CHAPTER 18Anne Burford sat with her hands before her, staring into the empty grate.
Life that had seemed so full of promise, of which in Michael Burford's love she thought she had plucked its fairest blossom, was withering into Dead Sea fruit in her mouth. She rose every morning with a dead weight of misery to be faced; went to bed at night thankful another day was safely past.
It had nothing to do with Michael. He was all she had pictured him, a kind, thoughtful, loving husband. Busy all day—and she hated an idle man—in the stables, superintending the morning gallops over the smooth, green uplands crowned with heather and stretching away to the west, often occupied in the office with the business side of his calling, or interviewing applicants that had to be dealt with personally, she h
