Gordon Young

“ Any way out somebody's life would be ruined—some innocent person's life, for I refuse to consider Mrs. Curwen guilty, though I think she had been touched by madness. A jury might have acquitted her, but Thrope's friends would have been powerful; besides, her son's career would have been ruined—and that was more to her than life. ”

“ Curwen was amazed. She did not realize that Thrope was talking for the benefit of the stenographic report—that was not being taken.
"And so this Bryan is your brat, eh? And you want him elected. Trying to bluff me out of the running. I am too weak with women—they twist me around their fingers. You know. You used to do it. But you can't bully me! No. What do you want?"
She told him, speaking in a low, strained voice, that she wanted him to withdraw from the campaign, that she wanted him to give up the fight against Bryan. ”

“ And quickly, pleadingly she sketched the history of how she had helped and guarded the boy, and never told him who his father was, and made him feel that it was better that he should not let the world know who his mother was, because she wanted him to rise—to go up and on, and be honest, to be noble. ”