“And every time she hears from him, another pebble of hope joins the little cluster she has collected.”

“She has no regrets; she knows now he could never have made her happy, even though he has, apparently, joined AA, is doing better. But sobriety is his journey, not hers; he needs to do it for himself, alone. Still, she misses him hugely, doesn't feel ready for another relationship yet. But as time passes, she hopes that she might be, eventually, with someone new, easier, kinder.”

“She has been hanging on to the hope of him for so long that she doesn't realize there isn't anything left to hope for.”

“He was a mystery to her, and every time she tried to solve him it caused her a little more pain. But when she tired to give him up he pursued her in her thoughts, stronger each time.”

“She had listened to him, partly sympathetic, partly horrified. For it was one thing for her to reject her background, to be critical of her family's heritage, another to hear it from him.”

“She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, and her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done-she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim-of necessity she must put him away from her-he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense.”