"I don\'t beg pardon for disturbing you," said Doctor Remy, giving the sleeper a vigorous shake. "You are in as fair a way to catch your death of cold, a your worst enemy could wish you to be."

Bergan slowly opened his eyes and stared vacantly around him. The doctor\'s words, though they had reached his ears, had not penetrated to his understanding. As yet, he was but half cognizant of his whereabouts, not at all of his circumstances.

"Come, up with you!" persisted the doctor, "and take a turn round the room, to get the chill out of your Mood. Man alive! what were you thinking of, to go to sleep before that window, with such a damp wind blowing in?"

"I did not mean to," responded Bergan, drowsily. And his eyes closed again.

"Did not mean to!" repeated Doctor Remy, in a tone of ineffable contempt. "You might at least have vouchsafed me a newer excuse: that is worn threadbare. It has served the whole human race, from Eve over her apple, down to Cathie over her last broken doll. Nobody \'means\' to do anything. Except me—I \'mean\' to wake you up." And the doctor gave Bergan another uncompromising shake.

"It is so good to sleep!" remonstrated the young man, in the same drowsy tone.

"It is so good to have the rheumatism, or that cream of delights known hereabout as the broken-bone fever!" returned the doctor, with cool irony. "However," he added, indifferently, turning away, "chacun à son go?t."

"You surely do not mean to leave him, in that way, Doctor," said a rebuking voice, beneath the window. Miss Lyte, fastening up a rosebush, in the dusk outside, had heard the whole.

"Certainly not, if it pleases you to wish otherwise," replied the doctor, gallantly.

And returning to the charge, Doctor Remy did not remit his efforts until he had gotten the half-vexed young man upon his feet, and forced him to pace two or three times up and down the office. Thereupon Bergan was fain to avow that his limbs were stiff and sore, and he had no mind for further exercise.

"Just as I expected," said the doctor, calmly.

Without further words, he marched Bergan off to bed, and did not let him alone, until, by dint of various outward and inward applications, he had restored natural warmth and circulation to his chilled, benumbed frame. In doing this, the young man was effectually roused; and memory and thought came back with consciousness.

"Doctor," said he, suddenly, "I almost envy you your profession."

"Why?"

"Because, as you told me at our first meeting, your duty is always plainly one thing—to save life."

"Humph! it seems to me that yours is equally plain—to save your client."

"What! whether his cause be right or wrong?"

"I save life, whether it be good or evil—a thief\'s or a saint\'s."

Bergan was silent for a moment. He felt the sophistry, but could not, on the instant, detect wherein it lay. He allowed himself to be diverted from the main question by a side issue.

"You say that you save life," said he, "but do you feel that it is really you? Are you never conscious of a power above you, without whose help your efforts would avail nothing?"

"Granted, for the sake of argument," replied Doctor Remy, composedly. "Then you may believe that it is not your efforts which gain a cause, but the \'power above,\' of which you speak."

It is not often that a side issue leads so directly back to the main point as in this instance, thanks to Doctor Remy\'s mode of treating it. "I see," said Bergan, musingly, "the difference is in the intent. Of course, God does decide the event, or consequence,—that is beyond us. He can frustrate our best efforts, or crown them with success, as He pleases. Our business, then, is with motives—and aims—and means." (The last clauses came slowly, and in the natural, if not the logical, order of thought.) "It is only after we have made sure that those three are right," he went on, "that we are freed from responsibility, and can comfortably leave results to God."

"All very fine," returned Doctor Remy, coolly. "But it seems to me that our motives, means, and aims (that is to say, yours and mine) are the same. Motive, love of life; means, a profession; aim, money,—which though in itself only a means, is the most convenient representative of all that it will buy; that is, all that supports life, and enhances its enjoyments."

"I hope you are not serious," replied Bergan, gravely. "I should be sorry to think that any man—much less a man with your talent, culture, and opportunities for benefiting his fellows—could be satisfied with so poor an ambition as that."

Doctor Remy slightly raised his eyebrows. "My dear fellow," said he, "if you do not follow your profession for the sake of the money that you expect it to bring you, what do you follow it for?"

"Money is one object, of course," answered Bergan, "but I hope it is not the only one, nor even the chief one. When my mind takes a leap into the future, it is not so much fees that I think of, as wrongs to be redressed, and rights to be protected, and influence to be gained and exercised,—yes, and fame and independence to be won."

"All very good things," returned Doctor Remy, smiling; "and all very dependent on those same fees, of which you think so little. Without money, you will not do much for right, nor against wrong; neither can you be independent, or famous, or influential."

"I do not know about that," rejoined Bergan, smiling. "Certainly, it was not his riches that made Diogenes independent. Neither does the name of Howard borrow any of its lustre from gold. Nor—to come down to our own time—is Mr. Islay influential on account of his wealth."

"Mr. Islay influential!" repeated Doctor Remy, contemptuously. "In what way, let me ask?"

"In a hundred ways. Every week, his words, his thoughts, go into scores of hearts and homes, for warning, for comfort, for inspiration; and reappear constantly in human lives. Certain sentences of his last Sunday\'s sermon have been ringing in my ears all day. And only three or four days ago, Miss Lyte, under the influence of that suggestive discourse, asked me how far I thought one was justified in a purely negative use of a talent,—that is, in merely refraining from doing harm, rather than trying actively to do good. And these are only two examples, you see, where there are doubtless many."

"Priests easily influence women," said the doctor, scornfully.

"Women!" exclaimed Bergan, stretching out a stalwart arm toward the doctor. "Are not those the muscles and sinews of a man?"

"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor, laughing, "I had forgotten what was the first of your two examples. Still, that sort of influence would never suffice for me. If I cared for anything of the kind, it would be for power,—direct, absolute power over men\'s acts and lives. But as that belongs only to kings and generals, I am content to do with—"

He hesitated.

"Well, what?" said Bergan.

"Wealth—when I get it," answered the doctor. "Wealth, and what it brings; ease, leisure, unlimited opportunity and means for the cultivation of the intellect."

"The intellect, then, is your final object, your ultimate good?" said Bergan.

"Yes; it is the one thing which distinguishes man from the brutes," replied the doctor.

"With the soul," rejoined Bergan.

"A word without an idea," returned the doctor,—"unless, indeed, you mean to apply it to that life-principle, which belongs to plants and animals, as well as men."

Bergan looked amazed. "Do you really make no distinction," he asked, "between mind and soul?&quo............