He Fell In Love With His Wife | Page 3

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HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE

by Edward P. Roe

CONTENTS

Chapter I
Left Alone II A Very Interested Friend III Mrs. Mumpson Negotiates
and Yields IV Domestic Bliss V Mrs. Mumpson Takes up Her Burdens
VI A Marriage? VII From Home to the Street VIII Holcroft's View of
Matrimony IX Mrs. Mumpson Accepts Her Mission X A Night of
Terror XI Baffled XII Jane XIII Not Wife, But Waif XIV A Pitched
Battle XV "What is to Become of Me?" XVI Mrs. Mumpson's
Vicissitudes XVII A Momentous Decision XVIII Holcroft Gives His
Hand XIX A Business Marriage XX Uncle Jonathan's Impression of
the Bride XXI At Home XXII Getting Acquainted XXIII Between the
Past and Future XXIV Given Her Own Way XXV A Charivari XXVI
"You don't Know" XXVII Farm and Farmer Bewitched XXVIII
Another Waif XXIX Husband and Wife in Trouble XXX Holcroft's
Best Hope XXXI "Never!" XXXII Jane Plays Mouse to the Lion
XXXIII "Shrink From YOU?"

Chapter I
. Left Alone
The dreary March evening is rapidly passing from murky gloom to
obscurity. Gusts of icy rain and sleet are sweeping full against a man
who, though driving, bows his head so low that he cannot see his
horses. The patient beasts, however, plod along the miry road,
unerringly taking their course to the distant stable door. The highway
sometimes passes through a grove on the edge of a forest, and the trees
creak and groan as they writhe in the heavy blasts. In occasional groups
of pines there is sighing and moaning almost human in suggestiveness
of trouble. Never had Nature been in a more dismal mood, never had
she been more prodigal of every element of discomfort, and never had
the hero of my story been more cast down in heart and hope than on
this chaotic day which, even to his dull fancy, appeared closing in

harmony with his feelings and fortune. He is going home, yet the
thought brings no assurance of welcome and comfort. As he cowers
upon the seat of his market wagon, he is to the reader what he is in the
fading light--a mere dim outline of a man. His progress is so slow that
there will be plenty of time to relate some facts about him which will
make the scenes and events to follow more intelligible.
James Holcroft is a middle-aged man and the owner of a small, hilly
farm. He had inherited his rugged acres from his father, had always
lived upon them, and the feeling had grown strong with the lapse of
time that he could live nowhere else. Yet he knew that he was, in the
vernacular of the region, "going down-hill." The small savings of years
were slowly melting away, and the depressing feature of this truth was