There was no avarice in this woman, but the slight dilation of the nostrils and the glow in her eyes told of ambition, and for a moment his soul was not his own.
"I could," he said, and Maud Barrington, who watched the swift straightening of his shoulders and lifting of his head, felt that he spoke no more than the truth.

Then with a sudden access of bitterness, "But I never will." "Why ?" she asked, "Have you grown tired of Silverdale, or has what you pictured no charm for you ?" Winston leaned, as it were wearily, against the wheel of the mower.

"I wonder if you could understand what my life has been.

The crushing poverty that rendered every effort useless from the beginning, the wounds that come from using imperfect tools, and the numb hopelessness that follows repeated failure.

They are tolerably hard to bear alone, but it is more difficult to make the best of them when the poorly-fed body is as worn out as the mind.