In the days that follow, the death of Franky Harborough, which at an ordinary time would have been the sorrowful main occupation of Peggy's thoughts, has to retire into the background of her mind. In the foreground there is room for but one absorbing topic. Prue is decidedly worse. In an illness such as hers--which is less a definite disease than a decline all round, a bowing to its final ruin of a building whose foundations have been sapped for more than a year--there is very often, for a considerable period, but little change to be noted from day to day; and then suddenly--no, not suddenly--in a progression rather, as natural as that from seedtime to harvest, on some morning, at some noon or night, there is a step down to a lower level of vitality; a travelling along that lower level, until the time for a new and farther descent. It would seem impossible that any breath of the chilly fog outside could have thrust its pestilent way into the atmosphere, regulated with so passionate a nicety, of Prue's room; and, indeed, there is no sign of any return of that bronchitis which had been the ostensible beginning of her illness. Nor is there any very perceptible aggravation of any one of her symptoms. The signs of her approaching dissolution are rather negative than positive. It is only that Miss Prue is going downhill rather quicker than before--that is all. There is now no longer any question of the oak settle in the hall. Even the sofa in the dressing-room has been abandoned. Prue no longer stirs from her bed; but she lies there quite happily, quite as happy as she was before; for Freddy's gifts are within as easy reach of her hand, spread on the counterpane before her, as they were on the table in the adjoining room; and her card with its 365 black strokes hangs quite as full in her eye, on the wall opposite her bed. However bad her night may have been, there is always something to look forward to at dawning, in having it brought to her to put her triumphant pen through another day. 'I shall be glad when we have got up to forty,' she says to Peggy, with a faint but cheerful laugh. 'I shall feel quite differently when we have reached forty: there will be all but a ninth of the time gone then.' It is a day on which the officious dusk of the winter afternoon--always in such haste to shoulder away its pale brother--has already settled down. For sixteen long hours there will be no more glint of light. This dreary thought is passing through Peggy's mind, as she nods drowsily over the fire. She is roused from it and from her semi-sleep by hearing the room-door open cautiously and seeing Sarah making signs--evidently not intended to be seen by Prue--through the aperture. In obedience to them, Margaret rises languidly, and goes out upon the landing. 'What is it?' 'If you please, 'm, there's a lady wishes to speak to you.' 'Oh, Sarah, you know that I can't see any one; why did not you tell her so?'