The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Power, by Marie Corelli

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Title: The Secret Power

Author: Marie Corelli

Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3831]
Release Date: March, 2003
First Posted: October 1, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE SECRET POWER

BY

MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF

"God's Good Man" "The Master Christian" "Innocent,"
"The Treasure of Heaven," etc.

JTABLE 5 26 1

THE SECRET POWER

CHAPTER I

A cloud floated slowly above the mountain peak. Vast, fleecy and white
as the crested foam of a sea-wave, it sailed through the sky with a
divine air of majesty, seeming almost to express a consciousness of its
own grandeur. Over a spacious tract of Southern California it extended
its snowy canopy, moving from the distant Pacific Ocean across the
heights of the Sierra Madre, now and then catching fire at its extreme
edge from the sinking sun, which burned like a red brand flung on the
roof of a roughly built hut situated on the side of a sloping hollow in
one of the smaller hills. The door of the hut stood open; there were a
couple of benches on the burnt grass outside, one serving as a table,
the other as a chair. Papers and books were neatly piled on the
table,--and on the chair, if chair it might be called, a man sat
reading. His appearance was not prepossessing at a first glance, though
his actual features could hardly be seen, so concealed were they by a
heavy growth of beard. In the way of clothing he had little to trouble
him. Loose woollen trousers, a white shirt, and a leathern belt to keep
the two garments in place, formed his complete outfit, finished off by
wide canvas shoes. A thatch of dark hair, thick and ill combed,
apparently served all his need of head covering, and he seemed
unconscious of, or else indifferent to, the hot glare of the summer sky
which was hardly tempered by the long shadow of the floating cloud. At
some moments he was absorbed in reading,--at others in writing. Close
within hi