Before creating the world, God knew both the need for and the means of the redemption He would provide through Jesus Christ.

Lucrezia laughed, a houndish laugh, almost a baying.

A deposed monarch may go into exile as pretender to the lost throne, hoping to be restored in a subsequent revolution.

Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.