Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/163

velops the sundering, not the soldering, quality. One day Mrs. Gray said to me:

"My dear, marriage is full of phases. Don't mistake them for finalities."

I suppose that is my tendency—to look upon the stages of a thing as the end of it. When one is caught on a barbed-wire fence, one does not contemplate the beauties of the horizon.

I am writing because I cannot sleep till he gets home. There would be no use in keeping Luella up, and I am happier to watch the baby. Only to hear her breathe is ecstasy. All last night I had a strange, scared feeling. It seemed monstrous that her father should not be there if she died. And when she lived, it seemed somehow abnormal that it should be Robert who saved her. I have never thought of him as a doctor, only as one of my old friends. In fact, since I have been married, I have scarcely thought of him at all.

He, on his side, seemed to have forgotten that we were ever friends. He was all doctor. I don't think he had an idea in his head except to save my baby's life—not because she was mine, but because she was a baby. His face was set and stern; it was as strong as bronze. His peremptory orders rang like those of some military man, a stranger, or some one you had only hap-