“Well, widow-comforter, how is she?" Olive spoke in the dark from the bed. "Struggling," he said. "Who isn't?”

“Knock, Knock.""Who's there?""Olive.""Olive who?""Olive...ooh. I love you, too," he said, figuring it out. "You can tell me that one anytime you like." He folded her into his arms.”

“He said, and his voice was strained as if he had had a mortal wound, 'Gwenhwyfar-' He so seldom spoke her formal name, it was always my lady or my queen, or when he spoke to her in play it was always Gwen. When he spoke it now, it seemed to her she had never heard a sweeter sound. 'Gwenhwyfar. Why do you weep?'Now she must lie, and lie well, because, she could not in honor tell him the truth. She said, 'Because-' and stopped, and then, in a choking voice, she said, 'because I do not know how I shall live if you go away.”

“She said 'no' to the words he spoke, and 'yes' to the voice that spoke them.”

“All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil.”

“There is a riddle about a man who is locked in a room with nothing but a bed and a calendar, and the question is: How does he survive? The answer is: He eats dates from the calendar and drinks from the springs of the bed.”