ying spring weather, Mr. Drake? I don't hear
the best accounts of you," said the surgeon, drawing Ruber a pace back
from the door.

"I am as well as at my age I can perhaps expect to be," answered the
minister. "I am getting old--and--and--we all have our troubles, and, I
trust, our God also, to set them right for us," he added, with a
suggesting look in the face of the doctor.

"By Jove!" said Faber to himself, "the spring weather has roused the
worshiping instinct! The clergy are awake to-day! I had better look out,
or it will soon be too hot for me."

"I can't look you in the face, doctor," resumed the old man after a
pause, "and believe what people say of you. It can't be that you don't
even believe there _is_ a God?"

Faber would rather have said nothing; but his integrity he must keep
fast hold of, or perish in his own esteem.

"If there be one," he replied, "I only state a fact when I say He has
never given me ground sufficient to think so. You say yourselves He has
favorites to whom He reveals Himself: I am not one of them, and must
therefore of necessity be an unbeliever."

"But think, Mr. Faber--if there should be a God, what an insult it is to
deny Him existence."

"I can't see it," returned the surgeon, suppressing a laugh. "If there
be such a one, would He not have me speak the truth? Anyhow, what great
matter can it be to Him that one should say he has never seen Him, and
can't therefore believe He is to be seen? A god should be above that
sort of pride."

The minister was too much shocked to find any answer beyond a sad
reproving shake of the head. But he felt almost as if the hearing of
such irreverence without withering retort, made him a party to the sin
against the Holy Ghost. Was he not now conferring with one of the
generals of the army of Antichrist? Ought he not to turn his back upon
him, and walk into the house? But a surge of concern for the frank young
fellow who sat so strong and alive upon the great horse, broke over his
heart, and he looked up at him pitifully.

Faber mistook the cause and object of his evident emotion.

"Come now, Mr. Drake, be frank with me," he said. "You are out of
health; let me know what is the matter. Though I'm not religious, I'm
not a humbug, and only speak the truth when I say I should be glad to
serve you. A man must be neighborly, or what is there left of him? Even
you will allow that our duty to our neighbor is half the law, and there
is some help i