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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
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Categories: Science fiction Fantasy Mystery Romance Business Classic Sports Young adult Humor Memoirs See all categories... |
an excerpt from the beginning: THE rain had fallen for a week; steadily, monotonously, relentlessly. There had been no storm; no bluster of wind. The sky was a grey mask covering the face of God. In all the world there was no sound but the drip, drip, drip of rain. Allie Baird stood at her bedroom window, clad in nightdress and faded calico wrapper, her long yellow hair falling over her shoulders. In the distance lay the little Maine fishing village, huddled against the sky, and beyond it the drab reach of the sea. Out of the cluster of wet roofs a lone steeple stood grimly aloft, like a tombstone dominating a graveyard. Allie regarded that steeple with an especial hatred. It belonged to the church she had been married in. . . . As she stood there shivering with the cold, a desolate picture composed itself in her mind. She saw again the naked wooden altar; heard once more the voice of the lugubrious minister pronouncing sentence upon her soul; felt the cold hand of Jim Baird fumbling for her hand, and the colder embrace of the ring upon her finger. It had rained that day, as it was raining now. Eighteen years! And in all that time only three things of importance had happened to her; first, the birth of her child; second, the death of her child; and third, a trip to Portland for a minor operation. Except for these events, her life had been a barren desert of days.