'Then I am to understand that you are not going? that the idea is given up?'
She is still standing inexorably over him.
'I do not know why we should discuss the subject at all to-day,' returns Mr. Ducane, again interring his head in the cushions; 'I have not the heart to discuss anything to-day.'
'Then you did not mention the subject to her?'
'She introduced it herself; she has quite come round to think it a good plan—if you do not believe me, you may ask her—a year's probation to make me fitter for my Prue'—in a voice of dreamy tenderness. 'Oh, Peggy, cannot you understand what a sacred deposit the care of such a soul as Prue's is? cannot you comprehend that I do not feel yet worthy of it? You know, dear, I am very young, though you never will own it; and you cannot put gray heads upon green shoulders. Be merciful to me, little friend! be merciful to me!'
As he makes this coaxing request, he takes her reluctant hand and presses his wet cheek against it. But she feels no mercy in her heart, and promises him none even when she leaves him stretched full-length upon the settle, shaken with real sobs. For her, he may sob as long as he pleases; while in one panic-stricken bound upstairs she reaches her sister. She finds her—the Prue upon whom the doctor had enjoined such a strict confinement to bed and maintenance at one temperature—sitting, not even lying upon the dressing-room sofa, breathing labouringly, with every symptom of imminent bronchitis, with racing pulse and burning hands, but with heaven in her eyes.
'You have seen him,' she says pantingly, as Margaret comes in. 'You have heard—oh, do not scold me for getting up! I know that I ought not, but I will go back to bed as soon as you like; and—and it is real, is not it? it is true? I am not wandering. I was last night, I know; but I am not now, am I? Give me something of his, something to hold that I may be sure that it is true!'
Peggy has sat down upon the sofa beside her, and gathered up the little quivering figure into her arms.
'I will go back to bed now,' says Prue restlessly; but oh, with how different a restlessness from that of three hours ago! 'If I do not, I shall be longer in getting well, and I want to get well quickly. If I do not get better he will not go, and it would be selfish to hinder him from doing what is so much the best thing for him; yes, and for me too—for me too! Take me back to bed, Peggy.'
So Peggy takes her back to bed, and as she lays her down the thin arms close gratefully round her neck.