Wharton, Edith — The Age of Innocence [1838]

“Not unless you’ll take me with you.” And then, as he was silent, she went on, in tones so clear and evenly pitched that each separate syllable tapped like a little hammer on his brain: “That is, if the doctors will let me go … but I’m afraid they won’t. For you see, Newland, I’ve been sure since this morning of something I’ve been so longing and hoping for—” — Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence, 1838

Note

May delivers her counter-move in the vocabulary of devotion; the ‘little hammer’ tapping each separate syllable marks the precision with which she has calculated the timing—announcing pregnancy exactly when his flight has been foreclosed.