fallen,
for always there stood between it and the surgeon who would slay the
ravager, the resolute fear of Templeton Thorpe. Time there was when the
keen-edged knife might have vanquished or at least deprived it of its
early venom, but the body of a physical coward housed it and denied
admittance to all-comers. Templeton Thorpe did not fear death. He wanted
to die, he implored his Maker to become his Destroyer. The torture of a
slow, inevitable death, however, was as nothing to the horror of the knife
that is sharp and cold.

When he went upstairs with Wade on that memorable twenty-third of March,
he said to his enemy: "Be quick, that's all I ask of you," and then
prepared to wait as patiently as he could for the friendly end.

From that day on, he was to the eyes of the world what he had long been to
himself in secret: a sick man without hope. Weeks passed before his bride
recognised the revolting truth, and when she came to know that he was
doomed her pity was _so_ vast that she sickened under its weight. She had
come prepared to see him die, as all men do when they have lived out their
time, but she had not counted on seeing him die like this, with suffering
in his bleak old eyes and a smile of derision on his pallid lips.

Old Templeton Thorpe's sufferings were for himself, and he guarded them
jealously with all the fortitude he could command. His irascibility
increased with his determination to fight it out alone. He disdained every
move on her part to extend sympathy and help to him. To her credit, be it
said, she would have become his nurse and consoler if he had let down the
bars,--not willingly, of course, but because there was in Anne Thorpe,
after all, the heart of a woman, and of such it must be said there is
rarely an instance where its warmth has failed to respond to the call of
human suffering. She would have tried to help him, she would have tried to
do her part. But he was grim, he was resolute. She could not bridge the
gulf that lay between them. His profound tolerance did not deceive her; it
was scorn of the most poignant character.

Braden was in Europe. He was expected in New York by the middle of March.
His grandfather would not consent to his being sent for, although it was
plain to be seen that he lived only for the young man's return.

Anne had once suggested, timorously, that Braden's place was at the
sufferer's bedside, but the smile that the old man bestowed upon her was
so significant,