1
I felt that thread that had come between us, tugging, tugging at my heart–so hard, it hurt me.Sarah Waters
2
But, here was a curious thing. The more I tried to give up thinking of her, the more I said to myself, 'She's nothing to you', the harder I tried to pluck the idea of her out of my heart, the more she stayed there.Sarah Waters
3
Don't you be thinking, ' she says, 'on things that are done and can't be changed. All right, dear girl? You think of the time to come.Sarah Waters
4
She said, 'It is filled with all the words for how I want you.Sarah Waters
5
For she was the only one, of all of them, to have spared me a pleasant word; and suddenly I longed for time to pass, not for its own sake, but as it would take me back to her.Sarah Waters
6
But the more I think it, the more I want her, the more my desire rises and swells.Sarah Waters
7
It made me giddy. It made me blush, worse than before. It was like liquor. It made me drunk. I drew away. When her breath came now upon my mouth, it came very cold. My mouth was wet, from hers. I said, in a whisper, ' Do you feel it?Sarah Waters
8
But it's the simple and the good that are meant to suffer in this world–ain't it, though!Sarah Waters
9
It's a curious, wanting thing.Sarah Waters
10
But my thoughts were more like poisons. I had so many, they made me sick.Sarah Waters
11
I shivered again, remembering. I put the tip of one finger to my tongue. It tasted sharp–like vinegar, like blood. Like money.Sarah Waters
12
She was about to be married, and was frightened to death. And no-one would love her, ever again.Sarah Waters