'I suppose that that was what he was talking to her about all evening,' pursues Prue, looking blankly away out of the window, to where, on the top of the apple-tree outside, a couple of jackdaws are sitting swinging in the fresh wind. 'That was what made him forget all about his dances with me. Of course, there would be a great deal to arrange; they are to be away a whole year. It was quite natural, quite; only it showed that it was all over with me. Even I could see that.'
She says it quite calmly, and with a sort of smile, her eyes still fixed on the jackdaws. Peggy is still too choked to speak.
'No one would have guessed last night that it was I who was engaged to him, would they?' pursues Prue, bringing home her straying look, and resting it in a half-uncertain appeal upon her sister. 'And yet I was, was not I? It was not my fancy; he did ask me once to be his wife—his wife,' dwelling on the word with a long, clinging intonation—'standing there by myself all those hours. I am sure that if he had known how it hurt me he would not have done it; he is too kind-hearted willingly to hurt a fly.'
Peggy's only answer is a groan.
'But of course I must write to him,' continues the younger girl, beginning again to draw her half-written sheet of paper tremblingly towards her. 'And—and it is not altogether an easy letter to write; you understand that. It requires all one's attention.'
'Lie down and rest first, and write afterwards,' says Peggy, in a tone of tender persuasion.
'No, no!' returns the other, pushing her sister away. 'I will lie down and rest afterwards; there will be plenty of time. But I could not rest before it was written; and do not disturb me; do not speak to me. I should be sorry if there were anything ridiculous—anything that she could laugh at in my last letter to him.'