"Joan! You are in real trouble!" "For the first time!" said Joan.
"Can't I---- ?" "No," Joan interrupted.

"There's only the one way, Miranda." She sat down upon a couch at Miranda's side and feverishly caught her hand.

"Do help me! You can't tell what it means to me!...

And I should hate telling you! Oh, I have been such a fool!" Joan's face was quivering, and so deep a compunction was audible in her voice, so earnest a prayer was to be read in her troubled eyes, that Miranda's doubt and anxiety were doubled.
"I don't know what I shall do, if you don't help me," Joan said miserably as she let go of Miranda.

Her hands fluttered helplessly in the air.