The Curse of Eve by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Robert Johnson was an essentially commonplace man, with no feature to / distinguish him from a million others. He was pale of face, ordinary / in looks, neutral in opinions, thirty years of age, and a married man. / By trade he was a gentleman's outfitter in the New North Road, and the / competition of business squeezed out of him the little character that / was left. In his hope of conciliating customers he had become cringing / and pliable, until working ever in the same routine from day to day he / seemed to have sunk into a soulless machine rather than a man. No / great question had ever stirred him. At the end of this snug century, / self-contained in his own narrow circle, it seemed impossible that any / of the mighty, primitive passions of mankind could ever reach him. Yet / birth, and lust, and illness, and death are changeless things, and when / one of these harsh facts springs out upon a man at some sudden turn of / the path of life, it dashes off for the moment his mask of civilisation / and gives a glimpse of the stranger and stronger face below.

Johnson's wife was a quiet little woman, with brown hair and gentle / ways. His affection for her was the one positive trait in his / character. Together they would lay out the shop window every Monday / morning, the spotless shirts in their green cardboard boxes below, the / neckties above hung in rows over the brass rails, the cheap studs / glistening from the white cards at either side, while in the background / were the rows of cloth caps and the bank of boxes in which the more / valuable hats were screened from the sunlight. She kept the books and / sent out the bills. No one but she knew the joys and sorrows which / crept into his small life. She had shared his exultations when the / gentleman who was going to India had bought ten dozen shirts and an / incredible number of collars, and she had been as stricken as he when, / after the goods had gone, the bill was returned from the hotel address / with the intimation that no such person had lodged there. For five / years they had worked, building up the business, thrown together all / the more closely because their marriage had been a childless one. Now, / however, there were signs that a change was at hand, and that speedily. / She was unable to come downstairs, and her mother, Mrs. Peyton, came / over from Camberwell to nurse her and to welcome her grandchild.