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glancing to the dark window. "You can feel the sun on your face."
Sarah looked at the gray panes that looked out at a brick wall. "Does the sun ever shine in here?"
"Oh, yes. For two days. The sixteenth and again on the seventeenth of June." Maggie left her chair and slowly walked to the wall across from the window. She brushed her hand over the gray plaster a foot above her head. "It will reach all the way up to here on the wall and shine for almost an hour on those two days."
Sarah watched this pale child and wondered if she would live to see her sixteenth birthday in this home where the sun came twice a year. And in her mind she composed the story she would publish that evening in the Gazette.
Sarah slowly descended the narrow staircase leading to the second floor, following Austin Sinclair. "I noticed the gold coin you slipped into the pocket of Mrs. McGowan's apron as we were leaving."
He shrugged as though the money meant nothing. "I didn't think she would appreciate being handed money. And yet I didn't want to walk out of there without helping, in some small way."
She shared his feelings. She understood all too well the sense of responsibility. "Do you know this was called a model tenement when it was built seven years ago? The ideal plan for a lot only twenty-five feet wide. How could anyone expect people to live under these conditions?"
He paused on the step below her. When he turned to face her, their faces were nearly level. It was startling, being this close to him, so close she could feel the heat of his skin radiate against her like a single ray of sunlight in the gloom, beckoning her.
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