Through both their minds there passed the memory of some episodes in their married life--slight, but quite sufficient to show that John Fenwick was a man of temperament inevitably attracted by womankind.
He murmured that she had made mountains out of mole-hills.

She merely raised his hand and kissed it.

'The women make a fool of you, John,' she said, 'and I ought to be there to protect you--for you do love me, you know--you do!' And then with tears she broke down and clung to him again, in a mood that was partly the love of wife for husband and partly an exquisite maternity--the same feeling she gave her child.

He responded with eagerness, feeling indeed that he had won his battle.
For she lay in his arms--weak--protesting no more.

The note of anguish, of deep, incalculable foreboding, which she had shown, passed away from her manner and words; while on his side he began to draw pictures of the future so full of exultation and of hope that her youth presently could but listen and believe.