Christian's Mistake by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
page 147 of 257 (57%)
page 147 of 257 (57%)
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Grey.
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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