Sometimes limbs must be re-broken to set properly, her heart too needed to shatter anew before it could truly heal.

He wanted to make cast models of her. He wanted to take a set of precision calipers and measure every distance between her features. He wanted her blood and glandular fluids analyzed by the finest chemists in the world—there must be something detectibly different in her inner workings for him to respond so dramatically, as if he’d been given a drug for which science had yet to find a name.But more than anything, he wanted to—

For the next three seconds, he still dared to let himself hope.Perhaps she was making a grand entrance. Perhaps she would be carried in like Cleopatra, hidden in a roll of fine carpet.Perhaps—Three porters, grunting, pulled in a handcart.A crevasse opened before him and in fell his heart. No need to remove the tarpaulin wrapping. He recognized the stone slabby its size and weight.She had returned his present. She would have nothing more to do with him.

...So far I have restrained myself. For how much longer, I do not know.I have never known such happiness, shot through with such misery. Only four days have passed, they tell me. But that is not true. It has been decades since I sawyou last.You will find me a stooped old man when we meet again. Perhaps I might even need a pair of spectacles to recognize your veil.But I remain always,Your servant,C.One of Christian's onesided letters to the Baroness

Outwardly, other than her hair, she had not changed much. She was still more or less the same cool, aloof woman who garnered more respect than affection. On the inside, however, it had been impossible to return to the person she used to be.

Her jaw dropped. She grabbed him by the shoulders. “I think I have formed an attachment to you. You know, what the English call a desire to have symphonic concerts with someone at all hours of the day?”He smiled. “And I love you too, darling.”-Lizzy and Will

Her Leo, so bright, so beautiful.And in the end, so catastrophically flawed.

I beg you to exercise wisdom and restraint and remember that not all opportunities are created equal. Some are nothing but steps leading down toward catastrophe.

Perhaps you forgave him too much, but who among us would not wish to be so generously loved and generously forgiven?