"What do you say, Jay?" repeated Miss Pendleton; "will not the ceremony take place to-day, as we had intended?"
"They tell me I am very ill, Sally," he whispered. "I—I may be dying. Do you wish the ceremony to take place in the face of that fact?"
"Yes," she persisted. "I want you to keep your solemn vow that you would make me your wife; and—and delays are dangerous."
"Then it shall be as you wish," he murmured, faintly, in an almost inaudible voice, the effort to speak being so great as to cause him to almost lose consciousness.
Sally stepped quickly from Jay's beside out into the adjoining room.
"Mr. Gardiner wishes our marriage to take place here and now," she announced. "A minister will be here directly. When he arrives, please show him to Doctor Gardiner's bedside."
Mamma Pendleton smiled and nodded her approval in a magnificent way as she caught her daughter's eye for a second. The doctors looked at one another in alarm.
"I do not see how it can take place just now, Miss Pendleton," said one, quietly. "We have a very dangerous and difficult operation to perform upon your betrothed, and each moment it is delayed reduces his chance of recovery. We must put him under chloroform without an instant's delay."
"And I say that it shall not be done until after the marriage ceremony has been performed," declared Sally, furiously; adding, spitefully: "You want to cheat me out of becoming Jay Gardiner's wife. But I defy you! you can not do it! He shall marry me, in spite of you all!"
At that moment there was a commotion outside. The minister had arrived.