And now I wish I hadn’t been civil, because he says he shall not despair! He is as stupid as Endymion!” “No, no!” said Alverstoke soothingly. “Nobody could be as stupid as Endymion!

My dear girl, you don't consent to an abduction! You consent to an elopement, and I knew you wouldn't do that.

It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.

Will you marry me, vile and abominable girl that you are? Yes, but, mind, it only to save my neck from being wrung!

But it is only in epic tragedies that gloom is unrelieved. In real life tragedy and comedy are so intermingled that when one is most wretched ridiculous things happen to make one laugh in spite of oneself.

Your fate is writ clear;you will be murdered. I cannot conceive how it comes about that you were not murdered long since! How odd!Charles himself once said that to me, or something like it! There is nothing odd in it; any sensible man must say it!

O God, I love you to the edge of madness, Venetia, but I'm not mad yet--not so mad that I don't know how disastrous it might be to you--to us both! You don't realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence!