"Well, of course!" said Arthur softly. "I always meant to be that, Peg; and, as the mater says, it is only another kind of battle. The other would have been easier, but I mean to fight still. I am not going to give up all my dreams. You shall be proud of me yet, though not in the way you expected." "I never was so proud of you in my life!" Peggy cried. "Never in all my life." Long after Arthur had kissed her and gone to his own room she lay awake, thinking of his words and of the expression on his handsome face as the firelight played on moistened eye and trembling lip. "I mean to fight." "You shall be proud of me yet." The words rang in her ears, and would not be silenced. When she fell asleep Arthur was still by her side; the marks of tears were on his face. He was telling her once more the story of disappointment and failure; but she could not listen to him, for her eyes were fixed on something that was pinned on the breast of his coat-- a little cross with two words printed across its surface. In her dream Peggy bent forward, and read those two words with a great rush of joy and exultation. "For Valour!" "For Valour!" Yes, yes, it was quite true! Never was soldier flushed with victory more deserving of that decoration than Arthur Saville in his hour of disappointment and failure. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS! Arthur kept his word, and tried manfully not to let his own disappointment interfere with the enjoyment of Christmas Day. The party at the vicarage was smaller than usual, for Rob and Oswald had both gone home for the festive season, and he knew well that the knowledge that "Arthur was coming" had seemed the best guarantee of a merry day to those who were left. Peggy too--poor little Peg, with her bandaged hands and tiny white face--it would never do to grieve her by being depressed and gloomy! "Begone, dull care!" cried Arthur to himself then, when he awoke on Christmas morning, and, promptly wrapping himself in his dressing-gown, he sallied out on to the landing, where he burst into the strains of "Christians, awake!" with such vigorous brush-and-comb accompaniment on the panels of the doors as startled the household out of their dreams. "Miserable boy! I was having such a lovely nap! I'll never forgive you!" cried Mrs Asplin's voice, in sleepy wrath. "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" shouted the girls; and Peggy's clear pipe joined in last of all. "And many of them! Come in! Come in! I was lying awake and longing to see you!" Arthur put his ruffled head round the door and beamed at the little figure in the bed, as if he had never known a trouble in his life.