Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Author Bio
Chapter 1
Early 1920s
The letter lay on the top of the pile of mail on the old mahogany desk, a square envelope of thick parchment with high, dashing handwriting and faint, subtle fragrance.
The man saw it the instant he entered the room. It gave him a sick dull thrust like an unexpected blow in the pit of his stomach. He had come back to the home of his childhood after hard years to rest, and here was this!
It was from his former wife, Lilla, and no word from her in all the twelve years since their divorce had ever brought anything but disgust and annoyance.
He half turned toward the door with an impulse of retreat but thought better of it and stalked over to the desk, tearing open the envelope roughly as if to have the worst over quickly. It began abruptly, as Lilla would. He could see the white jeweled fingers flying across the page, the half-flippant fling of the pen. Somehow the very tilt of the letters as she had formed them contrived to give the taunting inflection of her voice as he read.
Well, Pat, the time is up, and as the court decreed I am sending you your daughter. I hope you haven’t forgotten, for it would be rather awkward for the poor thing. I’m going to be married in a few days now and wouldn’t know what to do with her. She’s fourteen and has your stubbornness, but she’s not so bad if you let her have her own way in everything. Don’t worry, she’s the kind that marries young, and she’ll probably take herself off your hands soon. I wish you well of your task.
Lilla
He sat back in the old mahogany chair and steadied his arms on the chair arms. The paper was shaking in his fingers. Something inside of him began to tremble. He had a feeling that it was his soul that was shaking. Like quicksilver along his veins the weakness ran, like quicksands his strength slid away from beneath his groping feet. He had not known that a man in his prime could be so puny, so helpless. Why, all the little particles of his flesh were quivering! His lips were trembling like an old person’s. He was like a frail ship being tossed in the trough of great waves. He could not right himself nor get any hold on his self-control. He could not seem to think what it all meant. He tried to read it over again and found the words dancing before his eyes with strange, grotesque amusement at his horror, like the look in Lilla’s eyes when she knew she had hit one hard in a sensitive spot. His daughter!
He had not seen her since she was two years old, and had taken very little notice of her then. His mind had been too much filled with horror and disappointment to notice the well-suppressed infant who spent her days in a nursery at the top of the house when she was not out in the park with her nurse. A memory of ribbons and frills, pink-and-whiteness, and a stolid stare from a pair of alien eyes that were all too much like Lilla’s to make any appeal to his fatherhood—that was his child, all he could recall of her. Even her name, he remembered bitterly, had been a matter of contention. Athalie, the name of a heathen queen! That had been her mother’s whim. She said it was euphonious. Athalie Greeves! And she had enjoyed his horror and distaste. And now this child with the heathen name was coming home to him!
He had looked on her as an infant still.
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