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Rh "Is it all . . . a little too much for you sometimes?"

"I am so seldom alone."

"I dare say you feel tired sometimes."

"It may be that."

"You mustn't think about it any more. . . . Tell me, Auntie: Gerdy isn't very well. . . ."

"What makes you say that?"

"I thought she looked pale . . . and rather sad."

Constance passed her hand over her forehead:

"Oh, Marianne," she said, "I wish that I could talk it all away, think it all away! . . . But I can't. . . . I'm frightened, I keep on being frightened. . . ."

And she sobbed gently on Marianne's shoulder, while the younger woman knelt beside her.

The rain fell in vertical streaks. The carriage took Marianne and her children to the station through a deluge.