“All over!”—­muttered John, feebly—­“My God!—­my God!  All over!”

Cicely sprang to him and caught his arm.

“Yes!—­Don’t you understand?” and her voice shook with excitement—­ “All over!  She is safe!—­quite safe!—­she will be well!—­Mr. Walden!—­John!—­don’t look at me like that! oh dear!” and she turned a piteous glance on Bishop Brent who was, to her, a complete stranger—­“He doesn’t seem to hear me—­please speak to him!—­do make him understand!  Everything has been done successfully—­and Maryllia will live—­she will be her own dear bright self again!  As soon as I heard the good news, I raced down here to tell you and everybody!—­ oh John!—­poor John!”

For, with a great sigh and a sudden stretching upward of his arms as though he sought to reach all Heaven with his soul’s full measure of gratitude, John staggered blindly a few steps from the altar of the Saint’s Rest and fell,—­senseless.

* * * * * * * *

Again the merry month of May came in rejoicing.  Again the May-pole glorious with blossoms and ribbons, made its nodding royal progress through the village of St. Rest, escorted by well-nigh a hundred children, who, with laughter and song carried it triumphantly up to Abbot’s Manor, and danced round it in a ring on the broad grassy terrace facing the open windows of Maryllia’s favourite morning room, where Maryllia herself, sweet and fair as a very queen of spring, stood watching them, with John Walden at her side.  Again their fresh young voices, gay with the musical hilarity of happiness, carolled the Mayer’s song:—­

    “We have been rambling all this night,
     And almost all this day;
     And now returning back again,
     We bring you in the May!

    A branch of May we have brought you,
     And at your door it stands,
     ’Tis but a sprout,
     But ’tis budded out,
     By the work of our Lord’s hands.

    The heavenly gates are open wide,
     Our paths are beaten plain;
     And if a man be not too far gone,
     He may return again!”

“That’s true!” said John, slipping an arm round his beloved, and whispering his words in the little delicate ear half-hidden by the clustering gold-brown curls above it—­“If a man be not too far gone as a bachelor, he may perhaps ‘return again’ as a tolerable husband?  What do you think, my Maryllia?”

Her eyes sparkled with all their own mirth and mischief.

“I couldn’t possibly say—­yet!” she said—­“You are quite perfect as an engaged man,—­I never heard of anybody quite so attentive—­so—­ well!—­so nicely behaved!” and she laughed, “But how you will turn out when you are married, I shouldn’t like to prophesy!”

“If the children weren’t looking at us, I should kiss you,” he observed, with a suggestive glance at her smiling lips.

“I’m sure you would!” she rejoined—­“For an ‘old’ bachelor, John, you are quite an adept at that kind of thing!”