“Callant,” said Lauderdale fiercely, “speak of things ye understand; it’s not for you to interfere between a man and his Maker. A soul more like Him of whom you dare to speak never came out of the Almighty’s hands. Do you think God is like a restless woman and never can be done meddling?” said Colin’s guardian, betrayed out of his usual self-restraint; but his own heart was trembling for his charge, and he had not composure enough to watch over his words. As for the sick man, whose own malady went steadily on without any great pauses or sudden increase, he lifted his dying eyes and addressed himself eagerly, as he was wont, to his usual argument. “If any man can understand it, I should,” said Meredith. “Cannot I trace the way by which He has led _me_?--a hard way to flesh and blood. Cannot I see how He has driven me from one stronghold after another, leaving me no refuge but in Christ? And, such being the case, can you wonder that I should wish the same discipline for my friend? The only thing I should fear for myself is restoration to health; and are you surprised that I should fear it for him?” “I am not surprised at anything but my ain idiocy in having my hand in the matter,” said Lauderdale; and he went away abruptly to Colin’s room with a horrible sense of calamity and helplessness. There was something in Meredith’s confident explanation of God’s dealings which drove him half frantic, and filled him with an unreasonable panic. Perhaps it was true; perhaps those lightnings in the clouds had been but momentary--a false hope. When, however, with his agitation so painfully compressed and kept under that it produced a morose expression upon his grave face, he went into Colin’s room, he found his patient sitting up in bed, with his great-coat over his shoulders, writing with a pencil on the fly-leaf of the book which his faithful attendant had given him to “keep him quiet.” “Never mind,” said the disorderly invalid. “I am all right, Lauderdale. Give us pen and ink, like a kind soul. You don’t imagine I am ill, surely, because I am lazy after last night?” “I’ve given up imagining anything on the subject,” said Colin’s grim guardian. “When a man in his senses sets up house with a parcel of lunatics it’s easy to divine what will come of it, lie down in your bed and keep quiet, and get well again; or else get up,” said Lauderdale, giving vent to a sharp acrid sound as if he had gnashed his teeth, “and let us be done with it all, and go home.” At this Colin opened his great brown eyes, which were as far from being anxious or depressed as could well be conceived, and laughed softly in his companion’s face.