The Shadow of Life
PART I
I, II, III, IV, V, VI.
PART II
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII.
PART III
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X.
The Shadow of Life
BY
Anne Douglas Sedgwick
AUTHOR OF “THE RESCUE,” “THE CONFOUNDING OF
CAMELIA,” “PATHS OF JUDGEMENT,” ETC.
NEW YORK
The Century Co.
1906
Copyright, 1906, by
The Century Co.
———
Published February, 1906
THE DE VINNE PRESS
THE SHADOW OF LIFE
PART I
THE SHADOW OF LIFE
I
LSPETH GIFFORD was five years old when she went to live at Kirklands.Her father, an army officer, died in her babyhood, and her mother a fewyears later. The uncle and aunts in Scotland, all three much hermother’s seniors, were the child’s nearest relatives.
To such a little girl death had meant no more than a bewilderedloneliness, but the bewilderment was so sharp, the loneliness so aching,that she cried herself into an illness. She had seen her dead mother,the sweet, sightless, silent face, familiar yet amazing, and more thanany fear or shrinking had been the suffocating mystery of feelingherself forgotten and left behind. Her uncle Nigel, sorrowful and grave,but so large and kind that his presence seemed to radiate a restoringwarmth, came to London for her and a fond nurse went with her to theNorth, and after a few weeks the anxious affection of her aunts Rachel