"Has she not had trouble enough," he said to himself, "parted from Lucy and with her unsettled money affairs, without having to face these gnats whose sting she cannot ward off ?" With this came the thought of his own helplessness to comfort her.

He had taken her at her word that night before she left for Paris, when she had refused to give him her promise and had told him to wait, and he was still ready to come at her call; loving her, watching ever her, absorbed in every detail of her daily life, and eager to grant her slightest wish, and yet he could not but see that she had, since her return, surrounded herself with a barrier which he could neither understand nor break down whenever he touched on their personal relations.
Had he loved her less he would, in justice to himself, have faced all her opposition and demanded an answer--Yes or No--as to whether she would yield to his wishes.

But his generous nature forbade any such stand and his reverence for her precluded any such mental attitude.
Lifting his eyes from his books and gazing dreamily into the space before him, he recalled, with a certain sinking of the heart, a conversation which had taken place between Jane and himself a few days after her arrival--an interview which had made a deep impression upon him.

The two, in the absence of Martha--she had left the room for a moment--were standing beside the crib watching the child's breathing.
Seizing the opportunity, one he had watched for, he had told her how much he had missed her during the two years, and how much happier his life was now that he could touch her hand and listen to her voice.

She had evaded his meaning, making answer that his pleasure, was nothing compared to her own when she thought how safe the baby would be in his hands; adding quickly that she could never thank him enough for remaining in Barnegat and not leaving her helpless and without a "physician." The tone with which she pronounced the word had hurt him.
He thought he detected a slight inflection, as if she were making a distinction between his skill as an expert and his love as a man, but he was not sure.
Still gazing into the shadows before him, his unread book in his hand, he recalled a later occasion when she appeared rather to shrink from him than to wish to be near him, speaking to him with downcast eyes and without the frank look in her face which was always his welcome.