The Hollow of Her Hand

The Hollow of Her Hand

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hollow of Her Hand, by George Barr McCutcheon (#14 in our series by George Barr McCutcheon)
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Title: The Hollow of Her Hand
Author: George Barr McCutcheon
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6045] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 23, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE HOLLOW OF HER HAND ***

Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Illustration: "The black pile is mine, the gay pile is yours," she went on, turning toward the sleeping girl]
THE HOLLOW OF HER HAND
By GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

CONTENTS

I MARCH COMES IN LIKE THE LION
II THE PASSING OF A NIGHT
III HETTY CASTLETON
IV WHILE THE MOB WAITED
V DISCUSSING A SISTER-IN-LAW
VI SOUTHLOOK
VII A FAITHFUL CRAYON-POINT
VIII IN WHICH HETTY IS WEIGHED
IX HAWKRIGHT'S MODEL
X THE GHOST AT THE FEAST
XI MAN PROPOSES
XII THE APPROACH OF A MAN NAMED SMITH
XIII MR. WRANDALL PERJURES HIMSELF
XIV IN THE SHADOW OF THE MILL
XV SARA WRANDALL FINDS THE TRUTH
XVI THE SECOND ENCOUNTER
XVII CROSSING THE CHANNEL
XVIII RATTLING OLD BONES
XIX VIVIAN AIRS HER OPINIONS
XX ONCE MORE AT BURTON'S INN
XXI DISTURBING NEWS
XXII THE HOLLOW OF HER HAND
XXIII SARA WRANDALL'S DECISION
XXIV THE JURY OF FOUR
XXV RENUNCIATION

CHAPTER I
MARCH COMES IN LIKE THE LION

The train, which had roared through a withering gale of sleet all the way up from New York, came to a standstill, with many an ear-splitting sigh, alongside the little station, and a reluctant porter opened his vestibule door to descend to the snow-swept platform: a solitary passenger had reached the journey's end. The swirl of snow and sleet screaming out of the blackness at the end of the station-building enveloped the porter in an instant, and cut his ears and neck with stinging force as he turned his back against the gale. A pair of lonely, half-obscured platform lights gleamed fatuously at the top of their icy posts at each end of the station; two or three frost-encrusted windows glowed dully in the side of the building, while one shone brightly where the operator sat waiting for the passing of No. 33.
The train itself was dark. Frosty windows, pelted for miles by the furious gale, white outside but black within, protected the snug travellers who slept the sleep of the hurried and thought not of the storm that beat about their ears nor wondered at the stopping of the fast express at a place where it had never stopped before. Far ahead the panting engine shed from its open fire-box an aureole of glaring red as the stoker fed coal into its rapacious maw. The unblinking head-light threw its rays into the thick of the blinding snow storm, fruitlessly searching for the rails through drifts denser than fog and filled with strange, half-visible shapes.
An order had been issued for the stopping of the fast express at B--, a noteworthy concession in these days of premeditated haste. Not in the previous career of flying 33 had it even so much as slowed down for the insignificant little station, through which it swooped at midnight the whole year round. Just before pulling out of New York on this eventful night the conductor received a command to stop 33 at B---- and let down a single passenger, a circumstance which meant trouble for every despatcher along the line.
The woman who got down at B---- in the wake of the shivering but deferential porter, and who passed by the conductors without lifting her face, was without hand luggage of any description. She was heavily veiled, and warmly clad in furs. At eleven o'clock that night she had entered the compartment in New York. Throughout the thirty miles or more, she had sat alone and inert beside the snow-clogged window, peering through veil and frost into the night that whizzed past the pane, seeing nothing yet apparently intent on all that stretched beyond. As still, as immobile as death itself she had held herself from the moment of departure to