There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. - William Somerset Maugham

The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.

Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter's mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.

You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.'

Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.