"I wonder what our great-grandparents used to do when they were ill?" queried Cicely, with a melancholy stare in her big, pitiful dark eyes.
"They let blood,"--replied Julian--"They used to go to the barber's and get a vein cut at the same time as their hair. Of course it was all wrong. We all know now that it was very wrong. In another hundred years or so we shall find out that twentieth-century surgery was just as wrong."
Cicely clasped her hands nervously.
"Oh, don' you think Maryllia will come through the operation all right?" she implored, for about the hundredth time in the course of two days.
Julian looked away from her.
"I don't know--and I don't like to express any opinion about it,"-- he answered, with careful gentleness--"But there is danger--and--if the worst should happen---"
"It won't happen! It shan't happen!" cried Cicely passionately.
"Dear little singing Goblin, I wish you could control fate!" And, taking her hand, he patted it affectionately. "Everything would be all right for everybody if you could make it so, I'm sure!--even for me! Wouldn't it?"
Cicely blushed suddenly.
"I don't know,"--she said--"I never think about you!"
He smiled.
"Don't you? Well,--perhaps some day you will! When you are a great prima donna, you will read the poems and verses I shall write about you in all the newspapers and magazines, and you will say as you take kings' and emperors' diamonds out of your hair: 'Who is this fellow? Ah yes! I remember him! He was a chum of mine down in the little village of St. Rest. I called him Mooncalf, and he called me Goblin. And--he was very fond of me!'"
She laughed a little, and drew away her hand from his.
"Don't talk nonsense!" she said--"Think of Maryllia--and of Mr. Walden!"
"I do think of them,--I think of them all the time!" declared Julian earnestly--"And that is why I am so uneasy. For--if the worst should happen, it will break Walden's heart."
Cicely's eyes filled with tears. She hurried away from him without another word or glance.
The fateful morning dawned. Walden had parted from Maryllia the previous night, promising himself that he would see her again before she passed into the surgeon's hands,--but Forsyth would not permit this.
"She does not wish it, John,"--he said--"And she has asked me to tell you so. Stay away from the Manor--keep quiet in your own house, if you feel unable to perform your usual round of work. It will be best for her and for you. I will let you know directly the operation is over. Santori is already here. Now"--and he gave Walden's hand a close and friendly grip--"steady, John! Say your prayers if you like,--we want all the help God can give us!"