"But often, in the night, Israel would awake to find a little white-robed figure standing beside his bed. Day and night were both alike to her; the darkness was as the light. She could as easily find her way about the great silent house at midnight as at noonday. And so she came to his side and just stood there! 'What she wanted, ' Sir Hall Caine says, 'Israel' could never know, for her deafness denied him the power to ask, and her dumbness deprived her of the power to answer. Was she sick or in pain? Or, in her sleep, had she seen a face from the invisible world, and heard a voice that summoned her away? Or had her mother's arms seemed to be about her once again only to be torn from her afresh?' No; it was none of these things! It was just that she was lonely and wanted him?

Author Biography

Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine (1853 - 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British novelist, dramatist, short story writer, poet and critic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Caine's popularity during his lifetime was unprecedented. Writing fifteen novels, he became an international literary celebrity, selling ten million books. Caine was the most highly paid novelist of his day. The Eternal City is the first novel to sell over a million copies worldwide. In addition to his books, Caine is the author of more than a dozen plays and was one of the most commercially successful dramatists of his time; many were West End and Broadway productions.