Read "The Sword of Damocles" by Anna Katharine Green online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Ah what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, could any spot on earth Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it has witnessed; render back an echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod. WORDSWORTH.
Unexplained actions if long continued, lose after awhile their interest if not their mystery. The aged lady who now for many years had been seen at every night-fall to leave her home, traverse the village streets, enter the Japha mansion, remain there an hour and then re-issue with tremulous steps and bowed head, had become so common a sight to the village eye, that even the children forgot to ask what her errand was, or why she held her head so hopefully when she entered, or looked so despondent when she came forth.