that
man were subservient in John's honest breast to the desire of somehow
finding that it might be possible to whitewash him, nay to reform him,
to make him as near as possible something which she could tolerate for
life. I doubt if a woman, notwithstanding the much more ready power of
sacrifice which women possess, could have so fully desired this renewal
and amendment as John did. It was scarcely too much to say that he hated
Phil Compton: yet he would have given the half of his substance at this
moment to make Phil Compton a good man; nay, even to make him a passable
man--to rehabilitate him in his wife's eyes.

John stayed a long time over "his wine," the mild glass of claret (or
perhaps it was Burgundy) which was all that was offered him--partly to
think the matter over, but also partly perhaps because he heard certain
faint gurglings, and the passage of certain steps, active and full of
energy, past the door of the room within which he sat, going now to the
drawing-room, now up-stairs, from which he divined that the new inmate
of the house was at present in possession of the drawing-room, and of
all attention there. He smiled at himself for his hostility to the
child, which, of course, was entirely innocent of all blame. Here the
man was inferior to the woman in comprehension and sympathy; for he not
only could not understand how they could possibly obtain solace in their
trouble from this unconscious little creature, but he was angry and
scornful of them for doing so. Phil Compton's brat, no doubt the germ of
a thousand troubles to come, but besides that a nothing, a being without
love or thought, or even consciousness, a mere little animal feeding
and sleeping--and yet the idol and object of all the thoughts of two
intelligent women, capable of so much better things! This irritated John
and disgusted him in the midst of all his anxious thoughts, and his
profound compassion and deliberations how best to help: and it was
not till the passage of certain feeble sounds outside his door, which
proceeded audibly up-stairs, little bleatings in which, if they had come
from a lamb, or even a puppy, John would have been interested, assured
him that the small enemy had disappeared--that he finally rose and
proceeded to "join the ladies," as if he had been holding a little
private debauch all by himself.

There was a little fragrance and air of the visitor still in the room, a
little disturbance of the usual arrangements,