…there came the small dark hours when she faced her destiny with naked eyes and frightened heart, knowing that only in herself was strength enough to meet the dawn again.

She was not humble but she feigned shyness and assumed a sweet coyness which was half real and half pretended. For it was this woman’s power that she could be almost what she feigned and planned to be, and so she became nearly what she would be, at any moment and in any place. She was not deceiving, for she deceived herself as much as the person before whom she appeared.

“Entirely right, Most High,” the Viceroy agreed. “And how can I forbid the people? It has been their ancient privilege and custom to say what they think and to make known their wishes to their rulers by public protest. Am I now to say that the people may not speak? Is this not to invite fresh rebellion?

…the simple affections of her childhood. And yet somehow she knew it was the last time that ever she could return to this house. All seemed the same, but in spite of her faithful heart, she knew nothing was the same. They loved her still, but their love was entangled with hopes and desires of what she could do for them.

Though her body had come back and for these few hours her spirit had rejoined the others in this house, the separation was forever. Destiny compelled her onward, and her own she must leave behind. There could be no return.

She was herself and as she was, so she continued to be, a creature as free as those she played with.

These were books of medicine, of which she knew nothing, but she was determined to know everything, and whatever she was most ignorant of, that she longed most to know. This was not only her true craving for knowledge and her curiosity concerning the universe, but also it was that she might always know more than any person to whom she spoke.

… a lucky sign surely, appearing at this instant when her heart was breaking. But she would not let it break. Hers was the hand that dealt the wound and hers the heart.