She had never been filled with her love like a calm brimming vessel. She had rather suffered it, as a tree might suffer a cold wind, and the image of a coldness was somehow mingled with her memories of marital love.

I've somehow run myself into hell. There must be many entrances.

His sudden decision not to see her any more was utterly incomprehensible to the girl, it was a death sentence from a hidden authority for an unknown crime. Nothing had changed, and then there was suddenly this.

But now, when things had happened which were too appalling to think about, when his romantic love was a corpse and his cleverness a ghost, he knew where it was he wanted to lay his head.

Yet she knew that it was not really the sharp tragic knife of passion that disturbed her now, it was some vaguer nervous storm out of her unsatisfied woman's nature.

. . . darkness was staining all the intricate channels of what had once seemed so perfect.

I feel I'm living on pain, riding on it, like a sea.

But there are times of suffering which remain in our lives like black absolutes and are not blotted out. Fortunate are those for whom these black stars shed some sort of light.

Here memory was simply a cold cloud to be shuddered at.