Gunman's Bluff by Edgar Wallace

To what end was life moving for Luke Maddison? In his rosy dreams he saw nothing but the smooth path of it. For him there must come, in a cycle of pleasant inevitability, years that were to be made up of amusing house parties, Ascots, Deauvilles, Lidos. He would wander at will from St. Moritz to Cannes, from Cannes to town; there would be a make-believe of business, with the indispensable Mr. Stiles mumbling his forebodings, but the bank would go on whether Luke was there or not.

He had trodden these ways before -- but alone. Now he was to have his heart's desire. It was almost unthinkable that she would be with him -- all the time, in all the places, in all the seasons. Margaret Leferre stood for womanhood _in excelsis_. Not the weakling woman that had been so favoured of the poets; she was to be something more than a wife. Here was a comrade to be trusted. Toward her he felt a tenderness more poignant because of the shadow of sorrow in which she lay. She was definitely a charge now, someone to be protected, to be shielded.