"Oh, Edward! Edward!" exclaimed his wife, in a distressed voice.
"What has so blinded you to the real quality of this man? 'By their
fruit ye shall know them.' And is not the first fruit, we have
plucked from this tree, bitter to the taste?"
"You are excited and bewildered in thought, Agnes," said Mr.
Markland, in a soothing voice. "Let us waive this subject for the
present, until both of us can refer to it with a more even
heart-beat."
Mrs. Markland caught her breath, as if the air had suddenly grown
stifling.
"Will they ever beat more evenly?" she murmured, in a sad voice.
"Why, Agnes! Into what a strange mood you have fallen! You are not
like yourself."
"And I am not, to my own consciousness. For weeks it has seemed to
me as if I were in a troubled dream."
"The glad waking will soon come, I trust," said Mr. Markland, with
forced cheerfulness of manner.
"I pray that it may be so," was answered, in a solemn voice.
There was silence for some moments, and then the other's full heart
overflowed.
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