“Amen; the question will be clear then, and we shall have no need to discuss it,” said Colin. This time he managed better to smile. “But, wherever we meet to-morrow, good-bye for to-night--good-bye. You know what the word means,” he said. He smiled to himself even at the thoughts suggested to him by his own words. He too was pale, and had no great appearance of strength. If he himself felt the current of life flowing back into his veins, the world and even his friends were scarcely of his opinion. He looked but a little way farther off from the solemn verge than his new acquaintance did, as he stood at the door of the little cabin, his face lit up with the vague, sweet, brightening of a smile, which was not called forth by anything external, but came out of the musings and memories of his own heart. Such a smile could not be counterfeit. When he had turned towards the narrow stair which led to the deck, he felt a touch upon his arm, like the touch of a bird, it was so light and momentary. “Come again,” said a voice in his ear, “come again.” He knew it was the sister who spoke; but the voice did not sound in Colin’s ears as the voice of a woman to a man. It was impersonal, disembodied, independent of all common restrictions. She had merged her identity altogether in that of her brother. All the light, all the warmth, all the human influence she had, she was pouring into him, like a lantern, bright only for the bearer, turning a dark side to the world. Colin’s head throbbed and felt giddy when he emerged into the open air above, into the cold moonlight, to which the heaving of the sea gave a look of disturbance and agitation which almost reached the length of pain. There was nothing akin in that passionless light to the tumult of the great chafing ocean, the element most like humanity. True, it was not real storm, but only the long pantings of the vast bosom, after one of those anger-fits to which the giant is prone; but a fanciful spectator could not but link all kinds of imaginations to the night, and Colin was pre-eminently a fanciful spectator. It looked like the man storming, the woman watching with looks of powerless anguish; or like the world heaving and struggling, and some angel of heaven grieving and looking on. Colin lingered on the deck, though it was cold, and rest was needful. What could there be in the future existence more dark, more hopeless than the terrible enigmas which built up their dead walls around a man in this world, and passed interpretation. Even the darkest hell of poetic invention comprehended itself and knew why it was; but this life, who comprehended, who could explain?