1
Anna Lombard
by Victoria Cross
Author of "Life's Shop Window", "Paula," "A Girl of the Klondike," etc.
1901
KENSINGTON PRESS
18 EAST SEVENTEENTH ST., NEW YORK
DEDICATED TO
"Verona's summer hath not such a flower."
PREFACE.
I HAVE been challenged by certain papers to state my intentions in writing "Anna Lombard." This is my reply: I endeavored to draw in Gerald Ethridge a character whose actions should be in accordance with the principle, laid down by Christ, one that would display, not in word but in his actual life, that gentleness, humility, patience, charity, and self-sacrifice that our Redeemer himself enjoined. It is a sad commentary on our religion of to-day that a presumably Christian journal --The Daily Chronicle--should hold this Christ-like conduct up to ridicule and contempt, stigmatize it as "horrid absurdity," and declare that for such qualities a man ought to be turned out of their service. I challenge The Daily Chronicle and all who follow its opinion to find one act which does not reflect Christ's own teaching, committed by Gerald Ethridge. He forgives the sinner, raises the fallen, comforts the weak. He works and suffers to reclaim the pagan and almost lost soul of Anna Lombard. Fearlessly, and with the Gospel of Christ in my hand, I offer this example of his teaching to the great Christian public for its verdict, confident that I shall be justified by it.
VICTORIA CROSS.
CHAPTER I.
A FLOOD of glaring yellow light fell from the chandeliers overhead, a sheen of light seemed to be flung back from