Watersprings by A.C. Benson — Read

The months moved slowly on, a time full of deepening strain and anxiety to Howard. Maud herself seemed serene enough at first, full of hope; she began to be more dependent on him; and Howard perceived two things which gave him some solace; in the first place he found that, sharp as the tension of anxiety in his mind often was, he did not realise it as a burden of which he would be merely glad to be rid. He had an instinctive dislike of all painful straining things of responsibilities, disagreeable duties, things that disturbed his tranquillity; but this anxiety did not come to him in that light at all; he longed that it should be over, but it was not a thing which he desired to banish from his mind; it was all bound up with love and happy anticipation; and next he learned the joy of doing things that would otherwise be troublesome for the sake of love, and found them all transmuted, not into seemly courtesies, but into sharp and urgent pleasures.

To be of use to Maud, to entertain her, to disguise his anxieties, to compel himself to talk easily and lightly all this filled his soul with delight, especially when he found as the months went on that Maud began to look to him as a matter of course; and though Howard had been used to say that being read aloud to was the only occupation in the world that was worse than reading aloud, he found that there was no greater pleasure than in reading to Maud day by day, in finding books that she cared for.