several weeks before.

"To-day was to have been our wedding-day," she sobbed, "and now you are
ill--very ill. But, Jay," she whispered, bending down and uttering the
words rapidly in his ear, "it could take place just the same, here and
now, if you are willing. I sent a note to a minister to come here, and
he may arrive at any moment. When he comes, shall I speak to him about
it?"

He did not answer; he was trying to remember something, trying, oh, so
hard, to remember something that lay like a weight on his mind.

Heaven help him! the past was entirely blotted out of his memory!

He recollected leaving Miss Pendleton's house after setting the date for
his marriage with her, but beyond that evening the world was a blank to
him.

He never remembered that there were such people as David Moore, the
basket-maker, and a beautiful girl, his daughter Bernardine, to whom he
had lost his heart, and whom he had wedded, and that she was now waiting
for him. His mind was to be a blank upon all that for many a day to
come.

"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 Ja