E. M. Forster

“ The room was full of light, and Miss Abbott had Gino by the shoulders, holding him down in a chair. She was exhausted with the struggle, and her arms were trembling.
"What is the good of another death? What is the good of more pain?"
He too began to tremble. Then he turned and looked curiously at Philip, whose face, covered with dust and foam, was visible by the stove. Miss Abbott allowed him to get up, though she still held him firmly. He gave a loud and curious cry--a cry of interrogation it might be called. Below there was the noise of Perfetta returning with the baby's milk. ”

“ The passion they have aroused lives after them, easy to transmute or to transfer, but well-nigh impossible to destroy. And Philip knew that he was still voyaging on the same magnificent, perilous sea, with the sun or the clouds above him, and the tides below.
The course of the moment--that, at all events, was certain. He and no one else must take the news to Gino. It was easy to talk of Harriet's crime--easy also to blame the negligent Perfetta or Mrs. Herriton at home. Every one had contributed--even Miss Abbott and Irma. ”

“ Perfetta came in with another lamp and a little jug.
Gino spoke for the first time. "Put the milk on the table," he said. "It will not be wanted in the other room." The peril was over at last. A great sob shook the whole body, another followed, and then he gave a piercing cry of woe, and stumbled towards Miss Abbott like a child and clung to her.
All through the day Miss Abbott had seemed to Philip like a goddess, and more than ever did she seem so now. Many people look younger and more intimate during great emotion. ”

“ But some there are who look older, and remote, and he could not think that there was little difference in years, and none in composition, between her and the man whose head was laid upon her breast. Her eyes were open, full of infinite pity and full of majesty, as if they discerned the boundaries of sorrow, and saw unimaginable tracts beyond. ”

“ Gino had broken his finger-nails against the stove.
Physical pain is almost too terrible to bear. We can just bear it when it comes by accident or for our good--as it generally does in modern life--except at school. But when it is caused by the malignity of a man, full grown, fashioned like ourselves, all our control disappears. Philip's one thought was to get away from that room at whatever sacrifice of nobility or pride. ”