Paling and ever paling,
As is the case with a hid chagrin,
And they all said she was ailing.—Robert Browning.
The young wife’s faith and hope were sinking under the pressure of coldness and solitude; and only her undying love survived in all its strength and beauty.
She was seriously ill, though she still kept up, moving about the house to attend to her domestic affairs all day, and sitting up to receive her husband half the night.
And these exhausting duties of course made her worse.
And oh, illness in woman is very repulsive to most men, and especially to those of Alexander Lyon’s fastidious nature and self-indulgent habits. Illness pales the cheeks and dims the eyes; and worse than all, it frets the nerves and tries the temper.
So it was with Drusilla: weary and anxious, suffering in mind and body, when Alexander came home near morning she could not always welcome him with the happy glances he had been accustomed to receive from her.
And on these occasions her sad face and tearful eyes so displeased and irritated him, that he would go off to his own room without touching the refreshments that she had got ready for him, or even stopping to bestow a kind word upon her.
He meant, by this conduct, to punish her for what, in his thoughts, he called “her sulks.” But this sort of punishment nearly broke her loving heart. He caused her depression and then blamed her for being depressed. It was as if he had crushed a violet and then blamed it for withering.