Читать книгу The Perfect World. A romance of strange people and strange places онлайн

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Two days passed—a week, a fortnight; still Dan Murlock’s baby was not found, and at last the broken-hearted parents appeared at church in mourning, thus acknowledging to the world that they had given up all hope of ever seeing their little one again.

Murlock was silent about it all, but every one who knew him realized that he was a changed man. He had idolized his wife and child, and at one blow had lost both, for his baby was without doubt dead; and his wife had turned from him in the throes of her grief.

The weeks passed on, Christmas was nigh upon them, and the child was spoken of in hushed tones as one speaks of the dead. The two boys were treated as aliens by the men, and they were beginning to chafe under their treatment. Although nothing had been said openly, they knew instinctively that they were blamed by the superstitious inhabitants for the disappearance of the baby.

“Alan,” said Desmond one day, as they were sitting apart from the rest eating their dinner, “I can’t stand this. I am going to speak to the men.”