“I would go,” said the rector’s wife, “only I know he would require me to agree with him about Harry.  That, of course, I cannot do.”

Then the rector walked across to the Hall, and sent up word by Matthew that he was there, and would be glad to see Mr. Prosper, if Mr. Prosper were disengaged.  But Matthew, after an interval of a quarter of an hour, came back with merely a note:  “I am not very well, and an interview at the present moment would only be depressing.  But I would be glad to see my sister, if she would come across to-morrow at twelve o’clock.  I think it would be well that I should see some one, and she is now the nearest.—­P.P.”  Then there arose a great discussion at the rectory as to what this note indicated.  “She is now the nearest!” He might have so written had the doctor who attended him told him that death was imminent.  Of course she was the nearest.  What did the “now” mean?  Was it not intended to signify that Harry had been his heir, and therefore the nearest; but that now he had been repudiated?  But it was of course resolved that Mrs. Annesley should go to the Hall at the hour indicated on the morrow.

“Oh yes; I’m up here; where else should I be,—­unless you expected to find me in my bed?” It was thus that he answered his sister’s first inquiry as to his condition.

“In bed?  Oh no!  Why should any one expect to find you in bed, Peter?”

“Never call me by that name again!” he said, rising up from his chair, and standing erect, with one arm stretched out.  She called him Peter, simply because it had been her custom so to do during the period of nearly fifty years in which they had lived in the same parish as brother and sister.  She could, therefore, only stare at him and his tragic humor, as he stood there before her.  “Though of course it is madness on my part to object to it!  My godfather and godmother christened me Peter, and our father was Peter before me, and his father too was Peter Prosper.  But that woman has made the name sound abominable in my ears.”

“Miss Thoroughbung, you mean?”

“She came here, and so be-Petered me in my own house,—­nay, up in this very room,—­that I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels.”

“I would not mind what she said.  They all know that she is a little flighty.”

“Nobody told me so.  Why couldn’t you let me know that she was flighty beforehand?  I thought that she was a person whom it would have done to marry.”

“If you will only think of it, Peter—­” Here he shuddered visibly.  “I beg your pardon, I will not call you so again.  But it is unreasonable to blame us for not telling you about Miss Thoroughbung.”

“Of course it is.  I am unreasonable, I know it.”

“Let us hope that it is all over now.”

“Cart-ropes wouldn’t drag me up to the hymeneal altar,—­at least not with that woman.”

“You have sent for me, Peter—­I beg pardon.  I was so glad when you sent.  I would have come before, only I was afraid that you would be annoyed.  Is there anything that we can do for you?”