“Twice Flush had done his utmost to kill his enemy; twice he had failed. And why had he failed, he asked himself? Because he loved Miss Barrett. Looking up at her from under his eyebrows as she lay, severe and silent on the sofa, he knew that he must love her for ever. Things are not simple but complex. If he bit Mr. Browning he bit her too. Hatred is not hatred; hatred is also love.”

“If he had to bring all the bitterness and hatred of the world into his heart, he was not going to be in love with her again.”

“She had loved him. He knew this; he had never doubted it. But she had also asked him to kill her. If you love someone that much, you did not lay that sort of burden on him for the rest of his life.”

“In that moment he had loved her far more than he had ever done when they were together and free. Also he knew that somewhere or other she was still alive and needed his help.”

“He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of hatred. His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment; and in feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign indifference, he did not change one whit. She could not make him change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.”

“He had never been in love. He had not known what it would feel like. He understood what the term meant, but his life had not allowed for exploring its possibilities. There had been few he had really loved. His parents; Michael. That was it. And that was love of a different kind. Less intense, less hungry. What he felt for Simralin went so far beyond anything manageable that it shocked him. He could tell himself it was because he had found her beautiful in a way that transcended anything he had ever known. But his attraction to her was a response to so much more. To her self-confidence and way of speaking. To her smile and the quirky way she lifted one eyebrow when she was amused. To the way she carried herself. To the way she looked at him.”