Sabine Baring-Gould

“ Now she thrilled up with uplifted arms, on tip-toe, then sank—it was like a flame flickering in a socket before it expires: it dances, it curls, it shoots up in a tongue, it sinks into a bead of light, it rolls on one side, it sways to the other, it leaps from the wick high into the air, and drops again. It was so with Judith—every stroke dealt, every scream of the tortured boy, every toss of his suffering frame, was repeated in her room, by her—in supreme, unspeaking anguish, too intense for sound to issue from her contracted throat. ”

“ Then, as she touched her finger-tip with her tongue and applied it to another lavender seed, she said: "Or must this go on—this nightmare of wretchedness, of persecution, of weariness to death without dying, for years?" And she cast away the seed shudderingly. "Or"—and again, now without touching her finger with her tongue, as though the last thought had contaminated it—"or will he finally break and subdue me, destroy me and Jamie, soul and body?" Shivering at the thought she hardly dare to touch a seed, but forced herself to do so, raised one, and hastily shook it from her. ”

“ I stayed your messenger."
"Well," answered Judith, with such composure as she could muster. She had already passed through several stormy scenes with him, and knew that her only security lay in self-restraint. "There was naught in it that you might not read. What did I say? That my condition was fixed—that none could alter it; that is true. That my great care and sorrow of heart is for Jamie; that is true. That Oliver Menaida has been threatened; that also is true. I have heard you speak words against him of no good." ”