Explore "The Broad Highway" by Jeffery Farnol on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The chill of dawn was in the air when I awoke, and it was some few moments before, with a rush, I remembered why I was kneeling there beside Charmian's bed. Shivering, I rose and walked up and down to reduce the stiffness in my limbs.
The fire was out and I had no mind to light it, for I was in no mood to break my fast, though the necessary things stood ready, as her orderly hands had set them, and the plates and cups and saucers twinkled at me from the little cupboard I had made to hold them; a cupboard whose construction she had overlooked with a critical eye. And I must needs remember how she had insisted on being permitted to drive in three nails with her own hand -- I could put my finger on those very nails; how she had tapped at those nails for fear of missing them; how beautiful she had looked in her coarse apron, and with her sleeves rolled up over her round white arms -- how womanly and sweet; yet I had dared to think -- had dared to call her -- a Messalina! Oh, that my tongue had withered or ever I had coupled one so pure and noble with a creature so base and common!