“He shook her gently. "Listen to me, listen, there's nothing anybody could do to you that would make me not want you - no hurt, no scar, nothing. These past days I've been afraid they broke you, ruined all the fire. I'd mourn, Annie - I don't want you different - but I'd still want you. I love you.”

“I didn't want to see you.""They told me.""I was afraid that I'd still love you.""I hoped that you would.”

“God! Molly, will you just stop and listen to me?" he begged, trying to wrap himself around me again.I pushed him away. "What could you possibly say that I'd want to hear?" I demanded, slapping his lying arms away."I love you," he pleaded.And it broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. Because it was only now, when I knew that I could never stand to be near him again, that he was telling me what I'd always wanted to hear.”

“Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.”

“Scott-there's nothing in the world I want but you-and your precious love. All the material things are nothing. I'd just hate to live in a sordid, colorless existence-because you'd soon love less-and less-and I'd do anything-anything-to keep your heart for my own-I don't want to live-I want to love first and live incidentally.”

“You don't listen do you? Go away." ..."You don't listen," he said.Why wouldn't he just leave? I was going to burn up, anyway, with fire creeping up my arms to consume me. My eyes ached with fresh tears. I hated crying."But if you listened," he murmured, "I'd be dead.”