Calvary Alley by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
page 296 of 366 (80%)
page 296 of 366 (80%)
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"I don't want to go anywhere. I'm too sick. I don't want to have to see people." "You won't have to. It's a rooming house. The old woman that looks after things has gone by now." It took considerable persuasion to get her on her feet and up the bank. Again and again she refused to go on, declaring that she didn't want to live. But Dan's patience was limitless. Added to his compassion for her, was the half-superstitious belief that he had been appointed by Providence to save her. "It's just around the corner now," he encouraged her. "Can you make it?" She stumbled on blindly, without answering, clinging to his arm and. breathing heavily. "Here we are!" said Dan, turning into a dark entrance, "front room on the left. Steady there!" But even as he opened the door, Birdie swayed forward and would have fallen to the floor, had he not caught her and laid her on the bed. Hastily lighting the lamp on the deal table by the window, he went back to the bed and loosened the neck of her dripping coat and then looked down at her helplessly. Her face, startlingly white in its frame of black hair, showed dark circles under the eyes, and her full lips had lost not only their color, but the innocent curves of childhood as well. |
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