Miss Fry had been borne off, as planned, Hugo reported, to be outfitted from head to toe for her wedding and her new life. His wife had gone with her, and so had the Countess of Kilbourne, her sister-in-law. Vincent hoped Sophia would not feel overwhelmed. “They will look after her, lad,” Hugo assured him as though he had read Vincent’s thoughts. “Woman power or something hideous like that. It is better to stay far away from it and let them do what they must do.

It is the human condition. No one escapes, even those who may appear to others to live charmed lives. But we all have the choice of whether to be defined by the negatives in our lives or to make of our present and future and our very selves what we want them to be.

It is hard, is it not,” he said, “to have one’s life develop quite differently from what one expected and to feel not fully in command of it?

Life was very sad if there were not – and unbearably so if one’s experience with romantic love turned one into an incurable cynic.

I like your voice. That sounds ridiculously lame, I know. But when you cannot see, Miss Fry, sound and the other senses become far more acute. Normally one likes the look of someone to whom one feels attracted. I like the sound of your voice.

The comforting thing about difficult days, Chloe had learned from experience, was that the sun rose at the start of them and set at the end just as it did on any other day. And there was always the assurance of better days ahead.

I am too tired to see you work longer today.

No time is really wasted unless one never learns the lessons that it offers.

I suppose,” he said, his voice harsher than he had intended it to be, “you want marriage again.” “No,” she said quickly. “No, never that. Not again. Why would any woman willingly make herself the property of a man and suffer all the humiliation of submerging her character and her very identity in his?

You have love all wrong, Gwendoline. It is not all give, give, give. It is taking as well. It is allowing the other one the pleasure and joy of giving. Let me love you.