“Dear Sir John, be sure of this, I love you truly. I will do my best to be a good wife to you, and prove that, in spite of my many faults, I possess the virtue of gratitude.”
“‘Energy is more attractive than beauty in a man.’ She is right, but how the deuce can a man be energetic, with nothing to expend his energies upon?” mused Coventry, with his hat over his eyes.
When one has been ill and shut up a long time, the country is so lovely one is apt to forget duty for pleasure. Please remind me if I am negligent, Mr. Coventry.
Don’t tell tales of this noble creature, who has not deceived my faith in him. Your grooms did not know how to win his heart, and so subdue his spirit without breaking it.
Pausing an instant on the threshold before she vanished from their sight, she looked backward, and fixing on Gerald the strange glance he remembered well, she said in her penetrating voice, “Is not the last scene better than the first?”
the one unspoiled attribute which still lingered in this woman’s artful nature shone in her face, as she turned toward Edward and Bella at their mother’s side. “You have been kind to me,” she said, with grateful warmth. “I thank you for it, and will repay it if I can. To you I will acknowledge that I am not worthy to be this good man’s wife, and to you I will solemnly promise to devote my life to his happiness. For his sake forgive me, and let there be peace between us.”
