There is such a depth of contempt in this one monosyllable, and it is so elucidated--if indeed it needed elucidation--by the handsome lightning of her eye, that Freddy's colour again changes. 'I was coming home. I should have come home by the next train,' falters Prue, hanging her head; and as this tremulous explanation is received by her sister in a sorrowful silence, she adds with passionate eagerness, 'He was ill, really--very ill. It was not pretence--he was really ill.' 'No doubt,' replies Peggy, in withering quotation from Freddy's own billet; '"the whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint."' Not vouchsafing him another word or look, she takes her sister's unresisting arm, and leads her away. Without exchanging a syllable, they reach St. Aldate's. Then Peggy hails a hansom, and bids the cabman drive as quickly as he can to the G. W. station. But both her injunctions and his speed are vain. They gallop up only to find the train, reduced by distance to a small puff of smoke, steaming unattainably northwards. There is not a second one for another hour and a half. There is nothing for it but to wait. After all, as Peggy reflects with some bitterness, they are not returning to such a very happy home that they need be in any scrambling hurry to get there. In mid-October the days are already beginning to close in early, and even before the light goes there comes a sharpness into the air. It is blowing chilly through the draughty station now. Peggy looks apprehensively at Prue. Neither of them have had the forethought to bring any wraps with them. Prue is shivering in a thin summer jacket; her face looks weary, drawn, and cold. 'Had not you better go and rest in the waiting-room?' asks Margaret solicitously, addressing her for the first time, as she takes off her own cloak and wraps it round her. 'Yes, if you wish. I do not mind,' replies Prue apathetically. When she has been settled in the warmest corner, and her vitality raised a little by a cup of hot tea, Peggy leaves her. There is a painful irksomeness in her company that makes Peggy prefer to it even a silent and solitary march up and down the platform, each footstep beating time to some heavy thought. Her march is not destined to be solitary for long, however. Before she has taken three turns a soft young voice with an intonation of excessive deprecation sounds at her elbow: 'May I take a stroll with you, dear?' She does not deign him one syllable in answer, but walks along as before, looking straight ahead. He sighs patiently. 'When you come to think it over, dear, I am sure you will acknowledge that you are unjust. I can perfectly see your side of the question. I think that one ought always to try to see both sides; but whether you believe me or not, I can assure you that I never was more horrified in my life than I was this morning, when poor Prue walked in.' And for once, at all events, Freddy speaks truth.