It is little, and it will soon be less." She spoke in a cold, pale kind of ecstasy.
"You are the only creature I have told this to--the only one on this earth I really care about; hear it and forget it.

And now, adieu," she said; "if we ever meet again in this world, don't let the subject be mentioned between us." She felt blindly for the door, and opened it.
"Every cross comes from above, and the worst of all sins is to despair," said Elizabeth, with an attempt at consolation; she said what most readily occurred to her at the moment.
Fru Beck turned at the door, and looked back at her with a white, calm, joyless face.
"Elizabeth," she said, "I found this in one of my husband's drawers.

I tell it you, that you may not think that that has been in any way the cause of my spoilt life." She took from her pocket a scrap of paper, yellow with age, and handed it to her.

The door closed behind her then, and she was gone.
Elizabeth sat still for a long while in sad distress, thinking of her.
Now she understood why Fru Beck was so pale.

She had not a wrinkle in her face--it looked so noble; but oh how cold, how pinched it had become! Poor, poor woman! her burden was indeed a heavy one.