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BOOK THE THIRD.
THE CHILD IN THE SHADOW.
CHAPTER I.
CHESIL.
The storm was no less severe on land than on sea. The same wild
enfranchisement of the elements had taken place around the abandoned
child. The weak and innocent become their sport in the expenditure of
the unreasoning rage of their blind forces. Shadows discern not, and
things inanimate have not the clemency they are supposed to possess.
On the land there was but little wind. There was an inexplicable
dumbness in the cold. There was no hail. The thickness of the falling
snow was fearful.
Hailstones strike, harass, bruise, stun, crush. Snowflakes do worse:
soft and inexorable, the snowflake does its work in silence; touch it,
and it melts. It is pure, even as the hypocrite is candid. It is by
white particles slowly heaped upon each other that the flake becomes an
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