Watersprings by A.C. Benson — Read

The day on which Howard learned that Maud would bear him a child was a day of very strangely mixed emotions. He saw how the hope dawned on the spirit of Maud like the rising of a star, and he could rejoice in that with whole-hearted joy, in the mere sharing of a beautiful secret; but it was strange to him to see how to Maud it seemed like the realisation and fulfilling of all desire, the entering into a kingdom; it was not only the satisfaction of all the deepest vital processes, but something glorious, unthinkable, the crowning of destiny, the summit of life.

There was no reasoning about it; it was the purest and finest instinct.