There were those who said he never could compass eternal; but they
chanced to be his debtors--and, after all, that question lay between
himself and God. The other lay between himself and his wife, and it must
be confessed, except so far as his passionate, disinterested love for an
utterly selfish woman tended to redeem and humanise his nature, she
never helped him one step along the better path.
But, then, the world could not know this, and Mr. Craven, of whom I am
speaking at the moment, was likely, naturally, to think Mr. Elmsdale all
in the wrong.
On the one hand he saw the man as he appeared to men: on the other he
saw the woman as she appeared to men, beautiful to the last; fragile,
with the low voice, so beautiful in any woman, so more especially
beautiful in an Irish woman; with a languid face which insured
compassion while never asking for it; with the appearance of a martyr,
and the tone and the manner of a suffering saint.
Everyone who beheld the pair together, remarked, "What a pity it was
such a sweet creature should be married to such a bear!" but Mr.
Elmsdale was no bear to his wife: he adored her. The selfishness, the
discontent, the ill-health, as much the consequence of a peevish,
petted temper, as of disease, which might well have exhausted the
patience and tired out the love of a different man, only endeared her
the more to him.
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