She stops exhausted, and her faint head droops on his breast. The tears have sprung again to Freddy's eyes. Before he can make any rejoinder, she has lifted her face, and is again speaking.
'You say that I am to decide?' she says, in a firm tone. 'Well, then, I have decided. You are to go. I send you. No one,' her voice breaking a little, 'can pity me if I send you myself—can they?'
Two days later he goes. Upon the solemnity of his last parting with his sweetheart no one intrudes; but he prolongs his leave-taking so unreasonably that he is within an ace of losing his train; and it is not till after many vigorous rappings at the door, strong remonstrances, and nervous apostrophes through the keyhole, that he at length issues from Prue's room, livid and staggering.
'Oh, Peggy!' he says hoarsely, wringing her two hands; 'surely—surely the bitterness of death is past! Take care of her—in God's name take care of her for me! Do you hear?—take care of her for me!'
But Peggy answers never a word.
CHAPTER XXXVII
'Weep with me, all you that read
This little story,
And know, for whom a tear you shed,
Death's self is sorry.'
It is Sunday. The Lapwing is ploughing her way through a short chopping sea in the Bay of Biscay; and here at home, at Roupell, the people are issuing in a little quiet stream from afternoon church. They are coming out rather later, and with rather more alacrity than usual, both which phenomena are to be accounted for by the fact of Mr. Evans—never churlishly loth to yield his pulpit to a spiritual brother—having lent it to a very young deacon, who has taken a mean advantage of this concession to inflict fifty minutes of stammering extempore upon the congregation.