There is no change of posture in the sitting figure, no movement, unless, if his eyes do not deceive him, a slight shiver running over it.
'Peggy!' he repeats, alarmed; and, in a second, has overleaped the intervening distance—has fallen on his knees at her feet, and grasped her hands. 'What is it? Quick—speak to me! Is Prue worse?'
There is no answer. She has averted her face, so that he can see only the outline of her cheek's oval, at his approach; and—what is this? She is drawing her hands with slow decision, not with any petulance or coquetry, but as one irrevocably resolved, out of his. Then she rises slowly to her feet, and, having put three paces between them, turns and looks full at him. Looks full at him, this tall, risen woman, who will not lend him the custody of her hand! But who is she—this woman? Not his Peggy! Nay, surely not his Peggy! His Peggy, cheeked like the dawn, with eyes made out of sapphires and morning dew—his kindly, loving Peggy—what has she in common with this pale austerity that is facing him?
'What is it?' he repeats huskily, a vague horror making his knees knock together; 'is she——'
He breaks off. The idea has flashed across him that Prue is dead! What lesser catastrophe can account for this horrible unnamed change?
'She is better,' replies Peggy hoarsely.
'Better!—thank God for that!' drawing a long breath of relief. 'What do you mean by looking like this? You made me think—I do not know what; but,' his agony of perplexity returning in profounder flood, 'if so—if she is better, what is it?—what else? For mercy's sake answer me!—answer me quickly! Do not keep me waiting! You do not know what it is to be kept waiting like this!'
He has risen from his kneeling attitude; but that unaccountable something in her face hinders him from making any effort to bridge the distance she has set between them. Across that distance comes her reply, in a voice that seems to set her continents and seas away from him:
'Are you—quite—sure—that—I—need answer you?'
'Sure that you need answer me?' repeats he bewildered, struggling against the ice that is sweeping up over his heart; 'why, of course I am! Why else should I have asked you? We must be playing at cross-purposes,' with an attempted smile. 'Of course I am sure!'—reading the disbelief in her white face—'quite sure! What can I say to asseverate it? As sure as that I stand here—as sure as——'