Payment Deferred by C.S. Forester — Read

And so, incredible as it might seem, sunshine had come again for a space to 53 Malcolm Road. The black pall of terror was lifted, and Annie Marble actually went singing in her high, cracked voice up and down the stairs as she did her housework. Not one word had passed between them concerning the shade of terrible danger that brooded over them, but now that each knew, and had shown that they could bear with the knowledge, the shade did not seem so black. It was a trouble shared, and a trouble shared voluntarily is a trouble robbed of half its weight.

Singing, Annie Marble went up and down the stairs. Marble, sitting downstairs, could hear her thin voice and her light step. For the present the voice did not call up a scowl to his brow; nor did the step seem too stealthy to be tolerated, as once it did. Whisky had lost its savour for the time being; there was no pressing need for it to dull his mind. Most of the time Marble's mouth was twisted with a queer smile -- and he had not smiled for months -- as he thought of the difference his taking notice of his wife had made. He was glad of it, too, and now he could not think of his wife without that smile. He felt glad and comforted as he thought of her. Her present high spirits might be pathetic; they might even seem a trifle ridiculous, but they were, nevertheless, infectious. Within Mr. Marble's bosom there was a fondness, almost a fatherly fondness, springing up for the woman who loved him so well.