She only knew that he must be at heart a man more kindly and of better impulse than he had generally been considered, and she resolved to do her utmost to repay him, and to soothe the misery of his last years.
Since he had told her so plainly, it must be true.

It was natural, perhaps--for he was growing more feeble every day--but it was very sad.
Five years ago, when she had choked down her loathing for the old man to whom she had sold herself for her father's sake, she would not have believed that she should one day feel the tears rise fast at the thought of his dying and leaving her free.

He had said it; she would be free.
They say that men who have been long confined in a dungeon become indifferent, and when turned out upon the world would at first gladly return to their prison walls.

Liberty is in the first place an instinct, but it will easily grow to be a habit.

Corona had renounced all thought of freedom five years ago, and in the patient bowing of her noble nature to the path she had chosen, she had attained to a state of renunciation like that of a man who has buried himself for ever in an order of Trappists, and neither dreams of the freedom of the outer world, nor desires to dream of it.