About this story
In Africa you sign Soa's terms in ink of your own blood and gunpowder, enter a mist country watched by a colossus with star-ruby eyes, and see the high priest Nam step off a promontory with the hoard. Thirty-six chapters carry the Outram name from a stripped hall to a house bought back and a wedding.
How it opens
January frost covered the road while buyers' carriages left the gates of Outram Hall.
Thomas OutramThe sale is over, Leonard; looking back cannot restore a single room.
Your father had lost the estate through fraud and debt, then ended his own life.
Thomas OutramMisfortune has altered their invitations, not the names by which we know ourselves.
Choose
I need her answer under changed circumstances, not another memory of the old promise.
Waiting until tomorrow may separate grief from a decision about Jane.