Rafael Sabatini

“ What am I to do? How live? O God, if only I had perished of the plague! I see now . . . I see that the worst wrong Randal Holles ever did me was when he saved my miserable life."
"Hush, hush! What are you saying, child?" The doctor set a comforting arm about her shoulders. "You are not utterly alone," he assured her gently. "I am still here, to serve you, my dear, and I am your friend."
"Forgive me," she begged him.
He patted her shoulder. "I understand. I understand. It is very hard for you, I know. But you must have courage. While we have health and strength, no ill of life is beyond repair. ”

“ Who labours but for himself achieves a barren life, is like the unfaithful steward with his talents. Happiness lies in labouring for your neighbour. It is a twofold happiness. For it brings its own reward in the satisfaction of achievement, in the joy of accomplishment; and it brings another in that, bending our thoughts to the needs and afflictions of our fellows, it removes them from the comtemplation of the afflictions that are our own. ”

“ Beamish invited her confidence. He conceived here a case of stupid, headstrong, human pride against which two hearts were likely to be broken, and, because of that affection which they had come to inspire in him, he would have done all in his power to assist them could he but have obtained an indication of the way. But Miss Sylvester, greatly as it would have eased her sorrow to have confided in him, greatly as she desired to do so, found that no confidence was possible without divulging the thing that Holles had done, the hideous act by which she came to find herself in this house. ”