E. Nesbit

“ As for me, only one face in the world and one name have ever charmed me. Valeria possesses both. I feel a little hesitation and shyness in stating plainly that it was I, and not my boy John, who married Valeria. She was twenty-three, and I forty-five at the time of our marriage, but I have had no gout since that fateful Easter, and Valeria says I am growing younger. She herself looks older than her years, because the horror of those three days—when she did not know from hour to hour when the madness of killing would seize her gaoler—has left white streaks in the black of her soft hair. ”

“ And now I could hear a whisper in the silence of the scented April night—the whisper of the file and the iron bars.
No one who has not crouched in a manger watching through a wooden window the filing of iron bars can form any idea of the tediousness of the operation. I longed to climb after John, to snatch the file from him and to show him how the thing ought to be done. But I controlled my impatience. Forty-five is not a very ripe age, but gout and trouble age one. ”

“ It fell at my feet as I walked in my garden between the white-blossomed espaliers. I looked up to see who had thrown it, but in all the circle of blossoming gardens and red roofs that surrounded me nothing moved. ”