“As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.”

“Before the sun went down again, she realized, she would be in New York. The thought sent a nervous thrill through her entire body. Her throat was tight, her heart suddenly racing.”

“Her air, her manners, all who saw admir'd;
Courteous though coy, and gentle though retir'd;
The joy of youth and health her eyes display'd,
And ease of heart her every look convey'd.”

“What are you doing here?" she asked.
"You forgot something when you left Halstead Hall," he said hoarsely.
"What?"
Her heart lept into her throat as he strode purposefully toward her. "Me.”

“Happily common sense, though she is by nature the gentlest creature living, when she feels the knife at her throat, is apt to develop unexpected powers of resistance, and to send doctrinaires flying, even when they have bound her down and think they have her at their mercy.”

“Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,
Lull'd by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;
Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers
Breathed to my sad lute 'mid the lonely air.”

“It's a jagged thing in my throat, how much I miss her.”

“That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.”

“She rose and looked at me with delirious black eyes, black and wanton and in a dream, her neck stretched and defining the bulging cords at her throat. she had nothing to say with her lips, but the ghastly cast of her face, the teeth too white and too big now, the frightened smile, these spoke too loudly of the horror shrouding her days and nights…As I walked toward the bed, she pulled up her knees, slipping into a crouched frightened position, as though she expected me to strike her.”

“She didn't seem dead. There was only a swelling of the lips, as if she were angry. The strange thing was her idea of renting a painter's studio, having an armchiar, no less, drawn up s she could die in front of the window that looked toward Superga. A cat had given her away–it was in the room with her, and the next day, miaowing and scratching the door, it had made them open.”