Priscilla leaned against the door-post. She was feeling sick and
giddy. "How dreadful this is," she murmured, looking at him with
weary, woeful eyes.
"No, no--all will be well," said Fritzing, striving to be brisk.
"Drink some milk, ma'am."
"Oh, I have been wicked."
"Wicked?"
Fritzing hastily put the plate and glass down on the floor, and
catching up the hand hanging limply by her side passionately kissed
it. "You are the noblest woman on earth," he said.
"Oh," said Priscilla, turning away her head and shutting her eyes for
very weariness of such futile phrases.
"Ma'am, you are. I would swear it. But you are also a child, and so
you are ready at the first reverse to suppose you have done with
happiness for ever. Who knows," said Fritzing with a great show of
bright belief in his own prophecy, the while his heart was a stone,
"who knows but what you are now on the very threshold of it?"
"Oh," murmured Priscilla, too beaten to do anything but droop her
head.
"It is insisting on the commonplace to remind you, ma'am, that the
darkest hour comes before dawn.
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