Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/37

Rh but to the scandalisation—and that affected—of only the few, that Helen Burton had become Mrs. Norman.

Edward Norman loved his wife devotedly, passionately. Upon her he lavished all the treasures of his dreamy, sentimental, poetical temperament. From his first sight of her she had become the goddess of his thought, the centre of every hope and longing which shed its fragrance upon his calm, contemplative life; and when at length these aspirations were fulfilled, and she had become the goddess of his hearth, the man felt as if life had nothing more to give him. But from the very exuberance of its bounty towards him did life become more than ever dear, and this in face of the fact that it was gradually, hopelessly slipping away from him. But sometimes again this very hopelessness bred within him a refinement of delight to which a healthier man could scarcely have attained. As, during the early months of their marriage, he often sat through the long summer evenings in the quietness of his study, holding Helen's hand within his own, and both together gazing westwards on the melting glories of the sunset, he felt that to gradually sink into his grave cared for at every moment by this angel whom Fate had sent to bless him, and drink in the ever-deepening fervour of her love as she felt him passing from her side, to hold, when all was over,