He drew her into his arms, and folded her close to his heart.
"My child--my darling! If you wish it, it shall be done!" he murmured brokenly--"And may God in His great mercy be good to us both! But if you die, my Maryllia, I shall die too--so we shall still be together!"
So it was settled; and Dr. Forsyth, vacillating uneasily between hope and fear, communicated the decision at once to the famous Italian surgeon, who, without any delay or hesitation responded by promptly fixing a day in the ensuing week for his performance of the critical task which was either to kill or cure a woman who to one man was the dearest of all earth's creatures. And with such dreadful rapidity did the hours fly towards that day that Walden experienced in himself all the trembling horrors of a condemned criminal who knows that his execution is fixed for a certain moment to which Time itself seems racing like a relentless bloodhound, sure of its quarry. Writing to Bishop Brent he told him all, and thus concluded his letter:-"If I lose her now--now, after the joy of knowing that she loves me- -I shall kneel before you broken-hearted and implore your forgiveness for ever having called you selfish in the extremity of your grief and despair for the loss of love. For I am myself utterly selfish to the heart's core, and though I say every night in my prayers 'Thy Will be done,' I know that if she is taken from me I shall rebel against that Will! For I am only human,--and make no pretence to be more than a man who loves greatly."
During this interval of suspense Cicely and Julian were thrown much together. Every moment that Walden could spare from his parish work, he passed by the side of his beloved, knowing that his presence made her happy, and fearing that these days might be his last with her on earth. Maryllia herself however seemed to have no such forebodings. She was wonderfully bright and cheerful, and though her body was so helpless her face was radiant with such perfect happiness that it looked as fair as that of any pictured angel. Cicely, recognising the nature of the ordeal through which these two lovers were passing, left them as much by themselves as possible, and laid upon Julian the burden of her own particular terrors which she was at no pains to conceal. And unfortunately Julian did not, under the immediate circumstances, prove a very cheery comforter.
"I hate the knife!" he said, gloomily--"Everyone is cut up or slashed about in these days--there's too much of it altogether. If ever a fruit pip goes the way it should not go into my interior mechanism, I hope it may be left there to sprout up into a tree if it likes--I don't mind, so long as I'm not sliced up for appendicitis or pipcitis or whatever it is."