About this story
You marry the clergyman Robert Elsmere and follow him from Surrey to a workingmen's hall as he hands back his orders for a creed he cannot sign. A brewer's dray kills his right-hand man; the night of it makes the marriage young again; a priest calls two hours too late. Fifty chapters carry a valley tea to a deathbed above Algiers and your corner seat in the hall.
How it opens
Late May sunlight remained on Burwood Farm when you returned with an empty basket and tired hands.
You were Catherine Leyburn, eldest of three sisters and the practical strength of your widowed mother's household.
Rose LeyburnMy violin has filled the valley all afternoon while Agnes and the cat practiced idleness.
Rose LeyburnWe thought Mrs Tyson would keep you until dark; is her injured son any better?
Dr Baker says the injury to that young quarryman's spine will never heal.
Choose
Tell them the prognosis plainly, but spare them the young man's first despair.
Describe how he finally allowed a prayer when exhaustion overcame resistance.