Prue has been lying prostrate and languid; but at his words she draws herself up into a sitting posture, and into her little face, not much less white than her dressing-gown, has come a faint pink flush--the flush of a generous effort. 'And, after all, it is only a year,' she says bravely. 'How absurd to make a fuss about only a year! When one was a child, one used to think it endless--an eternity; but now--why, it is gone by like a flash!' '_Only_ a year!' repeats Freddy, with a moan. 'Oh, Prue, can you say _only_? How do you do it, dear? Teach me--teach me!' 'And when it is over,' continues Prue, the colour deepening in her thin cheeks with the pain and labour of her sacrifice, 'and you come back, perhaps you will find me, too, changed, and not quite for the worse. Perhaps--perhaps if I do my best--if I try hard to educate myself between now and then--you will find me better able to understand your thoughts, and enter into your ideas, and say something besides the stupid praise--which I know has often vexed you, though you have tried not to show it--of your poems.' 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.