The Kendrick Girls — Elizabeth Ann Hill

Afterwards, when they whispered and wondered and gilded the events to suit their won fanciful notions, most people spoke of a turbulent love affair. It pleased the romantics to think that she had killed him out of jealousy, but the truth was stranger than that and far less simple. Even those who knew her best had no conception of what had really happened.

Some were doubtful whether a young woman like Barbara Kendrick could commit murder -- and yet it was there for them to see in those wide, speckled eyes. Clear, they were, and hard -- like rainwater on grey stones.

And in the end, by her own actions, touching and linking with the lives of others, she wove for herself a net of misfortune -- as if some process of natural balance was at work. And perhaps it was, for she did indeed have a heavy debt to pay, but not quite in the way that everyone supposed.