If he could find that it contained a single redeeming principle that was superior to the old order, he felt that he should be able to surrender his disbelief.
He was leaving the gate when a woman, walking slowly in front of the house, spoke to him abruptly.
"If I wait here shall I see the Governor come out ?" With the feeling that he was passing again through a familiar nightmare, he turned quickly and looked down on the pathetic figure he had seen the evening before.

In the daylight she seemed more pitiable and less repellent than she had appeared in the darkness.

The hollowness of her features gave a certain dignity to her expression--the look of one who is returning from the shadows of death.

Years ago, before illness or dissipation had wrecked her health and her appearance, she may have been attractive, he surmised, in a common and obvious fashion.

Her black eyes were still striking, and the sunlight revealed a quantity of coarse black hair on which he detected the claret tinge of fading dye.
"I am sorry," she added as she recognized him.