The Penalty

Under a Long Island moon, Barbara Ferris is seized and kissed by her host—then goes back to the drawing room as if nothing happened, carrying a secret that makes her ashamed of herself.

In the polished world of society and money, Barbara is admired for her beauty and charm, yet cannot make sense of her shifting passions. Wilmot Allen, once a promising Yale student, has been driven by family disgrace into Wall Street, gambling, and debts he can barely face. Then, on a city street, he gives his last ten dollars to a legless beggar he knows as Blizzard. The man offers him fifteen thousand in return—or so it seems. What could Blizzard want from a young man with nothing left to spare?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.