At the Time Appointed | Page 9

to whom those eyes could turn for their last message of earthly love and sympathy; and oh, the impotency of any and all human love then!
Never before had Darrell been brought so near the unseen, the unknown,--always surrounding us, but of which few of us are conscious,--and for hours he sat motionless, lost in thought, grappling with problems hitherto unthought of, but which now perplexed and baffled him at every turn.
At last, with a heavy sigh, he opened his eyes. The gray twilight of dawn was slowly creeping down from the mountain-tops, dispelling the shadows; and the light of a new faith, streaming downward
"From the beautiful, eternal hills Of God's unbeginning past,"
was banishing the doubts which had assailed him.
That night had brought to him a revelation of the awful solitude of a human soul, standing alone on the threshold of two worlds; but it had also revealed to him the Love--Infinite, Divine--that meets the soul when human love and sympathy are no longer of avail.

Chapter III
"THE PINES"
As the day advanced Darrell grew gradually but steadily worse. After the excitement of the night had passed a reaction set in; he felt utterly exhausted and miserable, the pain returned with redoubled violence, and the fever increased perceptibly from hour to hour.
He was keenly observant of those about him, and he could not but note how soon the tragedy of the preceding night seemed forgotten. Some bemoaned the loss of money or valuables; a few, more fortunate, related how they had outwitted the robbers and escaped with trivial loss, but only an occasional careless word of pity was heard for the young stranger who had met so sad a fate. So quickly and completely does one human atom sink out of sight! It is like the dropping of a pebble in the sea: a momentary ripple, that is all!
About noon Parkinson, who had sought to while away the tedium of the journey by an interview with Darrell, became somewhat alarmed at the latter's condition and went in search of a physician. He returned with the one who had been summoned to Whitcomb's aid. He was an eastern practitioner, and, unfortunately for Darrell, was not so familiar with the peculiar symptoms in his case as a western physician would have been.
"He has a high fever," he remarked to Parkinson a little later, as he seated himself beside Darrell to watch the effect of the remedies administered, "but I do not apprehend any danger. I have given him something to abate the fever and induce sleep. If necessary, I will write out a prescription which he can have filled on his arrival at Ophir, but I think in a few days he will be all right."
They were now approaching the continental divide, the scenery moment by moment growing in sublimity and grandeur. Darrell soon sank into a sleep, light and broken at first, but which grew deeper and heavier. For more than an hour he slept, unconscious that the rugged scenes through which he was then passing were to become part of his future life; that each cliff and crag and mountain-peak was to be to him an open book, whose secrets would leave their indelible impress upon his heart and brain, revealing to him the breadth and length, the depth and height of life, moulding his soul anew into nobler, more symmetrical proportions.
At last the rocks suddenly parted, like sentinels making way for the approaching train, disclosing a broad, sunlit plateau, from which rose, in gracefully rounded contours, a pine-covered mountain, about whose base nestled the little city of Ophir, while in the background stretched the majestic range of the great divide.
A crowd could be seen congregated about the depot, for tidings of the night's tragedy had preceded the train by several hours, and Whitcomb from his early boyhood had been a universal favorite in Ophir, while his uncle was one of its wealthiest, most influential citizens.
As the train slackened speed Parkinson, with a few words to the physician, hastily left to make arrangements for transportation for himself, Hunter, and Darrell to a hotel. Amid the noise and confusion which ensued for the next ten minutes Darrell slept heavily, till, roused by a gentle shake, he awoke to find the physician bending over him and heard voices approaching down the now nearly deserted sleeping-car.
"Yes," said a heavy voice, speaking rapidly, "the conductor wired details; he said this young man did everything for the boy that could be done, and stayed by him to the end."
"He did; he stood by him like a brother," Parkinson's voice replied.
"And he is sick, you say? Well, he won't want for anything within my power to do for him, that's all!"
Parkinson stopped at Darrell's side. "Mr. Darrell," he said, "this is Mr. Underwood, Whitcomb's uncle, you know; Mr. Underwood,