How irrevocably spoilt, down to its minutest detail, his world was now. Even the countryside was spoilt, the animals, the birds, the flowers. There was nowhere to run to.

Why did I ever leave them, what was I fleeing from? What spoilt scene that I could not then endure?

She had inhibited her sympathy, one genuine sympathetic impulse would have ruined her.

For me, nothing can ever be well again.

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