It was a
necessity of her nature to love a human being, this or that one, not
a crowd. She had been starving, killing the self which was her
value. This home on the Devon coast received her like an earthly
paradise; looking back on New Wanley, she saw it murky and lurid; it
was hard to believe that the sun ever shone there. But for the most
part, she tried to keep it altogether from her mind, tried to
dissociate her husband from his public tasks, and to remember him as
the man with whom her life was irrevocably bound up. When delight in
Stella's poetry was followed by fear, she strengthened herself by
thought of the child she bore beneath her heart; for that child's
sake she would accept the beautiful things offered to her, some day
to bring them, as rich gifts to the young life. Her own lot was
fixed; she might not muse upon it, she durst not consider it too
deeply. There were things in the past which she had determined, if
by any means it were possible, utterly to forget. For the future,
there was her child.
Mutimer came to Exmouth when she had been there three weeks, and he
stayed four days. Mrs. Boscobel had an opportunity of making his
acquaintance.
'Who contrived that marriage?' she asked of Mr. Westlake
subsequently. 'Our lady mother, presumably.'
'I have no reason to think it was not well done,' replied Mr.
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