The National tribune., 1882-07-29
CHAPTER III.

| marlborough is country town, seated in
the midst of smiling plain which stretches
| to line of low wooded hills on the north,
and loses itself in the far horizon in every
other direction.
At the end of the Woodleigh road was DR..
Enderby's house, large and old-fashioned
and hither he brought his wife Margaret not
long after their first meeting in the Clover
leigh woods. 1t was a change from the in
tense quiet of her girlhood to a large circle
of friends, and few secret enemies. But
she was Johns wife, and her sweet gayety
| filled his house with sunshine; and she
shaped herself home in all gladness
In this room of Margaret's John Enderby
loved to rest in his intervals of leisure,
watching his wife with an interest and a
strange timidity that grew deeper day by
day. Poor Margaret felt him further from
her and a shadow fell across her life that the
birth of her little son could not wholly chase
away.
One afternoon her husband came in as she
was sitting with the child on her knee-a
bright fair-haired, brown-eyed boy, very like
his father. The baby stretched out his dim
pied arms to his father, then with q child's
mischief withdrew them and hid his face on
his mothers bosom with a cooling laugh
She bent her head down on the fluffy curls
and caught his little bare feet in her hand
(he had pulled off his shoes and socks the
tiny rogueD and she kissed the rosy toes
with lovely mother worship.
Look, John" she said isn't he the
most wonderfully sweet child, this precious
baby? What should we do without him ?n
She was flushed and laughing, arms and
heart full too; but a sharp pang flashed
through him.
He answered quietly, eyes, he is a fine
boy for his age" and, bending down, kissed
him; but he went away after that without
further speech. 1t often happened so now,
and Margaret could not divine the cause;
so she was hurt, and turned more and more
to the baby for comfort.
On this occasion the doctor went to his
study, locked the door, and sat down to
wrestle with himself, also to take stock of
his forces for that wrestling
Terrible and sweet revelation to the man.
He had, as the phrase goes, fallen in love
fortunately with his wife. This, then, was
the meaning of his silence, his iealously, of
the tearing away Of his old pleasant friend
illness toward her. This love of his was no
flame that would fash and die out, but the
strong white heat, the very soul of the heay-
emily fire.
He was good man, upright and true;
but he had often played at love before his
marriage, "ere lifetime and love-time were
one" and he was being pushed now, for he
doubted whether her love had not declined
into that friendliness which he had given
her before, and she was absorbed in the
child.
Was she, then, one of those women in
whom the instinct of motherhood is stronger
than all other? He worshiped her now
with the full sacred passion Of his manhood,
and was his own child to come between,
and shut him away from her? She would be
always sweetly dutiful he knew that-but
duty, wifely duty! A man is nothing if he
does not want more than that; and what
was his life to be if she and the child dwelt
apart in a little paradise of their own? He
was Jealous Of his own child.