“Charity knew there was nothing more coarse and common than an afternoon in bed with a total stranger -- but the lad installing the telephone had a grin that made her heart turn flips.”

“Nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity and faith.”

“Suddenly the thought that the end of her life was imminent shocked him; it was one thing to pity someone he didn't know, quite another to face the same dilemma with someone he knew intimately. That was the trouble with beds. They turned strangers into intimates more quickly than ten years of polite teas in parlours.”

“He knew when he had her, when he brought her to peak for the second time. The sound of his name on her lips made his own release all the more euphoric, and totally consuming.She was his.”

“The seamen had whitewashed the smoky ceilings of the ward, and that dear homely smell carried the vividness of thatch and lumpy walls and stew given from the goodness of a stranger's heart. But that was all there was of comfort, and the salt air had turned from cold to warm in the passing of a life, an afternoon.”

“Charity didn't mean to waste the entire afternoon. But her favorite daytime drama was on the telly. It was always the same, she thought, stretching out on the bed to watch. The sex got her interested first, and then the story. Before long she was totally hooked, and deep into the intricate plots and the glamorous goings-on. And afterwards, she just felt drained. She was sound asleep by the time Lady Margaret came home.”