Rachel was soon through the first, her blood boiling; the second she could not finish for her tears; the third dried her eyes with the fires of fierce resentment.

It was not so much what they said; it was what they were obviously afraid to say.

It was their circumlocution, their innuendo, their mild surprise, their perfunctory congratulations, their assumption of chivalry and their lack of its essence, that wounded and stung the subject of these effusions.

As she raised her flushed face from the last of them, Mr.Steel stood before her once more, the incarnation of all grave sympathy and consideration.
"You must not think," said he, "that my proposal admits of no alternative but the miserable one of making your own way in a suspicious and uncharitable world.

On the contrary, if I am not to be your nominal and legal husband, I still intend to be your actual friend.