ETHAN FROME
could think of nothing more felicitous than: "I presume you're tired after the long ride."
Turning her head at this, she answered solemnly: "I'm a great deal sicker than you think."
Her words fell on his ear with a strange shock of wonder. He had often heard her pronounce them before—what if at last they were true?
He advanced a step or two into the dim room. "I hope that's not so, Zeena," he said.
She continued to gaze at him through the twilight with a mien of wan authority, as of one consciously singled out for a great fate. "I've got complications," she said.
Ethan knew the word for one of exceptional import. Almost everybody in the neighbourhood had "troubles," frankly localized and specified; but only the chosen had "complications." To have them was in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death-warrant. People struggled on for years with "troubles," but they almost always succumbed to "complications."
Ethan's heart was jerking to and fro between two
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