"Well, John, what is the matter?"
"Murder. Murder is the matter, doctor," and with a strange, quiet precision he went over David's confession, for David had quite broken down and was sobbing with all the abandon of a little child. During the recital the minister's face was wonderful in its changes of expression, but at the last a kind of adoring hopefulness was the most decided.
"John," he said, "what were you going to do wi' that sorrowfu' lad?"
"I was going to gie him up to justice, minister, as it was right and just to do; but first we must see about—about the body."
"That has, without doot, been already cared for. On the warst o' nights there are plenty o' folk passing o'er Glasgow Green after the tea-hour. It is David we must care for now. Why should we gie him up to the law? Not but what 'the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.' But see how the lad is weeping. Dinna mak yoursel' hard to a broken heart, deacon. God himsel' has promised to listen to it. You must go back hame and leave him wi' me. And, John," he said, with an air of triumph, as they stood at the door together, with the snow blowing in their uplifted faces, "John, my dear old brother John, go hame and bless God; for, I tell you, this thing shall turn out to be a great salvation."
So John went home, praying as he went, and conscious of a strange hopefulness in the midst of his grief. The minister turned back to the sobbing criminal, and touching him gently, said,
"Davie, my son, come wi' me."
David rose hopelessly and followed him. They went into the room where they had seen the minister take the stranger who had entered the house with them. The stranger was still there, and as they entered he came gently and on tiptoe to meet them.
"Dr. Fleming," said the minister, "this is David Callendar, your patient's late partner in business; he wishes to be the poor man's nurse, and indeed, sir, I ken no one fitter for the duty."
So Dr. Fleming took David's hand, and then in a low voice gave him directions for the night's watch, though David, in the sudden hope and relief that had come to him, could scarcely comprehend them. Then the physician went, and the minister and David sat by the bedside alone. Robert lay in the very similitude and presence of death, unconscious both of his sufferings and his friends. Congestion of the brain had set in, and life was only revealed by the faintest pulsations, and by the appliances for relief which medical skill thought it worth while to make.