The Combined Maze by May Sinclair

On that night Ransome acquired a dreadful knowledge. Granville was not a place where you could be born with any decency. It seemed to participate horribly in Violet's agony, to throb with her tortures and recoils, to fill itself shuddering with her cries, such cries as Ransome had never heard or conceived, that he would have believed impossible. They were savage, inhuman; the cries and groans of some outraged animal; there was menace in them and rebellion, terror, and an implacable resentment.

And as Ransome heard them his heart was torn with pity and with remorse too, as though Violet's agony accused him. He could not get rid of the idea that he had wronged her; an idea that he somehow felt he would never have had if the baby had been born a month later. He swore that she should never be put to this torture a second time; that if God would only spare her he would never, never quarrel with her, never say an unkind word to her again. He couldn't exactly recall any unkind words; so he nourished his anguish on the thought of the words he had very nearly said, also of the words he hadn't said, and of the things he hadn't done for her. Casting about for these, he found that he hadn't taken her to Earl's Court or the Coliseum half as often as he might. He had been wrapped up in himself, that's what he had been; a selfish, low brute. He felt that there was nothing he wouldn't do for Vi, if only God would spare her.