"Help me!" he cried, appealingly, with the tears struggling in his throat—"You are right—I need you! Help me to be strong—you are nearer God than I am! Pray for me!"
Gently the Bishop withdrew his hands from the fevered clasp that held them, and laid them tenderly on the bowed head. His lips moved, but he uttered no words. There was a solemn pause, broken only by the slow ticking of the clock in the outer hall.
Presently, rising in obedience to his friend's persuasive touch, Walden stood awhile with face turned away, trying to master himself, yet trembling in every nerve, despite his efforts.
"Brent,"—he began, huskily—"I am ashamed that you should see me like this—-so weak—-"
"A weakness that will make you stronger by and by, John!" and the Bishop linked a friendly arm within his own—"Come into the church with me, will you? I feel the influence of your enshrined Saint upon me! Let us wait for news, good or bad, at the altar,—and while waiting, we will pray. Do you remember what I said to you when you came to see me last summer? 'Some day, when we are in very desperate straits, we will see what your Saint can do for us'? Come!"
Without a word of demur, John obeyed. They passed out of the house together and took the private by-path to the church. It was then about noon, and the sun shone through a soft mist that threatened rain without permitting it to fall. The faint piping of a thrush in the near distance suggested the music of the coming Spring, and the delicate odour of plant-life pushing its way through the earth gave a pungent freshness to the quiet air. Arriving at the beautiful little sanctuary, they entered it by the vestry, though the public door stood open according to invariable custom. A singularly brilliant glare of luminance reflected from the plain clear glass that filled the apertures of the rose-window above the altar, struck aslant on the old-world sarcophagus which doubtless contained the remains of one who, all 'miraculous' attributes apart, had nobly lived and bravely died,—and as the Bishop moved reverently round it to the front of the altar-rails, his eyes were uplifted and full of spiritual rapture.
"Kneel here with me, John!" he said—"And with all our hearts and all our minds, let us pray to God for the life of the beloved woman whom God has given you,—given, surely, not to take away again, but to be more completely made your own! Let us pray, as the faithful servants of Christ prayed in the early days of the Church,—not hesitatingly, not doubtingly, not fearingly!—but believing and making sure that our prayers will, if good for us, be granted!"
They knelt together. Walden, folding his arms on the altar-rails, hid his face,—but the Bishop, clasping his hands and fixing his eyes on the word 'Resurget' that flashed out of the worn alabaster— wherein the unknown 'Saint' reposed, seemed to gather to himself all the sunlight that poured through the window above him, and to exhale from his own slight worn frame something like the mystic halo of glory pictured round the figure of an apostle or evangelist.
The minutes slowly ebbed away. The church clock chimed the half-hour after noon—and they remained absorbed in a trance of speechless, passionate prayer. They were unaware that some of Walden's parishioners, moved by the same idea of praying for Maryllia while she was undergoing the operation which was to save or slay, had come to the church also for that purpose, but were brought to a pause on the threshold of the building by the sight they saw within. That their own beloved 'Passon' should be kneeling at the altar in the agony of his own heart's Gethsemane was too much for their simple and affectionate souls,—and they withdrew in haste and silence, many of them with tears in their eyes. They were considerably awed too by the discovery that no less a personage than the Bishop of the diocese himself was companioning Walden in his trouble,—and, moving away in little groups of twos and threes, they stood about here and there in the churchyard, waiting for they knew not what, and all affected by the same thrill of mingled suspense, hope and fear. Among them was Bainton, who, when he had peered into the white silence of the church and had seen for himself that it was indeed his master who was praying there beside his Bishop, made no pretence to hide his emotion.
"We be all fools together,"—he said to Adam Frost in hoarse accents, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand—"We ain't no stronger nor wiser than a lot o' chitterin' sparrows on a housetop! Old Josey, he be too weak an' ailin' to get out in this kind o' weather, but he sez he's prayin' 'ard, which I truly believe he is, though he ain't in church. All the village is on its knees this marnin' I reckon, whether it's workin' in fields or gardens, or barns or orchards, an' if the Lord A'mighty don't take no notice of us, He must be powerful 'ard of 'earin'!"