Now that McTeague had left her, there was one less mouth to feed; and with this saving, together with the little she could earn as scrub-woman, Trina could almost manage to make good the amount she lost by being obliged to cease work upon the Noah's ark animals.
Little by little her sorrow over the loss of her precious savings overcame the grief of McTeague's desertion of her.

Her avarice had grown to be her one dominant passion; her love of money for the money's sake brooded in her heart, driving out by degrees every other natural affection.

She grew thin and meagre; her flesh clove tight to her small skeleton; her small pale mouth and little uplifted chin grew to have a certain feline eagerness of expression; her long, narrow eyes glistened continually, as if they caught and held the glint of metal.

One day as she sat in her room, the empty brass match-box and the limp chamois bag in her hands, she suddenly exclaimed: "I could have forgiven him if he had only gone away and left me my money.

I could have--yes, I could have forgiven him even THIS"-- she looked at the stumps of her fingers.