The thought was very different from those with which Arthur Meredith resigned himself reluctantly to rest. He could not consent to sleep till he had written a page or two of the book which he meant to leave as a legacy to the world, and which was to be called “A Voice from the Grave.” This poor young fellow had forgotten that God Himself was likely to take some pains about the world which had cost so much. After the “unspeakable gift” once for all, it appeared to young Meredith that the rest of the work was left on _his_ shoulders, and on the shoulders of such as he; and, accordingly he wore his dying strength out, addressing everybody in season and out of season, and working at “A Voice from the Grave.” A strange voice it was--saying little that was consolatory; yet, in its way, true, as everything is true in a certain limited sense which comes from the heart. The name of the Redeemer was named a great many times therein, but the spirit of it was as if no Redeemer had ever come. A world, dark, confused, and full of judgments and punishments--a world in which men would not believe though one rose from the grave--was the world into which he looked, and for which he was working. His sister Alice, watching by his side, noting with keen anxiety every time the pen slipped from his fingers, every time it went vaguely over the paper in starts which told he had gone half to sleep over his work, sat with her intelligence unawakened, and her whole being slumbering, thinking of nothing but him. After all, Colin was not so fanciful when in his heart it occurred to him to connect these two with the appearance of the moon and the sea. They had opened the book of their life to him fortuitously, without any explanations, and he did not know what to make of it. When he descended to his own cabin and found Lauderdale fast asleep, the young man could not but give a little time to the consideration of this new scene which had opened in his life. It was natural to Colin’s age and temperament to expect that something would come of such a strange, accidental meeting; and so he lay and pondered it, looking out at the troubled moonlight on the water, till that disturbed guardian of the night had left her big troublesome charge to himself. The ship ploughed along its lonely road with tolerable composure and quietness, for the first time since it set out, and permitted to some of its weary passengers unwonted comfort and repose; but, as for Colin, a sense of having set out upon a new voyage came into his mind, he could not tell why. CHAPTER XXVII.