“She had witnessed a conflict between two men who held her liberty in their hands, her very life and that of her child; one had sought to drag her deeper into darkness, the other to restore her to light. The two contestants, in the heightened vision of her terror, had seemed like giants, one speaking with the voice of a demon, the other in the tones of an angel. The angel had won, and what caused her to tremble from head to foot was the fact that this rescuing angel was the man she abhorred, the abominable mayor whom for so long she had regarded as the author of her troubles. He had saved her after she had most outrageously insulted him!”

“Audrey had an angelic quality about her. She didn't act like she was better than everyone, she just had a presence, an energy, a sort of light coming from within her that was overwhelming.”

“When I was a child, Mama had the best voice of all the members of the church. She had loved to sing. Her words had soared like an angel's over the swells of the organ. In fact, I now suspected, her entire theology had been taken from the hymnal.”

“She looked out at the other trees, and she realised that her life was one of thousands, any one of which could have been her, she had grown wherever her life had taken her, she had drifted wherever the wind had blown her.”

“COLE HELD KYLE AS gently as he could manage. He wanted to pull her inside of him. Kneeling with her in the church had saved him. He realized now that she was his angel. There would be no denying her again.”

“She became aware that she had thought the less of him because he had thought the more of her. She had worshipped this other man because he had assumed superiority and had told her that he was big enough to be her master. But now, -- now that it was all too late, -- the veil had fallen from her eyes. She could now see the difference between manliness and 'deportment.”