Even now, though it was the mere ghost of a dead love, or dead fancy,
which she had to confess to her husband, she shrank from confessing it.
She would rather let it slip to its natural Hades.
This was the conclusion she came to when cold, clear daylight put to
flight all the bewilderments and perplexities which had troubled her
through the dark hours; and she sat at the head of her breakfast-table
with her own little circle around her--the circle which, with all its cares,
became every day dearer and more satisfying, if only because it was her
own.
And when she looked across to the husband and father, sitting so
content, with the morning sun lighting up his broad forehead--wrinkled,
it is true, but still open and clear, the honest brow of an honest man--it
was with a trembling gratitude that made religious every throb of
Christian's once half-heathen heart. The other man, with his bold eyes
that made her shiver, the grasp of his hand from which her very soul
recoiled--oh, thank God for having delivered her from him, and brought
her into this haven of purity, peace and love!
As she stopped her needlework to cross to Arthur's sofa--he insisted on
being carried every where beside her, her poor, spoiled, sickly boy--as
she arranged his pillows and playthings, and gave him a kiss or two,
taking about a dozen in return--she felt that the hardest duty, the most
unrequited toil, in this her home would be preferable to that dream of
Paradise in which she had once indulged, and out of which she must
inevitably have wakened to find it a living hell.
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