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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: he would not be in to dinner, she felt an unaccountable thrill of joy.
Like a criminal who has appealed against sentence of death, a respite,
however short, seemed to her a lifetime. She placed the portrait in
her room, and waited for her husband in all the agonies of hope. That
this venture must decide her future life, she felt too keenly not to
shiver at every sound, even the low ticking of the clock, which seemed
to aggravate her terrors by doling them out to her. She tried to cheat
time by various devices. The idea struck her of dressing in a way
which would make her exactly like the portrait. Then, knowing her
husband's restless temper, she had her room lighted up with unusual
brightness, feeling sure that when he came in curiosity would bring
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