"I thought you would!" he said, after a while--"Of course I saw how the land lay! I knew you loved her---"
"I suppose that was easy to guess!" said John, a warm flush of colour rising to his brows as he spoke--"But you could not have imagined for a moment that she would love me! Yet she does! That is the wonder of it! I am such an old humdrum fellow--and she is so young and bright and pretty! It seems so strange that she should care!"
Dr. Forsyth looked at him with an appreciative twinkle in his eye. Then he laid a friendly hand upon his shoulder, "You are a quaint creature, John!" he said--"Yet, do you know, I rather like your humdrum ways? I do, positively! And if I were a woman, I think I should esteem myself fortunate if I got you for a husband! I really should! You certainly don't suffer from swelled head, John--that's a great point in your favour!"
He laughed,--and John laughed with him. Then, drawing their chairs to opposite sides of the fire, they talked for an hour or more on the subject that was most interesting to them both, John was for marrying Maryllia as soon as possible--"in order that I may have the right to watch over her," he urged, and Forsyth agreed.
"But wait till Santori has seen her, and given his opinion,"--he said--"If he comes, as his telegram says he will to-morrow, we can take him entirely into our confidence, to decide what is best for her peace and pleasure. The ceremony of marriage can be gone through privately at the Manor,--by the way, why don't you ask your friend the Bishop to officiate? I suppose he knows the position?"
"He knows much, but not all,"--said John--"I wrote to him about the accident of course--and have written to him frequently since, but I did not think I should ever have such news to tell him as I have now!" His eyes darkened with deep feeling. "He has had his own tragedy--he will understand mine!"
A silence fell between them,--and soon after, Forsyth took his leave. Walden, left alone, and deeply conscious of the new responsibility he had taken upon his life, set to work to get through his parish business for the evening, in order to have time to devote to Maryllia the next day, and, writing a long letter to Bishop Brent, he told him all the history of his late-found happiness,--his hopes, his sorrows, his fears--and his intention to show what a man's true love could be to a woman whom unkind destiny had deprived of all the natural joys of living. He added to this letter a few words referring to Forsyth's information respecting the Italian specialist, Santori, who had been sent for to see Maryllia and pronounce on her condition--"but I fear," he wrote, "that there is nothing to be done, save to resign ourselves to the apparently cruel and incomprehensible will of God, which in this case has declared itself in favour of allowing the innocent to suffer."