Read "The Stronger Influence" by Ethel Mills online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Throughout that night Hallam tramped along the shore, struck inland, came back to the sea, retraced his steps over the same ground; walking with tireless energy while he considered the position, so hopelessly complicated by the birth of the child.
His feeling for Esme oscillated between love and hate. He thought of her as his dear wife, and wanted her urgently; again he thought of her as the mother of Sinclair's child, and his heart turned from her, grew hard with bitter jealousy and revulsion. The thought of the child infuriated him -- the child who stood between him and the woman whom he loved and who belonged to him. She was his wife; he could claim her. But would she give up the baby for him? Would she forsake all the new love which had come into her life for the sake of the old love, so unexpectedly come back to her, almost like a gift from the grave? He could not tell. Intimately as he knew her nature, confident in his assurance that the best of her love had been given to him, there was yet a side of her character with which he was wholly unfamiliar, the maternal side. He had no means of judging how far her motherhood would influence her.