I put courage first--before everything." Her gaze dropped, but not until she had seen his look change and the slightly cynical smile--the smile of one who has examined everything and believes in nothing--fade from his lips.

She had touched some chord deep down within him of which he had long ago forgotten even the existence--some echoed harmony of what had been perhaps the living faith of his youth.
"You're a gallant soul," he said briefly, and she wondered what it was that he knew, what it was that he was keeping back.
At the corner where they parted, he stood for a few moments, holding her hand in his big, soft grasp while he looked down on her.

The suspicion and the cynicism had gone from his face, and she understood all at once why people still trusted him, still liked him, notwithstanding his reputation, notwithstanding even his repulsiveness.

He was all that--he was immoral, he was repulsive--but he was something else also--he was human.
When she entered the house her first feeling was that the old atmosphere had returned, the old suspense, the old waiting, the old horror of impending calamity.

A nervous dread made her hesitate to mount the steps, to go to her room, to inquire in a natural voice for the children.