that
time. He sat by his side, and laid his hand upon David's hand, and
began to repeat in a slow, assuring voice the One Hundred and Third
Psalm. Its familiar words went into David's ears like music, and
he fell sweetly asleep to its promises. For, though men in their
weakness and haste are apt to say, "The Lord hath forgotten to be
gracious," they who have but once felt his love, though dimly and
far off, cannot choose but trust in it, even to the grave.

And souls fraternize in their common exile. John Priestly loved
the young man whom he had saved, and David felt his love. As he
came fully back to life the past came clearly back to memory. He
remembered Nanna as those who love white jasmine remember it when its
starry flowers are gone--with a sweet, aching longing for their
beauty and perfume. He remembered those terrible days when physical
pain had been acute in every limb and every nerve, when he had
fainted with agony, but never complained. He remembered his lonely
journey to the grave's mouth, and the dim human phantoms who had
stood, as it were, afar off, and helped and cheered him as best
they could. And he understood that he had really been born again:
a new lease of life had been granted him, and he had come back to
earth, as so many wish to come back, with all his old loves and
experiences to help him in the future.

If only God would love him! If only God would give him ever so
small a portion of his favor! If he would only let him live humbly
before him, with such comfort of home and friends as a poor fisherman
might have! He wondered, as he lay still, what he or his fathers had
done that he should be so sorely punished. Perhaps he had shown
too great partiality to his father's memory in the matter of Bel