I know that I am going away on my own account. I must make the usual effort. I must have something to show for myself. To take what you would give me… - Willa Cather

Now everything was in ruins. The air was still and cold like the air in a refrigerating-room. What I felt was fear; I was afraid to look or speak or move. Everything about me seemed evil. When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.

"I'll come back," I said earnestly, through the soft, intrusive darkness.
"Perhaps you will"- I felt rather than saw her smile. "But even if you don't, you're here, like my father. So I won't be lonesome."