Here the General stopped, utterly exhausted by the fatigue of speaking so much. As for the doctor, he sat for a time involved in deep thought. Zillah stood there pale and agitated, looking now at her father and now at the doctor, while a new and deeper anguish came over her heart. After a while he rose and quietly motioned to Zillah to follow him to the adjoining room.
"My dear child," said he, kindly, when they had arrived there, "your father is excited, but yet is quite sane. His plan seems to be one which he has been cherishing for years; and he has so thoroughly set his heart upon it that it now is evidently his sole idea. I do not see what else can be done than to comply with his wishes."
"What!" cried Zillah, aghast.
"To refuse," said the doctor, "might be fatal. It would throw him into a paroxysm."
"Oh, doctor!" moaned Zillah. "What do you mean? You can not be in earnest. What--to do such a thing when darling papa is--is dying!"
Sobs choked her utterance. She buried her face in her hands and sank into a chair.
"He is not yet so bad," said the doctor, earnestly, "but he is certainly in a critical state; and unless it is absolutely impossible--unless it is too abhorrent to think of--unless any calamity is better than this--I would advise you to try and think if you can not bring yourself to--to indulge his wish, wild as it may seem to you. There, my dear, I am deeply sorry for you; but I am honest, and say what I think."
For a long time Zillah sat in silence, struggling with her emotions. The doctor's words impressed her deeply; but the thing which he advised was horrible to her--abhorrent beyond words. But then there was her father lying so near to death--whom, perhaps, her self-sacrifice might save, and whom certainly her selfishness would destroy. She could not hesitate. It was a bitter decision, but she made it. She rose to her feet paler than ever, but quite calm.
"Doctor," said she, "I have decided. It is horrible beyond words; but I will do it, or any thing, for his sake. I would die to save him; and this is something worse than death."
She was calm and cold; her voice seemed unnatural; her eyes were tearless.