Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/115

Rh choose phrases. All that Stephen held most sacred and precious about marriage went to pieces under the constant fire.

He took many long lonely walks into the open country around Milhampton that fall to escape from Stella, to get out of sight and sound of her and purify himself, if he could, under the open sky. His thoughts were bitter ones as he tramped and tramped. It seemed as if life was determined to grind its heel upon him, and crush him. He didn't believe in fate; he didn't believe ill-fortune or good-fortune was planned and sent to helpless victims. He believed stanchly in the unchanging law of causation. But oh, it did make a man wish there was some other reason than his own fault, for disaster following him, wherever he went, whatever he did. It had been in an attempt to escape the horror of his father's last act that he had come to Milhampton. And now the horror of finding himself married to a woman he did not love, had never loved (it was to get away from Mrs. Bean's boarding-house that he had married) was his to bear. He wished he might go back to Mrs. Bean's boarding-house. There are some kinds of unloveliness more difficult to endure than mere dirt and grime. The apartment was no longer a refuge.

Stephen made no effort to reason with Stella. In the beginning he told her briefly, sternly, that she must accept the fact of the coming child, unwelcome as it was to her (unwelcome as it was, therefore, to him). They must both accept it. There was no escape. Absolutely. Having delivered himself of this dictum, he treated her as kindly as he