She wanted to understand this man; to turn him inside out; to experiment on him and use him as young physiologists use frogs and kittens.

If there was good or bad in him, she meant to find its meaning.
And he was a western widower of fifty; his quarters in Washington were in gaunt boarding-house rooms, furnished only with public documents and enlivened by western politicians and office-seekers.

In the summer he retired to a solitary, white framehouse with green blinds, surrounded by a few feet of uncared-for grass and a white fence; its interior more dreary still, with iron stoves, oil-cloth carpets, cold white walls, and one large engraving of Abraham Lincoln in the parlour; all in Peonia, Illinois! What equality was there between these two combatants?
what hope for him?
what risk for her?
And yet Madeleine Lee had fully her match in Mr.Silas P.Ratcliffe..