They were as happy as the day was long. Priscilla, under the new influence of happiness and good roast beef and a daily pint of porter, grew rosy, and blossomed out into a regular beauty, and Mr. Thorburn's face lost that painful expression it had been wont to wear when he strode through the streets on his parish work. And time went by so fast—so fast; they had been married nearly three years, when they felt as if their honey-moon was just beginning.
It was getting toward dusk one misty November afternoon when Priscilla went tripping past Dr. Forman's house, which stood on the opposite side of the street. The moisture from the over-hanging branches of the elm trees was dripping upon her, and her boots were quite soaked through. Across the way the doctor was just stepping out of his buggy, and she stopped and debated whether she should not go over and ask him to drive her a quarter of a mile further down the road to the rectory. As she stood hesitating, a woman approached her out of the mist, and spoke.
"May I inquire," she said, "the way to the house of the Rev. Mr. Thorburn?"
She was perhaps forty, and had once been pretty. Even now a certain pathetic charm attached to her, and the voice and accent were of that cultivated kind which established her title to be called a lady, in spite of the extreme plainness of her attire.
Her hair, which was a beautiful auburn, curled over her forehead in little natural rings, and her eyes were strangely bright. She looked as if she had just recovered from illness, and was not physically strong, but there was a look of tremulous happiness in her face. When she said "the Rev. Mr. Thorburn," her voice was musically lowered, and her gray eyes became radiant. Priscilla took all this in at a glance. She was some woman whom Thorburn had befriended, and who had come to him to lay down her load of gratitude at his feet.
"Yes," said Priscilla, with ready politeness; "just down the road, the first house to the left. You will have to wait an hour or two, perhaps, though, for Mr. Thorburn. He is seldom in before half past-six. I am Mrs. Thorburn, you see," she said, smiling.
The stranger looked at her for a moment with a kind of wide-eyed horror, and, throwing her arms up in the air, fell prone on the ground as if she had received a pistol shot through the heart.
Priscilla had never been brought face to face with any startling emergencies during her quiet life. She stood for a moment frozen with terror, and then ran like a deer across to where Dr. Forman stood giving some directions to his man.
"Oh, doctor, come! run as fast as you can." She pointed to the prostrate figure lying in the muddy road. Dr. Forman gave one glance, and started at a smart pace, Priscilla keeping up with him, and telling him breathlessly what had occurred. The doctor bent down, turned the unfortunate woman over on her back, and said two words, "Dead faint."
"Can't I do something?" said Priscilla, hovering near.