“His scars were hidden and safe in her hand.”

“She felt Jay squeezing her hand with his. It was warm.It made her feel safe and attached to the world.”

“The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.”

“He sat looking down at his hands--his fine strong unscarred hands. Suddenly and unreasonably he thought of another pair of hands--his mother's--with the knuckles enlarged, the skin broken--expressive--her life written on them. Scars. She had them.”

“With hidden powers of unknown extent apparently at his disposal, Curwen was not a man who could safely be warned to leave town.”

“She breathes as if he had held her hand and helped her jump over the chasm of that scar.”