"Peggy would rather go with you."
"I am sure she will do it."
"Will you, Peggy?"
"Yes, I will."
So Angélique wrapped Peggy first, and went with her as far as the window. It was the window through which Dr. Dunlap had stepped.
"Good-by, dear Peggy," whispered Angélique; for the other seemed starting on the main journey of her life.
"Good-by, dear Angélique."
Peggy's eyes were tearless still, but she looked and looked at Angélique, and looked back mutely again when she sat at Rice's head in the boat. She had him to herself. Between the water and the sky, and within the dim horizon band, she could be alone with him. He was her own while the boat felt its way across the waste. The rowers sat on a bench over the foot of the pallet. Captain Saucier was obliged to steer. Peggy sat in the prow, and while they struggled against the rivers, she looked with the proud courage of a Morrison at her dead whom she must never claim again.
The colonel put Angélique first into the waiting boat. Wachique was set in front of her, to receive tante-gra'mère when the potentate's chrysalid should be lowered. For the first time in her life Angélique leaned back, letting slip from herself all responsibility. Colonel Menard could bring her great-grand-aunt out. The sense of moving in a picture, of not feeling what she handled, and of being cut off from the realities of life followed Angélique into the boat. She was worn to exhaustion. Her torpid pulses owned the chill upon the waters.
There was room in which a few of the little blacks might be stowed without annoying tante-gra'mère, but their mothers begged to keep them until all could go together.