The hall-door is open, and he passes through it. It is the first time that he has had to push uninvited into her sanctuary--the first day that she has not met him at the gate. He checks the rising chill that the reflection calls forth, and hurries on into the hall; meaning to hurry through it, for surely it will be in the garden that he will find her. Perhaps, by one of love's subtilties, she has chosen to bid him farewell under the very hawthorn-tree where he had first called her his. But he has not made two steps into the hall before he discovers that his calculations have erred. Can it be by another of love's subtilties that she is sitting here indoors, away from the morning's radiance, sitting quite idle apparently by the table; and that, on his entry, she does not even turn her head? 'Peggy!' he cries, thinking that she cannot have heard his step, though it has rung not more noiselessly than usual on the old oak boards; and that Mink, with a friendly afterthought, is firing off little shrill 'good mornings' at his heels. There is no change of posture in the sitting figure, no movement, unless, if his eyes do not deceive him, a slight shiver running over it. 'Peggy!' he repeats, alarmed; and, in a second, has overleaped the intervening distance--has fallen on his knees at her feet, and grasped her hands. 'What is it? Quick--speak to me! Is Prue worse?' There is no answer. She has averted her face, so that he can see only the outline of her cheek's oval, at his approach; and--what is this? She is drawing her hands with slow decision, not with any petulance or coquetry, but as one irrevocably resolved, out of his. Then she rises slowly to her feet, and, having put three paces between them, turns and looks full at him. Looks full at him, this tall, risen woman, who will not lend him the custody of her hand! But who is she--this woman? Not his Peggy! Nay, surely not his Peggy! His Peggy, cheeked like the dawn, with eyes made out of sapphires and morning dew--his kindly, loving Peggy--what has she in common with this pale austerity that is facing him? 'What is it?' he repeats huskily, a vague horror making his knees knock together; 'is she----' He breaks off. The idea has flashed across him that Prue is dead! What lesser catastrophe can account for this horrible unnamed change? 'She is better,' replies Peggy hoarsely. 'Better!--thank God for that!' drawing a long breath of relief. 'What do you mean by looking like this? You made me think--I do not know what; but,' his agony of perplexity returning in profounder flood, 'if so--if she is better, what is it?--what else? For mercy's sake answer me!--answer me quickly! Do not keep me waiting! You do not know what it is to be kept waiting like this!'