Rachel Lorian Author:Alice Dudeney Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Rachel was standing yet in the rose coloured frock, looking blankly through the big bowed window of the hotel. They had carried Francis here, with... more » others of the injured after the accident and they had not let her see him since. She was buoyed up by the mere bald assurance that he was alive. She had refused to undress last night—her fearful wedding night—in case he should want her and she would have to be ready in a moment: one of those moments that came before his last. She had this morning, looking blankly through the window and down at the street, a confused memory of two women tucking her away on a bed about midnight: remembered their conversation, the tags which they had not meant her to hear. One had whispered to the other: " If he doesn't die, he'll be a cripple for life. It is to be hoped they've got private means to live on. A fat sorrow is better than a lean one, after all." The other answered: " Much better for him to die. A pretty woman like that would settle again and be happy. She's only a child. You soon forget when you're quite young." The second speaker had sighed. She stood at the window, feeling stiff and foolish and dirty—she was sleepy and unwashed ; but it did not seem as if one would ever do ordinary things again. Washing and sleeping—what waste of time it was! Her vague eyes wandered up and down the streets of the town. The hotel stood at a crossway. Immediately opposite was the market place and close on theright the imposing parish church. Something that Jeremy Light had said recurred to her; Jeremy who was so impatient of dry scholasticism in religion. " Our country churches are dead except when they are singing Anglican chants from the Cathedral Psalter." They were preparing to sing now; she heard the bell. It was...« less