She panted for more than he had given her; this calm, half-brotherly love of his was just now like a single drop of water to one dying of thirst; she cried to him for a deeper draught of the joy of life.

The words came to her without need of thought; tears fell hot from her eyes and blotted what she wrote.
The tears brought her relief; she was able to throw her writing aside, and by degrees to resume that dull, vacant mood of habitual suffering which at all events could be endured.

From this, too, there was at times a retreat possible with the help of a book.

She had no mind to sleep, and on looking round, she remembered that the book she had been reading in the early part of the day was downstairs.

It was after midnight, and she seemed to have a recollection of hearing the visitors leave the house a little while ago; it would be safe to venture as far as the sitting-room below.
She began to descend the stairs quietly.