She stirred a little, and sighed a faint protest.
"This is very terrible to me—of a crushing, killing weight. Let it not also have to be said that I mangled your very soul, dimmed your reason, impaired the sweet sanity, the nice adjustment of what I know was once a fair and balanced mind."
She raised her head slowly and looked at him. "What?" she said. "Do you think—do you think I'm going mad?"
"I think it very likely, ma'am," said Fritzing with conviction.
A startled expression crept into her eyes.
"So much morbid introspection," he went on, "followed by hours of weeping and fasting, if indulged in long enough will certainly have that result. A person who fasts a sufficient length of time invariably parts piecemeal with valuable portions of his wits."
She stretched out her hand.
He mistook the action and bent down and kissed it.
"No," said Priscilla, "I want the milk."
He snatched it up and gave it to her, watching her drink with all the relief, the thankfulness of a mother whose child's sickness takes a turn for the better. When she had finished she gave him back the glass. "Fritzi," she said, looking at him with eyes wide open now and dark with anxious questioning, "we won't reproach ourselves then if we can help it—"