“Gowan dying wants to see you come immediately.”

It was signed by a Glasgow doctor, and sent from one of the chief hotels of the city.

I followed Val to his den, where he was writing the answer.

“Would you mind my coming with you?” I asked.

“I should like it of all things,” was his reply.

In less than half an hour we had started, and before night had arrived at our destination.

It always seems to me that one feels one’s personal insignificance more keenly in a big city than anywhere else.  The hurry and bustle on all sides witness to the self-interest which rules every individual of the crowd, to the exclusion of any sincere concern for others.  The feeling was accentuated when we reached the hotel.  There all was brightness and movement; in the brilliantly lighted dining-room guests were eating, drinking, chatting, and enjoying life; in the hall and on the staircases attendants were moving swiftly about, visitors were coming and going.  Each one’s pleasures, comforts, and advantages were the business of the hour.  Yet in some chamber overhead a momentous crisis was at hand for one poor, lonely man, who had to leave behind him this scene of busy life, to enter upon an eternity of weal or woe.  Upon the passing moments everything depended for him; he had to prepare to meet his God.  Around him things were taking their usual course; it mattered little to the majority of the people under that roof whether he lived or died, and less still how his soul would fare in that passage.  Yet the things which made up the present happiness of the crowd were those which he had labored so strenuously to procure—­ease, enjoyment, freedom from care—­the companions of wealth.  For these he had bartered not only the toil and stress of his best years, but something infinitely more precious; part of the price had been the favour of his God!  Now he had to part with all these gains, willing or unwilling; would he have the grace to sue for the mercy which might still be his for the asking?

We had ascertained that Gowan still lived, though there was no hope for his recovery, and were ascending the staircase to our rooms when we encountered a priest coming down.  He regarded Val with evident interest, then stopped and accosted him.  He proved to be one of the neighboring parochial clergy, who had just been visiting the dying man.  Val invited him to our room, and there we learned the circumstances of the case.

Gowan had been in Glasgow about a fortnight, having come thither immediately after landing in Liverpool.  He was seriously ill when he arrived at the hotel, and was compelled to take to his bed at once.  A doctor was sent for, and found him suffering from heart disease, which had already reached an advanced stage.  In spite of every attention the patient became rapidly worse.  He would not infrequently fall into fits of unconsciousness, which were the prelude to a state of coma in which he would eventually pass away from life.