Three days after the fall of this final blow to Prue's hopes the two girls meet milady coming out of morning church; milady in her reluctant and temporary divorce from her spud and frieze-coat. They walk down the yellow, leaf-strewn church-path with her, as they always do, while she throws her brusque nods, and her good-hearted greetings to her fellow-worshippers. As she seats herself in the carriage she pulls a letter accidentally out of her pocket with her pocket-handkerchief. 'Oh, by the bye,' says she, 'I heard this morning from Freddy; I came away in such a hurry that I had not half time to read it. If I had been a little farther off the Vicar,' laughing, 'I would have read it during the sermon. (Poor dear man!' in a loud aside, 'he really ought to treat us to a new one.) Freddy says that he is ill.' '_Ill_, is he?' 'So he says,' with a shrug. 'He says that he has caught a chill. Oh, I am not very much disturbed,' laughing again. 'I daresay that we are not going to lose him this time. You know he always cries out some time before he is hurt.' She rolls cheerfully away, resuming the reading of her letter as she goes. Peggy turns apprehensively to her sister. The congregation have all issued into road and bridle-path, and they are alone. Peggy has time for an impulse of thankfulness that such is the case; for Prue is leaning, whiter than her pocket-handkerchief, against the lych-gate. '_Ill!_' she says gaspingly, under her breath. 'Ill! and all alone! nobody with him!' 'Pooh!' replies Peggy lightly, and with a half tone of contempt. 'I daresay it is not much; he is always frightened about himself. Do not you remember the time when he thought he was going into a consumption, and bid us all good-bye? How white you look, darling! Had not you better sit down a moment? Take my arm.' But Prue will not sit down--will not take her sister's arm. She walks home unhelped, and on getting there, refuses all Peggy's simple cordials. But she leaves her luncheon untouched, and is out the whole afternoon on a long aimless, solitary ramble. She comes in again a full hour after dusk has fallen, and, complaining of headache, goes to bed. The next morning she is up, and at her usual stand, lying in ambush for the postman. After he is gone Peggy catches distant glimpses of her walking up and down the kitchen garden, reading a letter. She has heard, then, from him. Thank God! Perhaps her heart will be more at ease.