The Ancient Law by Ellen Glasgow

On the day that he returned to Botetourt, it seemed to Ordway that the last vestige of his youth dropped from him; and one afternoon six months later, as he passed some schoolboys who were playing ball in the street, he heard one of them remark in an audible whisper: "Just wait till that old fellow over there gets out of the way. " Since coming home again his interests, as well as his power of usefulness, had been taken from him; and the time that he had spent in prison had aged him less than the three peaceful years which he had passed in Botetourt. All that suffering and experience could not destroy had withered and died in the monotonous daily round which carried him from his home to Richard's office and back again from Richard's office to his home.

Outwardly he had grown only more quiet and gentle, as people are apt to do who approach the middle years in a position of loneliness and dependence. To Richard and to Lydia, who had never entirely ceased to watch him, it appeared that he had at last "settled down," that he might be, perhaps, trusted to walk alone; and it was with a sensation of relief that his wife observed the intense youthful beam fade from his blue eyes. When his glance grew dull and lifeless, and his features fell gradually into the lines of placid repose which mark the body's contentment rather than the spirit's triumph, it seemed to her that she might at last lay aside the sleepless anxiety which had been her marriage portion.